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The Obama administration on Wednesday issued new guidelines intended to strengthen the oversight of federally funded biology research that could inadvertently produce bioweapons.
The new policy shifts the burden of finding and disclosing the dangerous aspects of research from the funding agency — usually the National Institutes of Health — to the scientists who receive the grants and the universities or other institutions where they work.
The director of the N.I.H., Dr. Francis S. Collins, said the rules would “preserve the benefits of life-science research while minimizing the risk of misuse.”
Critics who oppose dangerous research dismissed the new rules as weak.
The policy, a codification of draft rules issued in early 2013, does not take effect for another year — an aspect that was also ridiculed by critics, who argue that dangerous work, such as making flu viruses more lethal, has been allowed to proceed while federal officials debate how to regulate it.
The critics also complained that the rules applied only to federally funded research, and that the harshest penalty, loss of funding, was not very...