A Survey of Attitudes and Actions on Dual Use Research in the Life Sciences A Collaborative Effort of the National Research Council and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009) / Chapter Skim
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3 Results of the Survey
3 Results of the Survey
Pages 63-114
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The next section focuses on the types of research that the scientists who responded to the survey conduct, such as dual use or work with select agents. That is followed by a section on the views of these life scientists on bioterrorism, which includes both 63
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, or their research involved select agents. Each of these types of research has been identified as producing the sort of results that raise concerns about potential misuse.
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, building on the Fink report, adopted a similar list of seven categories of experiments (see Box 1-2) , which focus on microbial threats (NRC 2004a)
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administers a comparable program for agents and toxins that could threaten plant and animal health. Experience with select agents could affect one's views on dual use research and potential oversight measures. The survey asked participants if they had ever worked with or managed research using select agents. The questionnaire offered the following definition for select agents: "a microorganism (virus, bacterium, fungus, rickettsia) or toxin listed by the CDC and the USDA as harmful to public or agricultural health." Results and Discussion Among those life scientists who indicated that they are currently engaged in research, 16 percent considered their research to have dual use potential.
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currently registered with the CDC to work with select agents, of which 37 percent are nonfederal, 20 percent are federal, 8 percent are commercial, 30 percent are academic, and 5 percent are private. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had cleared some 15,000 individuals to work in these facilities as of December 31, 2007. According to the CDC, about 12,000 people are actively working with select agents today.10 Using these figures for the numbers of individuals who have been cleared to work with select agents and are estimated to be actively working with those agents today, it is reasonable to conclude that fewer than 10 percent of working life scientists in the United States could legally be working with select agents.11 Thus, the overall number of life scientists Thefigures for 2007 are from the CDC Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response; similar figures appear in the report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism (2008:25)
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Also, those life scientists working with toxins on the select agent list below threshold concentrations do not need to be registered -- many, perhaps even most, neurobiologists have worked with tetrodotoxin, botulinum toxin, and other agents in neurophysiology experiments.12 Finally, it is possible that the respondents represented a biased portion of the population included in the study, that is, that those individuals who currently or previously worked with select agents and performed biosecurity-related research were more likely to have answered the questions or to have responded to the survey than those who considered the survey topic remote from their area of research interest. As noted in Table 3-2, some scientists selected each potential combination resulting from the three types of research, making for a complex relationship among the three types of research that may have influenced responses to the survey regarding acceptability of oversight and actions that may have been taken in response to dual use concerns.
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This could be explained by the fact that the seven categories are intended as a way to identify research with dual use potential. Or it could indicate disagreement with the Fink committee and NSABB categories as representing the full range of dual use research.
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These data also raise the question of what other areas of research, beyond the seven categories specified by the NSABB, the life scientists who took part in the survey felt were dual use research. Like the Fink committee and the NSABB, the committee recognized that the range of life sciences research that could raise dual use concern is potentially greater than that relating directly to microbial threats, which are the focus of both lists.
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. • Government scientists who responded to the survey were most likely to report that they have done research involving dual use, the seven categories of experiments, or select agents.
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A subsequent survey conducted by the Council for Excellence in Government in February 2004 found that a bioterrorism attack was the most frequently cited by the public as the "type of possible terrorist attack that most worries me": 48 percent said a bioterrorism attack, 37 percent said a chemical weapons attack, 23 percent said a nuclear attack, 21 percent said a suicide bomber, 13 percent said a plane hijacking, 9 percent said a cyberterrorism attack, and 4 percent said they were not sure (Council for Excellence in Government 2004:11) .13 A third survey about the nature of the biological weapons threat, focusing on individuals involved in U.S.
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to create its Terrorism Index; approximately the same group of 100 foreign policy experts was surveyed each time.14 In 2006, after asking about the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the scale of September 11 or the attacks in London and Madrid within the next 5 to 10 years, the Foreign Policy Magazine survey asked, "Regardless of what you think about the timing of an attack, what two methods are most likely to be used in America by global terrorists? " Only 9 percent listed a biological weapons attack and 6 percent a nuclear weapon attack while 67 percent of respondents listed a suicide bombing attack and 66 percent listed an attack on major infrastructure.
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For the first two, the most frequent response is "50 percent" and in the first 300 250 200 Frequency 150 100 50 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percent FIGURE 3-1 Frequency distribution for percentage chance of bioterror attack somewhere in the world. Fig 3-1.eps SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff.
