Faced with requests by investigators to withhold crucial details in papers that could be related to bioterrorism, American Society for Microbiology (ASM) President Ronald Atlas is calling for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to convene a meeting to discuss the handling of such articles.

In a 23 July letter to NAS President Bruce Alberts, Atlas said that a meeting of publishers in the life sciences is urgently needed to "initiate discussions about the possible development…of common publication policies in today's atmosphere, where there is increasing concern that technical articles may inadvertently aid those engaged in acts of terrorism."

Atlas, who publishes 11 journals through the ASM, made this request because he has been asked by several investigators to publish articles lacking certain critical details for fear that such details could be "misappropriated or misused." Atlas said in an interview with The Scientist that honoring such requests would set a bad precedent and that omitting data would alter the fundamental tenets of scientific research.

So far, the society's position has been to publish papers only when sufficient details are provided that would allow others to replicate the experiments. Lacking that, the journals have rejected papers or they have dissuaded the investigator from submitting the manuscript to an ASM journal. The requests received so far involve primers used in pathogen detection kits, according to Atlas. With such information, it might be possible to design pathogens that circumvent detection.

NAS spokesperson Bill Skane said that scientists are walking a tightrope: "They want to be good citizens and not do something to benefit a terrorist, but at the same time they want to get their work done." To NAS President Alberts, however, publishing scientific papers without methods is "a non-starter" because it compromises the scientific process in a real way.

The letter comes as UK academics secure an amendment to the much-criticized export control bill. The amendment should protect researchers' freedom to publish new data and share their findings.

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan finds the notion of keeping scientific publishing blindly open "puzzling." Some information should obviously not be made public, according to Caplan. Rather than having a strict policy of classifying such information, which history shows has led to overly restrictive policy, Caplan sees the solution as a blue-ribbon panel representing the interests of the researchers and government to vet publications.

The NAS is planning a fall meeting for scientists, publishers and people involved in national security to provide a forum for airing views and concerns.