TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE: GENE SEQUENCING AND BIOTERROR
Learning how to cure diseases also means learning how to spread them, warns an expert in biological terror and crime in the San Francisco Chronicle. Barry Kellman writes that "in many parts of the world, a terrorist or criminal group could prepare bioweapons without substantial risk of detection and could inflict unimaginable damage against unprotected populations. He calls for better systems to tracking the movement of pathogens and equipment.
Professor Kellman notes that the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, recently slapped a ban on the export of all human medical biological materials. He feared that it might enable Western scientists to create biological weapons which are specific to ethnic groups in his country. Although this sounds far-fetched, Kellman points out that cheap gene sequencing could make this possible in the near future. "Techniques that generate life-saving progress are the same techniques that could generate catastrophe," he writes.
Michael
- How long can you put off seeing the doctor because of lockdowns? - December 3, 2021
- House of Lords debates assisted suicide—again - October 28, 2021
- Spanish government tries to restrict conscientious objection - October 28, 2021
More Stories
China is desperate to raise its birthrate
China’s fertility rate has sunk to 1.18 children per woman and its population has begun to decline. Deaths outnumbered births...
American man says that he is both father and mother for his kids
This must be one of the most bizarre custody cases ever decided by an American court. The Superior Court of...
Are we already living in a transhumanist reality?
Last year an Oxford expert in transhumanism published “Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century”. Elise Bohan, an...
95% of Irish women who know that their unborn child is Down syndrome have abortions
Abortion was only legalized in Ireland in 2018. One of the consequences is that the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, a...
Massachusetts politicians propose prisoners as organ donors
Massachusetts is a state where conservatism goes to die, so it was astonishing to read a bill in its legislature...
Peru’s forced sterilization tragedy drags on in the courts
For at least 25 years, indigenous Peruvian women have been fighting for justice after they were forcibly sterilized by doctors...