POLICY GUIDELINES OF THE PUBLICATIONS BOARD OF THE ASM
IN THE HANDLING OF MANUSCRIPTS DEALING WITH MICROBIOLOGICAL SENSITIVE ISSUES

      "The Council Policy Committee of the American Society for Microbiology affirms the long-standing position of the Society that microbiologists will work for the proper and beneficent application of science and will call to the attention of the public or the appropriate authorities misuses of microbiology or of information derived from microbiology.  ASM members are obligated to discourage any use of microbiology contrary to the welfare of humankind, including the use of microbes as biological weapons.  Bioterrorism violates the fundamental principles expressed in the Code of Ethics of the Society and is abhorrent to the ASM and its members."
 

ASM Publications Board Policy and Procedures

     As described in the Council Policy Committee resolution, the ASM recognizes that there are valid concerns regarding the publication of information in scientific journals that could be put to inappropriate use.  Members of the ASM Publications Board will evaluate the rare manuscript that might raise such issues during the review process. Research articles must contain sufficient detail to permit the work to be repeated by others.  By publishing in an ASM journal, the authors agree that any plasmids, viruses, and living materials, such as microbial strains and cell lines newly described in the article, are available from a national collection or will be made available in a timely fashion and at reasonable cost to members of the scientific community for non-commercial purposes.  It is also expected that newly assigned GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data will be included in the original manuscript or be inserted when the manuscript is modified, and that the data will be released to the public by the time the manuscript is published.  Supply of these materials must be in accordance with laws and regulations governing the shipment, transfer, possession, and use of biological materials and must be for legitimate, bona fide, research needs.  Please refer to the appropriate websites about these laws and regulations which can be found from the ASM website (Laws and Regulations Governing the Shipment, Transfer, Possession and Use of Biological Materials.)

     In order for the Publications Board to comply with the policy statement, ALL Editors of ALL ASM journals should take the following course of action:  

1. Ask ALL reviewers to advise the Editor, by use of the Confidential Comments section of the review form and the appropriate check-off box when it becomes available, if, in their opinion, the manuscript under review describes misuses of microbiology or of information derived from microbiology.
2. The Editor should serve as an initial screen with regards this matter and may be the point of contact with the author(s).
3. If a reviewer brings such a matter to an Editor's attention, the Editor should provide copies of the manuscript to the Editor in Chief, the Chair of the Publications Board, and the Director of Journals.  The Editor should hold the manuscript and all reviews until contacted by the Editor in Chief.
4.  The Editor in Chief will contact the Chair of the Publications Board, and together they may render a decision or, at their discretion, consult the entire Publication Board to determine whether to resume the review process or to decline the manuscript and return it to the author.