Free Republic

BEIJING -- China has opened its first bio-safety level four laboratory, capable of conducting experiments with highly pathogenic microorganisms, according to the national health authority on Thursday. Wuhan national bio-safety level four lab of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan P4 lab) is part of Sino-French cooperation in prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases, said the Department of Health Science, Technology and Education with the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Level four is the highest bio-safety level, used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease, including Ebola virus. The Wuhan P4...

Citing a lack of leadership by the federal government, the National Academy of Sciences proposed ethical guidelines yesterday for research with human embryonic stem cells. Scientists have high hopes that research with those all-purpose cells, which develop into all the various tissues of the adult body, will lead to treatments for a wide variety of diseases by enabling them to grow new organs to replace damaged ones. But because of religious objections - human embryos shortly after fertilization are destroyed to derive the cells - Congress has long restricted federal financing of such research; President Bush has allowed it to...

... [S]tates' attorneys general garnered a huge windfall for their treasuries (and for the bank accounts of selected private lawyers) in tort suits against tobacco companies. The suits were invalid as a matter of law, but never mind -- they pressured Big Tobacco to agree, in exchange for shelter from competition, to split future profits with the states. (When private parties do this, it's racketeering.) ... [T]hey filed a new pseudo-tort intimidation suit against five large electric utilities. What civil wrong have these defendants committed? They dared to operate 174 power plants, in full compliance with state and federal regulations....

The human rights committee of the National Academy of Sciences is protesting the government's treatment of a researcher who faces trial on charges of smuggling vials of live plague bacteria from Tanzania and lying to federal agents about them. The scientist, Dr. Thomas C. Butler, a leading plague researcher who is chief of the infectious diseases division at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, set off a scare in January, when he reported 30 vials of bacteria missing. Later, Dr, Butler told F.B.I. agents that the vials might have already been destroyed, according to the bureau's affidavit. He was arrested and...