How To Avoid Human-Made Pandemics

How do you pitch a news story about people agreeing rigorously with each other?

That question was raised by a journalist during a report presentation at the UN by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Independent Task Force on Research with Pandemic Risks. This 28-member task force, consisting of ourselves and other experts in biosafety, biosecurity, microbiology, epidemiology, and ethics from around the world, was taking questions about its new report, which tackles the highly challenging topic of recommending constructive ways to improve safety and security for research with known and potentially pandemic pathogens. The report was especially noteworthy because the diverse task force—some of whom publicly and vehemently disagree on which activities are risky and should be better monitored—was able to find common ground, and a lot of it.

This article was written by Filippa Lentzos and Jens H. Kuhn and originally published by The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists.

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