CONTAMINANTES
Anthrax: Publish and perish? The anthrax genome has just been published. Should it have been?
Some critics argue that the publication of this sequence typifies the sort of problem that the scientific community is creating for itself. But in this case the political authorities seem just as much to blame, if blame there be, as gung-ho researchers who cannot see the security wood for the scientific trees. In any case, the publication also underscores the difficulty of keeping scientific information secret. Once it is known how to do something, it is hard to stop undesirables doing it anyway - so why hamstring your own side with needless restrictions? Besides, the editors of scientific journals cannot act as gatekeepers for all of science. Scientific information is communicated by many means, through seminars, meetings and electronic posting on the web. Information, as Stewart Brand observed, wants to be free. In this case it is probably best to let it be so.