From Venter's new book:

As [my team] analyzed the [smallpox] genome, we became concerned about several matters.

The first was whether the government... should allow us to publish our sequencing and analysis... Before the HIV epidemic, the smallpox variola virus had been responsible for the loss of more human life throughout history than all other infectious agents combined...

I eventually found myself in the National Institutes of Health... together with government officials from various agencies, including the department of defense. The group was very understandably worried about the open publication of the smallpox genome data. Some of the more extreme proposals included classifying my research and creating a security fence around my new institute building. It is unfortunate that the discussion did not progress to develop a well-thought-out long-term strategy. Instead the policy that was adopted was determined by the politics of the Cold War. As part of a treaty with the Soviet Union, which had been dissolved at the end of 1990, a minor strain of smallpox was being sequenced in Russia, while we were sequencing a major strain. Upon learning that the Russians were preparing to publish their genome data, I was urged by the government to rush our study to completion so that it would be published first, ending any intelligent discussion.

Unlike the earlier, expedient, thinking about smallpox, there was a very deliberate review of the implications of our [later] synthetic-virus work by the Bush White House. After extensive consultations and research I was pleased that they came down on the side of open publication of our synthetic phi X174 genome and associated methodology... The study would eventually appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 23, 2003. One condition of publication from the government that I approved of was the creation of a committee with representatives from across government to be called the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, (NSABB), which would focus on biotechnologies that had dual uses.

And later:

Long before we finally succeeded in creating a synthetic genome, I was keen to carry out a full ethical review of what this accomplishment could mean for science and society. I was certain that some would view the creation of synthetic life as threatening, even frightening. They would wonder about the implications for humanity, health, and the environment. As part of the educational efforts of my institute I organized a distinguished seminar series at the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, D.C., that featured a great diversity of well-known speakers, from Jared Diamond to Sydney Brenner. Because of my interest in bioethical issues, I also invited Arthur Caplan, then at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, a very influential figure in health care and ethics, to deliver one of the lectures.

As with the other speakers, I took Art Caplan out to dinner after his lecture. During the meal I said something to the effect that, given the wide range of contemporary biomedical issues, he must have heard it all by this stage of his career. He responded that, yes, basically he had indeed. Had he dealt with the subject of creating new synthetic life forms in the laboratory? He looked surprised and admitted that it had definitely not been a topic he had heard of until I had raised the question. If I gave his group the necessary funding, would he be interested in carrying out such a review? Art was excited about taking on the topic of synthetic life. We subsequently agreed that my institute would fund his department to conduct a completely independent review of the implications of our efforts to create a synthetic cell.

Caplan and his team held a series of working groups and interviews, inviting input from a range of experts, religious leaders, and laypersons...

I did not hear again about the University of Pennsylvania bioethics study until the results were published in Science, in a paper entitled “Ethical Considerations in Synthesizing a Minimal Genome"...

As I had hoped, the Pennsylvania team seized the initiative when it came to examining the issues raised by the creation of a minimal genome. This was particularly important, in my view, because in this case it was the scientists involved in the basic research and in conceiving the ideas underlying these advances who had brought the issues forward— not angry or alarmed members of the public, protesting that they had not been consulted (although some marginal groups would later make that claim). The authors pointed out that, while the temptation to demonize our work might be irresistible, “the scientific community and the public can begin to understand what is at stake if efforts are made now to identify the nature of the science involved and to pinpoint key ethical, religious, and metaphysical questions so that debate can proceed apace with the science. The only reason for ethics to lag behind this line of research is if we choose to allow it to do so.”