Let’s
start with the basics. What is biosafety? In page 6 of a document published in
June 2003 by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the
United Nations Environment Programme, we can find the following definition:
“The concept of biosafety encompasses a range of measures, policies and
procedures for minimizing potential risks that biotechnology may pose to the
environment and human health”.
It is clear from this definition that, biosafety
should consider three elements. It starts by the identification of potential biological risks (that have to be minimized) to not only the human health but
also the environment (which include also the animal health) and the set of
measures put in place to act on those risks. In the case of laboratory setting,
the point has to be understood again in a three-fold consideration: the
experiment, the experimenter and the environment. What is the goal of
biosafety? To eliminate or reduce to minimum the risks identified. When this is
achieved, biosecurity is obtained. All the difficulties arise then when one
consider how to reach that goal.