hamstrung.
By jp 14 Oct 2001
a few colleagues (I guess they’re friends of mine and/or classmates, but it sounds cooler when I say that) just got back from the Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Response meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. they brought back some not-so-good news, which will most likely NOT be presented in any popular media. so here it is, more or less. don’t shoot the messenger:
<p>so Ron Atlas, the chair of the american society of microbiology (<span class="caps">ASM</span>) was the keynote speaker and honored guest at this meeting. he is also interestingly the biological adivsor of some important sort to the president and congress. his news was less than good. </p>
<p>not only did his office, lab, and home recieve multiple mailings of anthrax spores, but congress is off and running to do some serious damage if they’re not stopped. first off, we’re most likely not going to be hearing about these anthrax attacks in the news; they’re at a high level of both academic and political importance. this fella is the link between all of our current biomedical research regarding pathogens and potential bioterrorism weapons and capitol hill. not to mention he’s the head of the nation society for all microbiologists (of some personal import to me). whoever is doing this stuff knows where to hit us. </p>
<p>second of all, congress is going apeshit in all the wrong directions. they want to do several things, and have legislation being argued on the floor <i>right now</i> which is aiming to do mainly two things: first, limit the ability of anyone to add drug resistance or additional pathogenicity to existing infectious agents, and second, to basically prevent any and all resident aliens from ever touching another strain of an infectious microbe. </p>
<p>this is bad. really, <span class="caps">REALLY</span> bad. </p>
<p>firstly, the resistance thing. this is fine and well, if and only if you want to bring <span class="caps">ALL</span> current microbiological and biomedical research, as well as pharmaceutical and biotechical production to a grinding, skidding, e-braking halt. adding resistance markers (a gene that allows a bug to resist an antiobiotic) is the main (only) way we have to select for genetically altered bugs; if we’re trying to stick a new gene or swap out an existing gene from a bacterium, the way to do it is tack on a gene that encodes a protein which allows the critter to survive an antibiotic. this way, only the ones (out of the trillions you start with) that do get (or lose) the new gene of interest remain on your culture plate. these markers are in every strain currently used for pathogen research, and borne on every plasmid (little loops of <span class="caps">DNA</span> we use to stick in and pull out genes) currently in use. in short, there is simply no way to do molecular microbiology, molecular biology, cloning of genes, bulk protein isolation (anyone need insulin?), or just about any other area of research involving little fragments of <span class="caps">DNA</span> without these. you can see how this might stress me out; the aforementioned list more or less constitutes my everyday to-do items. aside from there being NO <span class="caps">POSSIBLE</span> <span class="caps">WAY</span> to regulate this stuff, due to it’s complete saturation into research labs worldwide, we would have no way to continue producing most of the non-chemical drugs currently needed by million, no way of producing vaccines, no way of continuing any biotechnological or academic research of any kind that utilizes the techniques above. I could go on, but hopefully this paints the picture. </p>
<p>reiteration: this is bad. really, <span class="caps">REALLY</span> bad. </p>
<p>the other thing was basically to make every lab that has the capability to grow over 5 liters of a pathogen (I’ve done this several times) register all personel, equipment, and current projects with a central governmental source. right. fuck that. does anyone have any idea how many people would need to be in such an agency? it’d be bigger than the <span class="caps">FBI</span>, <span class="caps">NSA</span> and <span class="caps">CIA</span> put together; you’d have paperwork flooding in from all over the country, probably at the rate of 10 reports per every faculty in every biomedical department in each school in each state per day. at least. the math gets staggering. not to mention, what the hell would this accomplish? all someone needs is a microliter (1/1000 of a liter, less liquid than a pencil point) of a culture to produce literally metric tons of a pathogenic bug. even if all this was registered, would anyone ever know if something this untraceable was missing? clearly the only answer is government-sponsored door locks on all higtened biosafety level 2 and above labs. in addition, they want to make it such that anyone who is not born an american cannot handle, posses or transport a pathogenic bug. considering, on average, 1/5 people (at the <span class="caps">BARE</span> minimum) in every biomedical lab is not american (I’ve been in labs where only 1/5 is american), not to mention labs run by foreign-born PI’s (some of the best labs in the country fall into this category), this is preposterous. not only would you crush an entire community of good, dedicated, hard working academics, but again, the field would be shut down. </p>
<p>I can appreciate the need to somehow limit the availability of pathogens to the global community. but this is fedunkulous. considering things such as anthrax are naturally occuring, repeat, <span class="caps">NATURALLY</span> <span class="caps">OCCURING</span> (i.e. found in nature and all over animals) microbes, is it at all feasible to try and regulate them? nope. can we be as arrogant to think that we can eliminate the availability of types of organisms that compose well over 50% of the entire biomass on the earth? no way. put all labs that have anthrax strain in steel chambers 20 miles underground with retinal scanners, and all some wacko needs to do is swab a horse and grow themselves a few liters of spores in their own kitchen or greenhouse. </p>
<p>I realize we’re a panicked, frightened nation, but this is, in my opinion, fucking stupid. and something that we’d all regret. no one is weighing what can realistically be done vs. the impact of what can legally be done. we have the power, because we’re such a bully of a nation both domestically and internationally, to do alot of harm by shutting things down. but again, the nation’s classic flaw shines through – we get all obsessed as to wether or not we could, as opposed to wether we even should. </p>
<p>please, use whatever means this democracy gives us all to ensure that we don’t do something that would do more harm than good. with this or any other issue.</p>