Physicians vs. Bioterrorism. (Guest Editorial).

Biological weapons pose a growing strategic threat, and physicians have two roles to play in the fight against these agents. First, we can work against the misuse of biological research and support the development of appropriate biological technology. Second, we can work to create programs to mitigate the consequences of a deliberate epidemic and prevent mass casualties.

Physicians have a strategic advantage in this fight, because we know disease as few others do--up close and personal. We have seen the suffering that results from infectious disease, and we have an obligation to try to prevent such suffering.

The ethos of the medical profession has been to avoid doing harm. Biological weapons violate the core tenets of medical practice, and we must campaign to make the use of these weapons a crime against humanity. Biological weapons are massively lethal, easily accessible, relatively cheap, and easily hidden. It may be impossible to trace their sources. Our globalized society makes us particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases, including those induced by a biological weapons attack. Urbanization, international travel, and antibiotic resistance are just a few factors that increase that vulnerability.

In terms of biological research and development, there is an urgent need to restrain "dangerous science," but dangerous science can be difficult to define. In some cases, the distinction between beneficent and malevolent research may be found only in the intent and application of the work and will not be apparent before the research is done.

We must make sure that controls on biological research and development do not thwart efforts to develop countermeasures to biological weapons attacks. For instance, if we build barriers now to working on anthrax and Ebola as biological weapons, we won't have the drugs and vaccines that we would need if such agents were used in an attack in the future. Similarly although making viral gene sequences available on the Internet is dangerous, unless we do so, there will no ...