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with type masked & replaced 250 200 Frequency 150 100 150 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percent FIGURE 3-3 Frequency distribution for percentage chance of dual use life sciences research facilitating a bioterror attack. Fig 3-3.eps SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff.
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Additionally, a respondent's research might affect his or her view of whether dual use research could facilitate a bioterror attack. Hypothetically, respondents who work with select agents or dual use research might believe that there is a lower chance of dual use research facilitating a bioterror attack because these scientists do not see this as a serious risk relative to other potential types of bioterrorism involving less sophisticated agents.
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" Respondents were given five possible explanations and asked with which they agreed: • Terrorists lack the knowledge to work with or create dangerous biological agents. • Terrorists lack the equipment to work with or create dangerous biological agents.
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felt that terrorists lacked the knowledge necessary to create a biological agent and carry out a biological attack. Only 36 percent thought that lack of access to biological agents that could be used in a bioterrorist attack was a major reason limiting such attacks, whereas 46 percent felt that access to biological agents was not a critical factor and 19 percent were uncertain.
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Finally, the survey asked about the sources of information for individuals who might want to cause harm with a biological agent. The overarching question was "Do the following means of communication provide sufficient information for an individual with college-level life science training to deliberately create a harmful biological agent?
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bitmap image with type masked & replaced SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff. BOX 3-2 Illustrative Respondent Comments About Personal Communication and Scientific Journals Providing Information "Certain research endeavors, including constructing pathogens from genetic frag ments, or ‘resurrecting' extinct pathogens and providing public access to sequence data from such experiments are of dubious scientific importance and journals, as well as funding agencies, should severely restrict such projects unless especially convincing justification can be provided." "Increasing restrictions on publication of dual use research would be the most effective way of decreasing the amount of dual use research that is performed.
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. • When asked to choose among sources of information that could potentially enable the creation of a dangerous biological agent, half of the scientists who responded to the survey thought that the Internet would be the most useful source for someone with college-level science training (Figure 3-5)
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states that anecdotal reports and interviews suggest that an uncounted number of individual scientists in both academic and government laboratories destroyed pathogen collections prior to the initial select agent registration process. She found that: "All 28 scientists who responded to the Stimson survey on select agent regulations indicated that they had eliminated at least one research project involving a select agent in response to the new biosecurity regulations, and that they personally knew colleagues who had done the same" (Fischer 2006:30)
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As noted above, this was a finding that most members of the committee did not expect.19 A number of factors may explain why some scientists have made a 19 An informal poll was taken among attendees at the 2nd International Forum on Biosecurity in Budapest, Hungary, in March 2008 to gain anecdotal evidence as to how some members of the biosecurity community viewed the likelihood that scientists in the United States were changing research behaviors in response to dual use concerns. The attendees, most of whom were life scientists, were asked to indicate via a show of hands, "How many members of the U.S.
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No 89 11 1,153 Yes 62 38 213 Seven categories of experiments? No 86 14 1,284 Yes 66 34 82 Works with select agents?
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As the table shows, respondents who worked with dual use research, the seven categories of experiments, or select agents were at least twice as likely to make a change in their research. Those who said they considered their research to be dual use were 3.5 times more likely to say they had changed their research; those who considered their research to involve the seven categories of experiments identified by the NSABB were 2.4 times more likely to have changed their research; and those who had worked with select agents were only 2.2 times more likely.
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Clearly these life scientists are sufficiently concerned that their research can be misused that they are acting to limit the risk that dual use research of concern could contribute to bioterrorism. The reported limits on communication and collaborations raise the question of whether dual use research security concerns may be having an impact on the traditional openness that characterizes the conduct of the life sciences.
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TABLE 3-7 Correlations Between Changes Scientists Made Shift Research Against Away Not to Not to Not to Conducting From an Seek Not to Limited Submit Modified a Present Modified a Variable a Project Area Funding Collaborate Conversations Manuscript Manuscript Research Presentation Against conducting 1.00 a project Shift research away 0.37 1.00 from an area Not to seek 0.41 0.45 1.00 funding Not to collaborate 0.30 0.28 0.36 1.00 Limited 0.26 0.26 0.24 0.37 1.00 conversations Not to submit 0.25 0.34 0.28 0.37 0.33 1.00 manuscript Modified a 0.21 0.24 0.26 0.28 0.28 0.35 1.00 manuscript Not to present 0.24 0.37 0.29 0.32 0.43 0.65 0.40 1.00 research Modified a 0.17 0.23 0.21 0.33 0.41 0.31 0.58 0.50 1.00 presentation NOTES: This uses phi and is based on 1,744 respondents. SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff.
