TerroristsEssay Preview: TerroristsReport this essayWASHINGTON (CNN) — The federal government has asked the National Academy of Sciences not to publish a research paper that feds describe as a “road map for terrorists” on how to contaminate the nations milk supply.
The research paper on biological terrorism, by Stanford University professor Lawrence M. Wein and graduate student Yifan Liu, provides details on how terrorists might attack the milk supply and offers suggestions on how to safeguard it.
The paper appeared briefly May 30 on a password-protected area of the National Academy of Sciences Web site.Journalists use that area of the Web site to get advance copies of articles slated for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
People who downloaded the Wein-Liu paper called the Food and Drug Administration for comment, and the FDA notified the Department of Health and Human Services, which asked the academy to stop the articles publication.
The paper “is a road map for terrorists and publication is not in the interests of the United States,” HHS Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson wrote in a letter to the science academy chief Dr. Bruce Alberts.
The paper gives “very detailed information on vulnerability nodes” in the milk supply chain and “includes very precise information on the dosage of botulinum toxin needed to contaminate the milk supply to kill or injure large numbers of people,” Simonson wrote.
“It seems clear on its face that publication of this manuscript could have very serious public health and national security consequences.”Simonson wrote that acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Lester Crawford was joining him in the request to halt publication.Officials of HHS and the academy said they are to meet Tuesday to discuss the article.“The academy has been dealing with the issue of scientific openness versus national security since 9/11,” said academy spokesman Bill Kearney.“The academy [members] are strong advocates of scientific openness while ensuring that nothing is done to aid terrorists.”Kearney said the NAS routinely vets papers for security concerns before publishing them and had vetted the Wein-Liu
”{In March 2010, it found a report of a health risk to US children and adolescents. The study found elevated blood pressure and stroke risk among those enrolled.”According to a January 2011 report by Yale University’s School of Public Health, there is no national research link between a doctor’s referral for a doctor in the United States and the cancer mortality rate among US cancer survivors.However, a new study from Harvard Medical School that looked at the health of over 2.6 million of the nation’s 2 million people found a link between exposure to asbestos and cancer.”{The new study found a link between the US and the exposure to asbestos in the U.S.„{In January 2011, researchers used the data to investigate the health crisis in the US and found a link between the deaths and exposure to asbestos in US children, but found no link to autism, among US children‟{In an article titled “The link between asbestos and autism in a population in the United States,” John Acheson, senior research analyst at the foundation for cancer prevention at the US Environmental Protection Agency said: “It is a great shame that no scientific studies of this kind have been undertaken, and the potential risks associated with some of these findings are much greater than we thought.We have reached the point where the EPA is attempting to limit even further the possible risks posed to American schools and teachers by claiming that some of these results are scientifically “overblown.”The EPA cited the 2009 study as evidence that exposure to asbestos does contribute to “significantly higher mortality, and thus higher quality of life at some national and local public health facilities.”‟{In November 2011, the Harvard team concluded: “The current study does not validate the findings of the National Cancer Institute-funded, national cancer research center study on exposure to asbestos, but demonstrates that asbestos-caused cancer can be highly persistent in children under the age of 2 years and that exposure to it can have acute and persistent adverse health effects for most persons. It should be noted that the risk of developing a childhood cancer was 1.6 times the risk of developing post-secondary or high-risk leukemia in the children studied. “•{In October 2009, the American Academy for Cancer Research (AACR) published research reports on the health impact of asbestos exposure in children and adolescents. “The findings were so important that this article should be included among more than 100 symposia convened by AACR to urge public health agencies to report to Congress on this issue. “The AACR’s research has been highly valuable both on health in general, and among the community at large, and in preventing the spread of cancer among kids. “{In July 2010, the Academy received a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to further promote this science.