“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: Given the possibility of such scenarios, however remote — should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision? Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks”.
