Recent revelations regarding the unregulated shipments of anthrax, and an article in USA Today which points out the lack of government oversight regarding biochemical labs across the United States, once more begs the question as to why this lack of oversight exists. My novel Replicator Run poses the question in other ways, by giving a fictionalized version of the disastrous effects non-regulation can have. The irony of that discussion is that I first published the book in its original rendition with Ballantine in 1997 - eighteen years ago - at a time when I thought I was bringing this topic to some level of public consciousness. What I read in USA Today made it clear that nothing has changed. In my interviews on TV discussing the book's topic at that time, I had reminded interviewers that the work being done in independent labs was virtually unknown and therefore potentially dangerous. It apparently still is, and therefore a subject of some interest in the press, and also in the pages of Replicator Run.