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Many countries develop rela tionships with their scientists that work and live in the US specifically to get access to this information. A mechanism of the US government to work with US scientists to detect and monitor these kinds of activities, as well as greater restrictions to entrance to US institutions by students from certain countries and/or their partici pation in certain programs of study would be of most benefit in protecting the US from bioterrorism and other losses of security and economic interest." "Federal funds should not be used to support dual use research outside of the United States, unless it is through existing programs specifically designed to "re train" former biological weapons scientists, and whose programs are well moni tored for both fiscal responsibility and scientific progress." TABLE 3-8 Number of Changes Individual Scientists Made Number of Changes Frequency Percentage 0 1,484 85 1 146 8 2 53 3 3 20 1 4 19 1 5 5 <1 6 7 <1 7 3 <1 8 2 <1 9 5 <1 Number Percentage Respondents 1,744 100 Did not answer 210 -- Total 1,954 -- SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff.
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. • Life scientists responding to the survey who work with dual use research or select agents were more likely to make a change (Table 3-5)
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The government assures that the standards have teeth, the researcher communities evolve standards that are contextually appropriate and evolve as knowledge and conditions change." the issue, followed by discussion and analysis of the results, with the key results listed again at the end. Role of Individuals The survey asked questions about whether life scientists, acting either individually or collectively as members of a scientific or professional society, can be responsible for biosecurity (self-governance)
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As discussed further in subsequent sections, support for voluntary responsible conduct is higher than for mandatory actions. The committee examined the question of whether life scientists who responded to the survey answered these four questions similarly -- that is, did they uniformly show support for or opposition to individual responsibility.
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bitmap image staff. SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by with type masked & replaced TABLE 3-9 Correlation Between Variables Relating to Respondents' Views on Individual Responsibility Variable Scientists PIs Should Should Scientists PIs Should Conduct Provide Should Train Staff, Initial Formal Take an Students, Variable Evaluation Assurance Oath Etc.
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. • Life scientists who responded to the survey tended to support one or more of the other approaches if they supported one of the approaches to individual responsibility noted above (Table 3-9)
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22 As an interesting aside, the committee wondered whether there might be a positive association between respondents' views about how useful scientific journals were in providing information to those wishing to conduct a bioterror attack and respondents' support for policies on dual use research for scientific journals. However, no relationship was found (r = −0.07; n = 1,266)
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0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% All of them Some of them None of them Don't Know FIGURE 3-7 Respondents' views on whether journals require reviewers to evaluate, and authors to disclose, whether manuscripts include knowledge, tools, and techniques with dual use potential.Fig 3-7.eps NOTE: Based on 1,755 respondents.bitmap image SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff. with type masked & replaced policy for instructing authors to disclose the dual use potential of their research when submitting a manuscript.
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Role of Professional Scientific Societies The survey also asked several questions about views concerning the responsibilities of professional and scientific societies, which appear to be logical candidates for leading activities on addressing conduct of science and educating their members about their professional responsibilities. The Fink report, for example, recommended that "national and international
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of the 1,743 respondents who answered the question felt that professional scientific societies should have codes for the responsible conduct of dual use life sciences research. Only 9 percent said "No"; the remainder responded "Don't Know." This was an especially interesting finding given the continuing controversy over whether codes are necessary or appropriate for scientists (Rappert 2004; Revill and Dando 2006, 2008; Macrina 2007; Kaplan 2008)
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Summary of Key Results • Eighty-two percent of life scientists who responded to the survey felt that professional scientific societies should have codes for the responsible conduct of dual use life sciences research. 25 "ASM members are obligated to discourage any use of microbiology contrary to the welfare of humankind, including the use of microbes as biological weapons.
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Discussion Survey participants were asked if they agreed with three statements pertaining to institutional involvement in education and oversight: • University and college students should receive educational lectures and materials on dual use life sciences research including the potential that knowledge, tools, and techniques of such research could pose a threat to national security. • Institutions should provide mandatory training for scientists regarding dual use life sciences research.
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bitmap image SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff. with type masked and replaced popular, with agreement and disagreement split at 40 percent each and an estimated 20 percent neutral.
