SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2015, Issue No. 63
October 1, 2015

Secrecy News Blog: http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS BLOCKED DUE TO SAFETY RISKS

The U.S. government blocked dozens of life science experiments over the past decade because they were deemed to pose undue risks to public health and safety.

Between 2006 and 2013, researchers submitted 618 potentially restricted experiment proposals for review by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Division of Select Agents and Toxins (DSAT), according to a new study published in the journal Health Security.

Fifteen percent of those (91) were found to meet the regulatory definition of a "restricted experiment." 31 of those experiments were nevertheless approved because they included appropriate safety measures.

But "DSAT did not approve 60 restricted experiment requests due to potentially serious biosafety risks to public health and safety," researchers found. "All 60 denied restricted experiments proposed inserting drug resistance traits into select agents that could compromise the control of disease."

See "Review of Restricted Experiment Requests, Division of Select Agents and Toxins, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006-2013" by Jacinta Smith, Denise Gangadharan, and Robbin Weyant, Health Security, Vol. 13, No. 5, September 2015: 307-316 (abstract only):

Regulatory restrictions on research can infringe on academic freedom and may have the unintended consequence of foreclosing important -- and beneficial -- avenues of scientific investigation.

But the risks involved in genetic manipulation of biological agents are so profound that almost everyone agrees that some limits are necessary and appropriate.

"A product resulting from a restricted experiment has the potential to be directly misapplied by others to pose a threat to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals and/or the environment," the authors wrote. "In addition, the accidental release of a product of a restricted experiment may compromise the control or treatment of the disease agent in humans, animals, and/or plants."

There have been four reported cases involving violations of restricted experiment regulations in recent years, the authors noted. Two of the restricted experiment violations resulted in civil penalties ranging from $40,000 to $1 million.

Some say the existing regulatory regime does not go far enough to restrict hazardous research.

"In the current Wild West of otherwise completely unregulated, and otherwise nearly completely unmonitored, US pathogens research, the requirement for review of 'restricted experiments' under the select agent rule is the one small bright spot," said Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University.

He noted that current regulations specify only two categories of potentially restricted experiments, which leaves much research on pathogens beyond regulatory control or oversight.

"The most effective avenue for the USG to implement a requirement for review of other pathogen research projects--for example, to implement a requirement for review of pathogen research projects that create new potential pandemic pathogens--would be to add additional 'restricted experiments' to the select agent rule," Dr. Ebright said.

HIGH SCHOOL DEBATES ON SURVEILLANCE INFORMED BY CRS

The Congressional Research Service has produced a bibliography on domestic surveillance to support this year's national high school debate program which is devoted to that subject.

"Resolved: The United States Federal Government Should Substantially Curtail Its Domestic Surveillance" is the topic that was selected for the 2015-2016 high school debate by representatives of the National Federation of State High School Associations.

The Librarian of Congress is directed by law (44 USC 1333) to "prepare compilations of pertinent excerpts, bibliographical references, and other appropriate materials" relating to the annual high school and college debates. So CRS (a component of the Library of Congress) has fulfilled that requirement, providing citations to contrasting perspectives on surveillance in news stories, books, law review articles, websites, and non-governmental organizations.

"The conflict between national security objectives and privacy became a popular topic for debate when it was disclosed in June 2013, by former defense contractor Edward Snowden, that the National Security Agency was engaging in extensive surveillance inside the United States in order to fight crime and to reduce the threat of terrorism," according to the CRS introduction to the document.

"The magnitude of the disclosure shocked many people, including Members of Congress, who were unaware of the extent of the surveillance. Many civil rights advocates viewed the surveillance as an assault on liberty, while law enforcement and national security officials saw the programs as essential weapons in the war on terror, the fight against nuclear weapons proliferation, and the general protection of U.S. national security."

"In selecting items for inclusion in this bibliography, CRS has sampled a wide spectrum of opinions reflected in the current literature on this issue," CRS director Mary B. Mazanec wrote in a Foreword.

"No preference for any policy is indicated by the selection or positioning of articles, books, or websites cited, nor is CRS disapproval of any policy, position or article to be inferred from its omission," she wrote.

See Compilation of References on Domestic Surveillance for National High School Debate, 2015-2016, Congressional Research Service, August 2015.

The CRS document is unobjectionable, but it has some peculiarities.

A prominent typographical error on the title pages repeatedly misstates the debate topic to read "The United States federal government should substantially curtain [sic] its domestic surveillance."

The bibliography includes the titles of six surveillance-related reports that were produced by the Congressional Research Service itself. CRS does not acknowledge that each of these reports has been posted online and may be easily obtained. Instead, the bibliography disingenuously advises that they "are available by way of a request to your Member of Congress." The notion that hundreds or thousands of high school students are actually going to contact their congressional offices for copies of CRS reports that can be instantly located by an online search, or that the offices would promptly and reliably provide them, is hard to credit.

The subject of domestic surveillance was chosen for the annual national high school debate program over other proposed topics including income inequality, criminal justice reform, and government authority over Indian country.

* * *

New and updated CRS reports that were issued over the past week include the following.

Poverty in the United States in 2014: In Brief, September 30, 2015:

EPA's New Ozone Standards: A Few Thoughts, CRS Insight, September 29, 2015:

Emerging Markets: Is Slower Growth Temporary?, CRS Insight, September 29, 2015:

Zivotofsky v. Kerry: The Jerusalem Passport Case and Its Potential Implications for Congress's Foreign Affairs Powers, updated September 28, 2015:

Abortion, Hospital Admitting Privileges, and Whole Woman's Health v. Cole, September 25, 2015:

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Supreme Court: A Legal Analysis of Young v. United Parcel Service, September 25, 2015:

The Lord's Resistance Army: The U.S. Response, updated September 28, 2015:

Mexico's Oil and Gas Sector: Background, Reform Efforts, and Implications for the United States, updated September 28, 2015:

Direct Overt U.S. Aid Appropriations for and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002-FY2016, updated September 30, 2015:

Puerto Rico's Current Fiscal Challenges, updated September 25, 2015:

Can Creditors Enforce Terrorism Judgments Against Cuba?, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 29, 2015:

Iran's Foreign Policy, updated September 25, 2015:

Navy Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism Operations: Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 25, 2015:

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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