Bio-Research Stance Presented to Faculty

In a presentation to the Faculty Council on Wednesday, Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean for Research and Information Technology Paul C. Martin presented a report that plotted the University’s path to ensure academic openness in the face of post-Sept. 11 research restrictions.

The report—submitted by the Provost’s Committee on Biodefense Research and Regulations—attempts to maintain the pathways of information exchange vital to biological work, all the while staying within the boundaries of recent legislation.

Administrators say that no major changes are required in light of the report’s recommendations. But some say the report could have supported openness more vocally.

“I think the report missed an opportunity to emphasize the centrality of access to knowledge within the University,” said Harvard School of Public Health (SPH) Dean Barry R. Bloom.

The report advises against having graduate students participate in projects involving select biological toxins, maintaining that they should always be free to publish, share or continue their work. These conditions cannot be guaranteed in certain projects because of post-Sept. 11 legislation.

“Very few students are probably inclined to [participate in research with select agents], so the act would be largely symbolic,” Bloom said.

But under the current report, the University can also grant individual exceptions to this policy.

The report also calls for the University to work toward an eventual curtailment of restrictive laws that have “no compensating increase in security,” but does not specify a course of action.

In Aug. 2002, Provost Steven E. Hyman established the committee to carve out a policy for Harvard’s biological research consistent with restrictions in the USA PATRIOT Act and the Bioterrorism Act of 2002.

The acts, which Congress passed in an attempt to stymie future terrorist threats, limited research on so-called “select agents”—a list of more than 30 biological toxins—and imposed restrictions on laboratory practices and the dissemination of certain research findings.

Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman, a member of the Faculty Council, said FAS does not use biological toxins in quantities substantial enough to be regulated by the federal government.

SPH, the only Harvard school that currently has projects affected by the legislation, has so far met all of the technical requirements imposed on it, according to Bloom.

But the vast majority of Harvard’s research remains outside the realm of the report’s recommendations on select agents, he said. Bloom said most research on biological toxins involves work only on non-dangerous components.

“There’s an enormous amount of science that does not involve the actual [select agent], whole in a freezer in the lab,” he said.

The report addresses three main concerns about the legislation’s impact on University research—restrictions on publication, personnel and laboratory access. It urges the University’s scientists to avoid restrictive pressures affecting changes from the laboratory to the academic journal.

In October 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft asked the publishers of scientific journals to avoid releasing “sensitive” information—a loosely-defined category of unclassified information that, by the standards of the PATRIOT Act, could be applied toward subversive ends.

But the Harvard report upholds a 2000 University policy that forbids researchers from accepting funding for work that cannot eventually be published.

The constellation of national-security regulations established after Sept. 11 also restricts participation in sensitive projects by researchers of certain ethnic backgrounds. While the report accepts these regulations, it emphasizes that all staff researchers should pursue research if they are legally able to do so.

According to the report’s provisions, however, scientists must be made aware of potential threats to their academic freedom before beginning work on sensitive projects.

To date, these warnings have not induced any major changes in the number of potentially sensitive projects undertaken, according to Bloom.

The report echoes a statement prepared by a committee at MIT during the 2002-2003 academic year. But while MIT’s statement of research policy concerned technically classified research, Harvard pursues no such projects.

The committee first presented the report to Hyman and University President Lawrence H. Summers for review last June. Deans of the FAS, SPH and Medical School first received a copy of the report late in October.

—Staff writer Joshua D. Gottlieb can be reached at jdgottl@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Nathan J. Heller can be reached at heller@fas.harvard.edu.