【科学60秒】法案一出，成果受限(双语有声)

作者：hahaleaf 来源：沪江论坛 2011-11-29 00:00

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诙谐的语言，生动的内容一分钟快速掌握科技最新动态

Post Patriot Act Pathogen Research: Less Bang per Buck

The Patriot Act and the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act were passed in 2001 and 2002. These laws in part cover research on pathogens and toxins thought to have potential as bioweapons.

美国分别在2001年和2002年通过了《爱国者法案》和《生物反恐法》。这两项法案有部分内容涉及可能被用于制造生化武器的病原体、毒素方面的研究。

The Bush administration increased funding for research on such toxins and pathogens—but the laws added a great many procedural steps for such research, and restricted who could work with the microbes. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon recently evaluated the impact of the laws on research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Elisabeth Casman et al, GnoX]

虽然布什政府在该生化研究领域加大了资金投入，不过这两项法案让此类研究不得不经过很多法定程序才得以进行，而且，法案中对研究细菌的人员也有限制。卡耐基-梅隆大学的科学家在《美国国家科学院院刊》上对这两项法案所产生的影响发表了评价。

They checked out work with anthrax bacteria, the ebola virus, along with a control, Klebsiella bacteria. The researchers did find an increase in the total number of papers published. But before the laws, 17 anthrax papers appeared per million dollars of funding. With the restrictions, only three papers appeared per million dollars of funding. For ebola, the numbers dropped from 14 to six papers per million dollars. Figures for the control stayed the same.

科学家们搜集了炭疽杆菌和埃博拉病毒方面的研究论文，并同样搜集了克雷柏氏杆菌方面的文章作为对照。他们发现此类生化研究论文的总量确实有所增长。在上述两项法案出台之前，每100万美元研究资金的投入，可以有17篇炭疽杆菌方面的研究论文问世，但此后由于受到法律限制，同样是投入100万美金，可怜只有寥寥3篇作品。而在埃博拉病毒研究方面，100万美元的投入，成果也从原来的14篇骤减到6篇。但对照组中，克雷柏氏杆菌的研究论文数量在法案颁布前后并无差异。

The bottom line: the study authors say that research on anthrax and ebola has not been seriously inhibited. But it has been made significantly less efficient.

研究结果：炭疽杆菌、埃博拉病毒的研究虽然并没有受到严格约束，但研究效率却大打折扣。