BioterrorismBioterrorism fears lead scientists to withhold information on new strain of botulism
The recent discovery of a new strain of botulism, the first in forty years, has alarmed California state health officials. The discovery was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in October 2013 — but the genetic sequence of the botulism toxin was removed from the report. The decision to withhold the sequencing information took into consideration the fact that there is currently no antitoxin capable of treating an outbreak of botulism, and that it takes about one to two years to develop an antitoxin. Should the classified information reach the wrong hands, a bioweapon, which can be spread as an aerosol, could be used to cause mass-casualty epidemic.
The recent discovery of a new strain of botulism, the first in forty years, has alarmed California state health officials. The discovery was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in October 2013 — but the genetic sequence of the botulism toxin was removed from the report, a decision which alarmed some scientists.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the controversy is comparable to that of two years ago, when a federal advisory board’s decision to classify scientific research of avian flu in order to prevent exploitation by a rogue state or terrorist group. The research was eventually published in scientific journals several months later (see “Research on enhanced transmissibility in H5N1 influenza: the debate continues,” HSNW, 10 October 2012).
The new strain, Clostridium Botulinum, was discovered in California last year by the Department of Public Health (CDPH). The infant who contracted the illness survived, but officials have not released information on when or where the infant was examined or treated. It is possible that the new botulism toxin is responsible for other illness, but the toxin might have gone undetected. Identifying a new botulism toxin requires specialized laboratories. CDPH is one of eight agencies in the country tasked with the development of antitoxins for botulism strains. The new toxin is considered deadly and is capable of killing an adult after just a minute of inhalation.
Stephen Arnon, lead writer of the October 2013 botulism article and chief of the Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention program at the CDPH, insists that the decision to classify information on the botulism gene sequence was made after scientists consulted with federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The decision to withhold the sequencing information took into consideration the fact that there is currently no antitoxin capable of treating an outbreak of botulism, and that it takes about one to two years to develop an antitoxin. Should the classified information reach the wrong hands, a bioweapon, which can be spread as an aerosol, could be used to cause mass-casualty epidemic.
“There is certainly more awareness of the possibility of doing harm — not only of the means and capability of doing harm — but also the fact that there seems to be more people who voice that kind of perspective and intention,” said David Relman, professor of medicine and microbiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
It is common practice to include gene sequencing information on deadly toxins in research papers. Scientists who are researching such toxins use the information as a source. “This is pretty unusual — for them to flag something like this and have some internal review and discussions with the powers that be and decide to black out the section of the genome corresponding to that toxin,” said Jonathan Eisen, a microbiology professor at UC Davis and an investigator with the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute.
Some experts fear that limiting what is published in scientific research will set a new standard of censorship. “If the government were to step in and prohibit publication of certain research, that would indeed be censorship, and would create other sorts of problems, like the development of a new kind of scientific underground, a shift to research overseas, and so on,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.
— Read more in Jason R. Barash and Stephen S. Arnon, “A Novel Strain of Clostridium botulinum That Produces Type B and Type H Botulinum Toxins,” Journal of Infectious Diseases 209, no. 2 (7 October 2013): 183-91 (doi:10.1093/infdis/jit528)
