Opinion 2025-47 - Virus manipulation, geoengineering... How can the ‘responsible’ aspect of research be assessed?
Résumé
In this Opinion, COMETS examines the responsibility of scientists when conducting research that poses a potentially high collective risk to populations and/or the environment. This recurring question of research ethics is particularly acute today due to several factors: the growing power and accessibility of technologies capable of causing large-scale, serious and even irreversible harm; the context of environmental and health crises, which can lead some people to place sometimes unrealistic expectations in scientific research and encourage risk-taking without a shared framework; the context in which research itself is evolving, marked by increasing competition between teams and States, and by the value placed on high-risk, high-gain research. COMETS has selected two topics in particular, both of which are currently the subject of heated debate within the scientific community, to guide its deliberations. One is the genetic modification of pathogens with pandemic potential, focusing on gain-of-function (and implicitly, throughout this Opinion, loss-of-function) experiments, which are designed to make viruses or bacteria more pathogenic, contagious or virulent in order to better understand how they can infect humans, find new therapeutic treatments and prepare for possible epidemics. The second is geoengineering, a set of technologies developed by a variety of mainly private players, presented as a tool to mitigate the effects of climate change and supported by certain governments and scientists. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is currently one of the most controversial technologies, and has thus been chosen as the other focus of this Opinion. It involves injecting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect some of the solar radiation back into space.
Domaines
| Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
|---|---|
| Licence |