Thirty-two leading scientists and journal editors released a statement Saturday calling for greater caution in publishing articles that could possibly threaten national security.
The statement, which will be published this week in Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, encourages editors of scientific journals to modify or omit papers whose potential harm of publication may outweigh its potential scientific or social benefits.
However, the statement never mentions any specific experiments or examples of facts that would be unethical to publish.
Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society for Microbiology, said the publishing policy would mostly affect life science research, such as a paper dealing with anthrax.
\I see this as not censorship but simple ethical responsibility,"" Atlas said.
Tim Mulcahy, associate vice chancellor for research policy at UW-Madison, said the statement might have been issued to show the federal government that the scientific community can regulate itself.
There has been a growing prevalence in government to restrict access to sensitive yet unclassified information, Mulcahy said. This vague terminology could be used to classify future scientific research.
""I think any time the scientific community can step forward and be responsible in restricting their own activities, it's certainly superior to having the federal government come in and impose unreasonable restrictions,"" Mulcahy said.
Limitations on scientific publishing do have a historical precedent. In the 1970s the scientific community declared a moratorium on recombinant DNA research to allow public concerns to dissipate and address ethical concerns, Mulcahy said.
During the Cold War the federal government restricted publication of sensitive papers by cryptographers and nuclear physicists, Atlas said.
""We're not there. ... This in no way represents a government intervention in publication nor any form of government censorship,"" Atlas said of the recent statement.
While Mulcahy said he supported censoring some scientific research that could aid bioterrorists, he acknowledged that unpublished sections could have scientific merit.
Experiments must be replicated before scientific theories are verified, and omitting sensitive procedural sections could hamper scientific progress.
Mulcahy also said that given the breadth of research done on campus, it is possible that some UW-Madison researchers would be affected by the publishing policy. However, given the vague nature on what type of information would be considered sensitive, he could not name any research that would likely be censored.
""The reason for publishing things is partly for social good,"" said Jon Woods, an associate professor of medical microbiology at UW-Madison. ""If there were going to be a concept of what is getting published going against societal good, then that would be going counter to the whole point of publication.\
