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ABSTRACT
Major efforts to engage scientists in issues of biosecurity in the United States and internationally began in the early 2000s in response to growing concerns about terrorists using weapons of mass destruction and the mailing of anthrax-laced letters in October 2001. This article draws on the literature about the “science of science communication,” including research on framing, to examine the strategies used to try to raise awareness and create support for policies and practices to address public concerns about biosecurity issues within scientific communities. Engagement strategies framed as an inherent part of the broader social responsibilities of the scientific community have shown the promise of being more effective than those framed in terms of legal and regulatory requirements and an emphasis on security alone. The article draws on the case of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), the global network of academies of science and medicine, and its relationship with the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), with additional examples from other national and international scientific organizations.
Notes
1 The International Committee of the Red Cross popularized the term as part of its 2002 appeal, “Biotechnology, Weapons, and Humanity”: <www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/statement/5eamtt.htm>. See also Brian Rappert and Caitriona MacLeish, eds., Web of Prevention: Biological Weapons, Life Sciences and the Governance of Research (New York: Routledge, 2014). Graham Pearson has also advocated for a “web of prevention” but he defines this as reinforcing strands of legal and regulatory measures: Graham Pearson, “The Idea of a Web of Prevention,” in Simon Whitby, Tatayana Novossiolova, Gerald Walther, and Malcolm Dando, eds., Preventing Biological Threats: What You Can Do. A Guide to Biological Security Issues and How to Address Them (Bradford: Bradford Disarmament Research Centre, 2015.
2 National Research Council, A New Biology for the 21st Century (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2009).
3 Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) (undated), Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction Initiative, <www.nti.org/about/projects/fostering-biosecurity-innovation-and-risk-reduction/>.
4 Biological Weapons Convention, “Sixth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Final Document,” BWC/CONF.VI/6, Geneva, 2006, p.11.
5 The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/C4048678A93B6934C1257188004848D0/$file/BWC-text-English.pdf>.
6 Lessons from the early Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs are most often taken from the nuclear work and relate to building a “security culture,” in which the International Atomic Energy Agency has invested substantial resources. See, for example, special issue on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) security culture in 1540 Compass, No. 7 (2014), <https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/compass-7-english.pdf>. For the US national experience, see, for example, Federal Experts Security Advisory Panel (FESAP), Report of the Federal Experts Security Advisory Panel (Washington, DC: White House, 2014), <www.phe.gov/s3/Documents/fesap.pdf>.
7 See, for example, the analysis and recommendations of the FESAP report (ibid.), including the discussion of a culture of responsibility (pp. 15–17).
8 For an early account of the lessons learned by Malcolm Dando and Brian Rappert in the course of their international efforts to raise awareness of the potential misuse of life-sciences research, see Brian Rappert, “The Benefits, Risks, and Threats of Biotechnology,” Science & Public Policy, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2008), pp, 37–44.
9 Michael J. Imperiale and Arturo Casadevall, “A New Synthesis for Dual Use Research of Concern,” PLoS Medicine, Vol. 12, No. 4 Epub ahead of print 14 April 2015, DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001813.
10 Kathleen Hall Jameison, Dan Kahan, and Dietram A. Scheufele, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
11 Naomi Quinn and Dorothy Holland, “Culture and Cognition,” in Dorothy Holland and Naomi Quinn, eds., Cultural Models in Language and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 3–40.
12 Dietram A. Scheufele, “Five Lessons in Nano Outreach,” Materials Today, Vol. 9, No. 5 (2006), p. 64.
13 Dietram A. Scheufele, “Messages and Heuristics: How Audiences Form Attitudes about Emerging Technologies,” in Jon Turney, ed., Engaging Science: Thoughts, Deeds, Analysis and Action (London: Wellcome Trust, 2006), pp. 20–25, original emphasis.
14 Dan M. Kahan, “Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition,” Cultural Cognition Project Working Paper Series No. 164, Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 605, Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 575 (2017), 1, <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2973067>.
15 For examples drawn from biosecurity, see Monica Schoch-Spana, “Public Archetypes in U.S. Counter-Bioterrorist Policy,” in Huseyin Durmaz, Bilal Sevinc, Ahmet Sait Yayla, and Siddik. Ekici, eds., Understanding and Responding to Terrorism (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2007), pp. 364–75.
16 Heather Akin and Dietram A. Scheufele, “Overview of the Science of Science Communication,” in Kathleen Hall Jameison, Dan Kahan, and Dietram A. Scheufele, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 25–34. The deficit model presumes that lack of support for a policy position reflects lack of knowledge or appreciation of “the facts,” so that providing additional information can significantly shift attitudes in the desired direction.
17 Dietram A. Scheufele and Shanto Iyengar, “The State of Framing Research: A Call for New Directions,” in Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 619–32.
18 Framing is also relevant in efforts to promote specific policy choices. “Competing interests frame issues in ways that strategically advantage their political positions, emphasizing certain aspects of an issue over other considerations, influencing estimations of the causes, consequences, and solutions to a policy problem.” Matthew C. Nisbet and Bruce V. Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American Media: The Policy Process and the Elite Press, 1970 to 1999,” Science Communication, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2002), p. 362.
19 Ibid.; Dietram A. Scheufele and Bruce V. Lewenstein. “The Public and Nanotechnology: How Citizens Make Sense of Emerging Technologies,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research, Vol. 7, No. 6 (2005), pp. 659–67.
20 Jo L. Husbands, “The Challenge of Framing for Efforts to Mitigate the Risks of ‘Dual Use’ Research in the Life Sciences,” Futures, No. 102 (2018), p. 109.
