The rapidly increasing power and rapidly decreasing cost of advanced biotechnology has made lab-generated pandemics a threat to the survival of the human species. Remarkably, despite the major risks to the public, dangerous “gain-of-function” research that enhances potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP research) is subject to almost no national or international oversight. Moreover, to date, the public largely has been unaware of, and excluded from, discussion of this threat.
Biosafety Now, is a non-governmental organization that advocates for reducing numbers of high-level biocontainment laboratories and for strengthening biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk management for research on pathogens. We seek comprehensive, legally-binding, national- and international-level oversight to foresee, regulate, and ultimately minimize the risks to the public of research with potentially dangerous pathogens. We are convinced that public health and safety require that all such research be subject to independent external controls, rather than be trusted to the oversight of the experimenters themselves.
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• December 10 – Biosafety Now Board member Bryce Nickels announces he is leaving Biosafety Now to spend time with his family, touch grass, self-reflect, look for the animal, and watch the College Football Playoff.
• December 1 – Biosafety Now releases statements announcing that Jay Bhattacharya (link) and Marty Makary (link) are leaving the organization to prepare for their confirmation hearings as NIH Director and FDA Commissioner, respectively.
• September 28 – Biosafety Now launches petition to bring the Risky Research Review Act to the floor for a vote.
Click here to sign the petition.
• September 25 – The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) took a monumental step by passing Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) Risky Research Review Act (S. 4667) with an 8-1 vote. The overwhelming bipartisan support for this bill sends a clear message: the era of unchecked risky research is coming to an end.
• Biosafety Now welcomed seven new members to our Leadership Team: Jay Bhattacharya (Board of Directors), Simon Wain-Hobson (Advisory Board), Matt Ridley (Advisory Board), Jamie Metzl (Advisory Board), and Neil Harrison (Advisory Board), Robert Redfield (Advisory Board) and Andrew Noymer (Advisory Board).
• July 20 – Bryce Nickels and Jay Bhattacharya publish an OpEd in the NY Post titled: “Why science should never try to triumph over nature“ that calls on Congress to enact and implement independent oversight for research that represents an existential risk to humanity.
• July 10 – Senator Rand Paul introduces The Risky Research Review Act, a first-of-its-kind proposal to establish a Life Sciences Research Security Board within the Executive Branch. This independent board will oversee the funding of gain-of-function research and other high-risk life sciences research that potentially poses a threat to public health, safety, or national security.
• June 18 – Richard Ebright testifies at a historic bipartisan Senate hearing on the origins of COVID-19. Click here to watch the hearing.
• June 14 – Members of Biosafety Now joined other prominent scientists in calling for retraction of three scientifically unsound papers on the origin of COVID-19: Worobey et al. 2022; Pekar et al., 2022; and Liu, et al. 2020. These papers are based on invalid premises and conclusions, or are potentially products of scientific misconduct — including fraud.
• June 13 – Bryce Nickels and Jay Bhattacharya conducted a live interview with Senator Rand Paul on X to discuss the bipartisan hearing on COVID origins taking place on June 18.
