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AAAS Resolution:
Revisions to the Atomic Energy Act Affecting Progress in Research
The Executive Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science urges upon your Committee and the Congress the exercise of searching scrutiny and objective consideration of any amendments to or revisions of the Atomic Energy Act which would affect seriously if not disastrously the nation's progress in research.
Such progress has resulted in the past less from great expenditures of money than from freedom of publication and of communication among scientists. Research has little potential value until its results are public property.
This Committee views with grave misgivings the proposal reported in the press that the export of radioisotopes for research by scientists in other countries be prohibited by statute, on the ground that such research might be applicable to military developments, and its publication might be detrimental to our national interest.
Any basic research has potential applicability to developments of all kinds, including military. This must be regarded as a small "calculated risk". The radioisotopes available to foreign scientists are of a kind not used in weapons, and their utility is preponderantly in tracer studies and medical research. The likelihood of their being employed detrimentally to our interests is practically non-existent, whereas the potential benefits to mankind are great.
If there is hazard to us in the publication of results obtained abroad with radioisotopes, there is also hazard in publication of results of similar research done in this country with radioisotopes; and the same kind of logic would lead to prohibition of such publication here as of shipments abroad. Prohibition of publication would be highly detrimental to our interests, for research can thrive only in an atmosphere of free interchange among scientists. Without it there is no research. In view of the indisputable fact that research is essential to our leadership, it would be a serious matter indeed to prohibit export of radioisotopes (except those fissionable materials usable in weapons), as it would also to prohibit freedom or publication of results of research in this country, in which radioisotopes are used. [Adopted by the AAAS Executive Committee, July 7, 1949.]
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