For the good of the state.docVIP

Comment For the good of the state Gregory A Petsko Address: Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454-9110, USA. E-mail: petsko@ Published: 27 November 2003 Genome Biology 2003, 4:121 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2003/4/12/121 ? 2003 BioMed Central Ltd “It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer has done what has been done.” Cardinal Richelieu, in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas The proposal from the panel, which was headed by yeast geneticist Gerry Fink of the Whitehead Institute (Cambridge, USA), calls for self-regulation by scientists through a review process that would operate at several levels. The first is local: rather than the creation of a new machinery, it recommends using the existing system of institutional biosafety review committees, which already must approve any research that involves genetically engineered organisms or ones deemed hazardous, such as human pathogens. These local review boards are meant to ensure that experiments are conducted in a manner that protects the scientists involved and the community in which they work. In the Fink panel’s proposal, these committees would also be given the additional job of issuing, or withholding, approval for projects whose results might conceivably be misused by terrorist organizations or rogue states. In the largely liberal circles in which I, and most other academic scientists, travel there is a perception that the present US government is slowly eroding - or at any rate would like to erode if it thought it could get away with it - many of our basic civil liberties. There is also the concern that, eventually, in the name of ‘national security’ or ‘the war on terrorism’, ‘they’ will be allowed to get away with it, because the public is afraid. Regardless of one’s politics, we can