Biosafety "is closely related to national security

"Biosafety", a slightly strange concept in public opinion, has recently become a focus topic Novel coronavirus pneumonia is being attacked nationwide In the context of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, biosafety has risen to a high level of national security, and the legislation of biosafety has been filled in the legal gap China has already been laying out the "firewall" of national biosafety Is "biosafety" far from our life? "Bring biosafety into the national security system" and "comprehensively improve the governance capacity of national biosafety" On February 14, these important statements at the meeting of the Central Committee for comprehensively deepening reform attracted much attention Hitherto unknown in the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, the conference has raised the importance of Biosafety to an unprecedented level However, for the general public, "biosafety" is more like an academic concept, which seems to be far away from life, and it is more difficult to understand the relationship between "biosafety" and "national security" "The concept of biosafety is very extensive It is an important part of the national security system It belongs to an integral part of national resource security The primary concern is ecological security, which means to revere nature and biology, to make all kinds of creatures in a state of natural security, and to maintain the continuity and diversity of biological species." Dong Jiahong, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering and executive vice president of the Chinese Medical Association, told cninfo.com If the seemingly grand and abstract concept is refined to specific cases, you may feel it more intuitively It is not far from us at all For example, novel coronavirus pneumonia products can not be carried abroad without any quarantine inspection For example, the impact of an African plague on meat prices and the supply of the whole market, such as SARS and the new crown pneumonia epidemic, will bring us the immediate threat and impact "The novel coronavirus pneumonia poses a great threat to the health of the population, and has a significant negative impact on the economy and society These new major infectious diseases are also in the category of biosafety." Dong Jiahong said How close is the concept of Biosafety to us? It has been commented that, for example, a seemingly inconspicuous "game" can break the balance and cause the virus to spread from specific animals to people, leading to an outbreak The strategic issue of biosafety is critical to national security, "the 21st century will be the century of biology" For the strategic significance of biological research and biosafety, academia has long predicted However, bioterrorism attacks, misuse of biotechnology, new major infectious diseases In the 21st century, a series of unexpected challenges make the global biosafety situation increasingly severe Over the years, the United Nations has made great efforts to build a global defense line for biosafety through international conventions such as the Convention on the prohibition of biological weapons, the Convention on biological diversity, the International Convention for the protection of new plant varieties and the International Plant Protection Convention When some "human threats" only appeared in sci-fi films are more and more aimed at reality, countries have also raised their Biosafety to national security strategy For example, the United States has deployed a series of science and technology projects with national defense and military intentions around their biological shield plan, biological monitoring plan and biological sensing plan, which have played an important role in epidemic disposal and biological counter-terrorism Germany defines infectious diseases as a national security threat, and countries such as Britain and Australia also include the security and national defense departments into the public health system "Many countries have incorporated biosafety into their national security strategies, such as the establishment of a biological defense system dominated by relevant military agencies, which is to actively occupy strategic commanding heights from the perspective of national defense and military affairs." Dong Jiahong said that in fact, biosafety also involves biological weapons in the military, including genetic weapons and microbial weapons, which is directly related to military and national defense security It can be seen that the impact of biosafety threat has been expanded from public health to national security and strategic interests The most realistic threat and thorny challenge: epidemic situation of infectious diseases and application of biotechnology in China's biosafety upgrading and integration into the national security system are not only China's major strategic arrangements, but also of global significance In December last year, the learning times published an article entitled "international biosafety situation in 2035" In the short term, the risk of biosafety is generally controllable, but it is faced with such thorny problems as biological attack threat, emerging infectious diseases, dual-use technology risk, etc In fact, we are not new to these thorny issues of biosafety For China, novel coronavirus pneumonia is from SARS to the two epidemic In recent years, SARS, influenza A, highly pathogenic avian influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Ebola, new coronavirus Under the background of globalization, major emerging infectious diseases have rapidly become a common threat to mankind, and it is difficult for all countries to be independent In addition, the rapid development of subversive biotechnology, such as gene editing and synthetic biology, also makes the situation of biosafety more and more serious "At present, biotechnology has been applied in many aspects, such as agriculture and medical treatment, but science and technology itself is a double-edged sword If it is used well, it can benefit mankind If it is not used well, it may cause far-reaching harm and threaten national security or even the whole mankind Previously, the highly concerned gene editing baby event is a very dangerous biotechnology application event " Dong Jiahong said Dong Jiahong said that if there is a biosafety problem in a country, it will seriously affect people's health, economic operation, social order and other aspects Since novel coronavirus pneumonia is in urgent need, the new security system is urgently needed to be filled The new crowns and pneumonia have been discussing the issue of how to build a "firewall" for biosafety from the perspective of the system level The meeting of the Central Committee for comprehensively deepening reform held on February 14 also mentioned that the introduction of biosafety law should be promoted as soon as possible, and the construction of national biosafety laws and regulations system and system guarantee system should be accelerated In view of China's biosafety legislation, during the first and second sessions of the 13th National People's Congress, 214 deputies to the National People's Congress put forward seven relevant bills In 2019, the legislative process of the biosafety law was officially launched at the national level In October of that year, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress held a preliminary examination of the draft biosafety law This draft law aims to fill in the gaps in the field The legislative idea is that maintaining national biosafety is the general requirement, safeguarding people's life and health is the fundamental purpose, and protecting biological resources, promoting the healthy development of biotechnology and preventing biological threats are the main tasks Some commentators believe that after this "epidemic", in the follow-up review of the draft biosafety law, the epidemic prevention and control exposed shortcomings and deficiencies, which will inevitably be urgently supplemented in the legal framework "Our country has experienced SARS, has done a lot of work and invested a lot of resources in improving the public health system It should be said that our system has advantages The root cause of this outbreak lies in the loopholes and shortcomings in our emergency prevention and control system for infectious diseases " Dong Jiahong said Dong Jiahong said that we should fully understand the importance of Biosafety to people's health, national security and human development based on an in-depth review of the problems in response to the epidemic We will speed up the construction of national laws and regulations on Biosafety, improve the governance system and capacity in biosafety, build a new biological threat prevention system, improve the emergency prevention and control system for major infectious diseases, and effectively protect the country from biological threats.