21 IAC and IAP, Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise: A Policy Report (Amsterdam: IAC, 2012).
22 See, for example, the cover story in The Economist in October 2013 entitled “How Science Goes Wrong.” <www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong>.
23 Recommendations for change in specific practices and the broader context of maintaining public trust may be found in National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), Fostering Integrity in Research (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2017); NASEM, Reproducibility and Replicability in Science (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2019). Neither report addresses security issues explicitly but they provide important context for relevant measures.
24 IAC and IAP, Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise, p. x.
25 Some examples of statements and reports addressing the social responsibilities of science and a broader definition of responsible conduct of research include: IAP, “Statement on Realising Global Potential in Synthetic Biology: Scientific Opportunities and Good Governance,” 2014, <www.interacademies.net/10878/Scientific_Opportunities_and_Good_Governance.aspx>; ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the Conduct of Science, “Freedom, Responsibility and Universality of Science,” 2014, <www.icsu.org/cms/2017/04/CFRS-brochure-2014.pdf>; IAC and IAP, Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise; World Science Forum, “Declaration of the Budapest World Science Forum 2011 on a New Era of Global Science, ” <www.sciforum.hu/cms/upload/docs/programme/WSF_2011_Declaration_adopted.pdf>; ICSU Amendment to Statute 5: The Principle of Universality (Freedom and Responsibility) of Science, 2011, <www.icsu.org/about-icsu/structure/committees/freedom-responsibility/?icsudocid=statute-5>; Second World Conference on Research Integrity, “Singapore Statement,” 2010, <www.singaporestatement.org/>; World Economic Forum “Annual Meeting of New Champions of the World Economic Forum: Tianjin Statement by the IAP Young Scientists,” 2008, <www.interacademies.net/Activities/Projects/IAPYoungScientistsProgramme/13840.aspx>; IAP, “Statement on Biosecurity,” 2005, <www.interacademies.net/10878/13912.aspx>; UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, “Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge,” World Conference on Science, Budapest, June 26 to July 1, 2009, <www.unesco.org/science/wcs/eng/declaration_e.htm>.
26 International Council for Science, Freedom, Responsibility and Universality of Science (Paris: International Council for Science, 2014), p. 3. In 2018, ICSU merged with the International Social Science Council and became the International Science Council.
27 For example, with the notable exception of national regulations in some countries for high-containment laboratories or research with certain dangerous pathogens, most biosafety practices rely on widely recognized guidance documents such as the World Health Organization’s Laboratory Biosafety Manual, 3rd edn. (Geneva, 2004), <www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/biosafety/WHO_CDS_CSR_LYO_2004_11/en/>
28 European Academies Scientific Advisory Council (EASAC), Gain-of-Function: Experimental Applications Relating to Potentially Pandemic Pathogens (Halle (Saale), Germany, 2015), p. 17. <www.easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Gain_of_Function/EASAC_GOF_Web_complete_centred.pdf>
29 FESAP, Report of the Federal Expert Security Advisory Panel.
30 Brian Rappert, “Codes of Conduct and Biological Weapons: An In-Process Assessment,” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2007), p. 2.
31 A discussion of the impact of the 2005 meeting on encouraging several international scientific organizations to adopt codes of conduct may be found in Jo L. Husbands and Katherine Bowman, “The Role of Scientific Organisations in Promoting Biosecurity: A Case Study on the InterAcademy Panel,” in Whitby, Novossiolova, Walther, and Dando, eds., Preventing Biological Threats: What You Can Do., pp. 198–218.
32 BWC, Report of the 2018 Meeting of Experts on Review of Developments in the Field of Science and Technology Related to the Convention (Geneva, 2018), p. 9.
33 For a discussion of this role for scientific organizations, see NASEM, Fostering Integrity in Research.
35 See, for example, National Research Council (NRC), Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004), also known as the “Fink Report after its chair, Gerald Fink, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Royal Society, Do No Harm: Reducing the Potential for the Misuse of Life Science Research (London: Royal Society, 2004).
36 The report of the workshop held to inform the Sixth Review Conference may be found at <https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2006/8245.pdf>; the report for the Seventh Review Conference is NRC, Life Sciences and Related Fields: Trends Relevant to the Biological Weapons Convention (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011); and the summary report of the workshop for the Eighth Review Conference, along with other supporting documents, was produced by the Royal Society: <https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/biological-toxin-weapons-convention/>.
37 IAP, “Statement on Biosecurity.”
38 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, A Code of Conduct for Biosecurity (Amsterdam, 2008); Cuba, Code of Professional Ethics for Science Workers in Cuba (unofficial English translation) (Geneva: BWC, 2016).
39 IAP, “Realising Global Potential in Synthetic Biology.”
40 IAC and IAP, Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise.
41 Ibid., p. 15.
42 Ibid, p. 16.
43 Ibid., p. 15.
44 IAP, Doing Global Science: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).
45 FESAP, Report of the Federal Expert Security Advisory Panel; 6; R. Huising and S.S. Silbey, “From Nudge to Culture and Back Again: Coalface Governance in the Regulated Organization,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 14 (2018), pp. 91–114.
46 BWC, Report of the Meeting of States Parties (Geneva, 2013), p. 8, <https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/600/07/PDF/G1460007.pdf?OpenElement>.
47 BWC, Eighth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Final Document (Geneva, 2016), p. 12, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/19831FF45AE88E89C12580D80038951C/$file/BWCCONF.VIII4±English±.pdf>.
48 <www.gpwmd.com/bswg>.
49 UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Global Partnership against Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction: President’s Report for 2013 (London, 2013).
50 White House, “National Biodefense Strategy,” 2018, p. 21, <www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Biodefense-Strategy.pdf>.