NPR

Efforts To Prevent Misuse Of Biomedical Research Fall Short

The National Academies of Sciences says not enough has been done to keep legitimate research on pathogens and toxins from being misappropriated and turned into biological weapons.

For years, the government has been trying to reduce the risk that legitimate biological research could be misused to threaten the public's health, but those efforts have serious shortcomings.

That's the conclusion of a released Thursday by the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that examined existing practices and policies on so-called dual-use biological

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