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The other major thing that will prevent bioterrorism is to widely promulgate the contact information for responsible public authorities who can investigate potential threats or potentially dangerous individuals that scientists may identify." Role for Funding Agencies Funding agencies could play a role in oversight since they would see research proposals and progress reports. This could be considered part of the more general question about federal oversight addressed in the next section, since the majority of funding for life sciences research comes from the federal government.
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Over 40 percent of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that identifying the dual use potential of one's research Strongly Disagree, 6% Strongly Agree, 11% Disagree, 15% Neutral, 19% Agree, 48% FIGURE 3-9 Respondents' views on whether funding agencies should require Fig 3-9.eps grantees to attest on grant applications that they have considered dual use implications of their proposed research. NOTE: Based on 1,633 respondents.
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Funding agencies are in the best position to flag applications for dual use research." "Grants should be reviewed by those knowledgeable in dual use experiments of concern and this information communicated to PIs for consideration and dissemi nation to PI's home institution and employees." "Dual research should be submitted and reviewed in special study sections and monitored closely esp. as to research personnel involved." Strongly Agree, 4% Strongly Disagree, 12% Agree, 19% Disagree, 30% Neutral, 35% FIGURE 3-10 Respondents' views on whether funding agencies would be less likely to fund grant proposals if the proposed research has dual use potential.
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SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff. would have a negative impact on the likelihood that grant proposals would be funded.
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As shown in Figure 3-11, the respondents did not support an increase in oversight by the federal government; this may be because some equated federal oversight with mandatory regulation, such as the select agent and export control regulations. Thirty-five percent disagreed and 11 percent strongly disagreed compared to 22 percent who agreed and only 4 percent who strongly agreed with increased federal oversight.
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SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff. Fig 3-11.eps BOX 3-10 Illustrative Respondent Comments on Federal Oversight "Dual use is nothing new, and restrictions on research in the name of preventing a bioterrorist attack is the worst form of censorship and is far more likely to produce greater problems and retard research than it is to foil a potential terrorist -- free societies need to remain free, and research needs to proceed without additional controls beyond what is needed to ensure the safety of those performing the re search and the general public from the research itself -- not unlikely hypothetical misuse of the research by malignant boogie men.
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As the table shows, respondents who considered their research to be dual use or to involve one of the seven categories of experiments, or who work with select agents were slightly more likely to disagree that greater federal oversight of research was needed. There appeared to be no difference among respondents on the basis of where they worked.
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. • Life scientists who responded to the survey who indicated that their research was dual use or that they were working with, or had worked with, select agents were slightly less likely to agree that greater federal oversight is needed.
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Fig 3-12.eps NOTE: Based on 1,658 respondents. bitmap image SOURCE: NRC/AAAS Survey; data tabulations by staff.
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The results are summarized in Table 3-14; complete data can be found in Appendix Table D-4. As the table shows, respondents who conduct one of the three types of research appeared slightly more likely to disagree that many of the BOX 3-11 Illustrative Respondent Comments on Policy Measures "The federal government should monitor the potential threat of dual purpose results but should not interfere with the scientific process of publication and research." "It's hard enough to do research, and additional controls based on dual use fear mongering will make it even harder." "We should remember that several outbreaks of SARS and foot-and-mouth dis ease are from labs working on these agents.
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Yes 2.8 2.9 2.1 2.5 2.5 2.2 2.4 No 3.0 3.1 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.6 Works with select agents? Yes 3.0 3.0 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.5 2.6 No 3.1 3.3 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.7 Employer type Industry 3.0 3.4 2.5 2.7 2.7 2.7 2.9 Academia 3.0 3.1 2.3 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.6 Government 3.1 3.4 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.5 2.7 Other 3.0 3.2 2.6 2.4 2.5 2.4 2.8 NOTE: On a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree)
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As Table 3-15 shows, there is only a small positive relationship between supporting a restriction on a source of information and believing that the source is particularly useful to people with malevolent intentions. It is worth remembering that none of the policy options here, as opposed to some of the other measures discussed in earlier sections, attracted strong support, so it could be the TABLE 3-15 Correlation Between Respondents' Views on Policy Options and Their Views About the Role of Different Types of Information in Allowing Individuals to Create Dangerous Biological Agents Source of Information Personal Support for Restriction Journals Presentations Communication Restrictions on disclosure of details 0.18 through personal communication (1,107)
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Some of the results support assumptions that the committee made about likely responses and some of the results were surprising to at least some of the committee members. The next chapter presents a synthesis of the key results from the survey as well as the committee's conclusions about what they may mean for policies to reduce the risks that the results of research in the life sciences will be used for malign purposes.
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