LISNews: Librarian News

THE TROUBLE WITH SCIENTIFIC SECRETS
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/the-trouble-with-scientific-secrets.html

Excerpt: In early September, the European Scientific Working group on Influenza convened on Malta to hold its fourth conference. Researchers delivered a variety of technical reports on the state of influenza research and the prospects for vaccines. As was the case with the first three conferences, the world took little notice.
The data presented by one group, however, has so alarmed public-health officials throughout the world that yesterday the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a federal group established by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, asked the journals Science and Nature to refrain from publishing essential details of the research. It was the first time the group had made such a request. Officials said the report had implications for bioterrorism that were too obvious too ignore, and too powerful to make public.