Malaysia: Bioethics as a biosecurity measure for monitoring genetic engineering activities against the threat of bioterrorism

Abstract

Malaysia's proactive position in promoting biotechnology has also spurred scientists in local universities and research institutions to adopt genetic engineering techniques for the betterment of their research. However, Malaysian scientists must increasingly be aware that genetic engineering can either be used for benevolent or malevolent purposes triggering the dual use dilemma. This is because certain materials, information and technology can not only be utilized for military and civilian purposes but also for criminal and terrorist activities. Therefore, this research has the purpose of examining the actions to be taken by Malaysia to censor the forms, methods, results and acquisition of knowledge of genetic engineering from being misused. Underlying Malaysia's actions is the bioethical principle, that is, the duty to prevent harm which is relevant to this research. It is proposed that the actions Malaysia should take are to be embedded within provisions of the Biosafety Act 2007 and its regulation. The method relied for this research is one that is qualitative in analyzing primarily the Biosafety Act 2007, international organization documents from websites, a case law and secondary resources. The results from this research indicate that the Biosafety Act 2007 can be utilized in order to achieve the said purpose of this research through existing provisions while in certain instances, amendments to some provisions which are unclear or inadequate together with the Biosafety (Approval and Notification) 2010 Regulations needs to be done.