Bioweapons of the future

[Guest guest]

The Next Worst Thing

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/03/02_400.html

 

Is the federal government's expansion of biodefense research paving the way

for the bioweapons of the future?

 

By Michael Scherer

 

March/April 2004 Issue

 

 

 

 

E-mail article

Print article

 

 

Building a Better Bomb

Toxic Immunity: The Pentagon and Pollution

 

Bioweapons Prevention Project

National Academy of Sciences

 

E-mail the editor

 

 

It has been called a modern-day Manhattan Project—a spending spree so vast

and rapid that it might change the face of biological science. In the wake

of 9/11, the U.S. government is funding a massive new biodefense research

effort, redirecting up to $10 billion toward projects related to biological

weapons such as anthrax. The Pentagon's budget for chemical and biological

defense has doubled; high-security nuclear-weapons labs have begun

conducting genetic research on dangerous pathogens; universities are

receiving government funding to build high-tech labs equipped to handle

deadly infectious organisms; and Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the home of

America's secret bioweapons program, is about to break ground on two new

high-tech biodefense centers.

 

 

 

Officials say the effort is designed to head off what a recent CIA report

calls the " darker bioweapons future. " Intelligence briefings are awash with

speculation about other nations or terrorists developing genetically

engineered pathogens " worse than any disease known to man. " But a growing

number of microbiologists, nonproliferation experts, and former government

officials say there may be a dark side to the biodefense push: With poor

oversight, government-funded scientists could actually be paving the way for

the next generation of killer germs—and given the explosion of research,

there is no way to keep track of what is being done. " We are playing games

with fire, " says Ken Alibek, a top scientist in the Soviet Union's

bioweapons program until defecting to the United States. " It is kind of a

Pandora's box. As soon as you open it, there is no way of putting it back

in. "

 

 

 

In a little-noticed report released in October, the National Academy of

Sciences warned that the government has no mechanism to prevent the " misuse

of the tools, technology, or knowledge base of this research enterprise for

offensive military or terrorist purposes. " The report called for

dramatically stepped-up monitoring of federally supported biodefense

projects; so far, Congress and the administration have failed to act on

those recommendations. Federal anti-terror legislation has focused on

limiting access to stockpiles of known bioterrorism agents such as anthrax.

But in a world where scientists can create deadly diseases in a test tube,

says Dr. Ernie Takafuji, acting assistant director of biodefense at the

National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, that is not enough.

" When you come down to it, the threat is not just the organisms, " he

explains. " The threat is the technologies. " The greatest danger, scientists

and intelligence officials agree, stems from researchers' increasing ability

to alter the genetic codes of viruses and bacteria: The same information can

be used either to treat disease or to make new germs— pathogens that could,

for example, be designed to evade treatment or to genetically target

specific populations.

 

 

 

Late last year, for example, Takafuji and other public-health officials were

caught by surprise when an American virologist, Mark Buller, revealed that

he was working on ways of creating a more deadly form of mousepox, a

relative of smallpox, and was considering similar work on cowpox, which can

infect humans. No one suggested that Buller, who has been working at St.

Louis University to defeat known techniques for making pox viruses more

lethal, sought to create a bioweapon. But the prospect of manufacturing a

more deadly germ just to see how it could be killed worried many. " That is

work that creates a new vulnerability for the United States and the world, "

says Richard H. Ebright, lab director at the Waksman Institute of

Microbiology at Rutgers University. " It's like the National Institutes of

Health was funding a research and development arm of Al Qaeda. " Buller

himself, while defending the benefits of his own work, acknowledges the

concerns over the new rush to biodefense research. " When you have thrown a

lot of money at it, " he said, " people start to think very hard about what is

possible, losing sight of what is practical. "

 

 

 

In another project that has raised eyebrows among bioweapons experts, a U.S.

Army medical scientist in Maryland has been seeking to bring back to life

key parts of the 1918 Spanish flu, a lethal influenza virus that killed 40

million people worldwide. While such research could be immensely valuable in

fighting another deadly flu outbreak, it might also be used to create such

an outbreak, notes Ed Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, a group

critical of American biodefense spending. " If [the researcher] worked in a

Chinese, Russian, or Iranian laboratory, " he says, " his work might well be

seen as the 'smoking gun' of a bio-warfare program. "

 

 

 

Even more worrisome to many experts is the apparent growth in secretive, or

" black box, " biodefense research by the U.S. intelligence community.

" There's all kinds of secret research going on right now, " says Matthew

Meselson, a Harvard biologist who has worked closely with the military. " The

more you create secret research in biology, " he warns, " the more you create

risk. " One program that has become public is Project Jefferson, a Pentagon

effort to genetically engineer a vaccine-resistant version of anthrax. After

the program's existence was revealed by the New York Times in 2001, the

Pentagon announced that it intended to complete the project and that the

results would be classified. " [The military's] natural instinct is to

exploit the technology and keep everybody else away from it, " says John D.

Steinbruner, director of the Center for International and Security Studies

at the University of Maryland. " In their hands, this technology is

potentially extremely dangerous. "

 

 

 

Programs like Project Jefferson have already raised concerns that U.S.

scientists are treading dangerously close to the limits of the 1972

Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits offensive research. Just

months before September 11, the Bush administration walked away from

negotiations to impose biological-weapons inspections, in part because

American pharmaceutical companies did not want to open their labs to

international inspectors. The abandonment of the talks left the world

without any way to enforce the treaty's restrictions. Now, experts fear that

the explosion of American research—including programs such as Project

Jefferson that are widely viewed as potential violations of the treaty—might

encourage other countries to disregard the convention.

 

 

 

Despite these fears, the administration is pushing to expand research

programs even further. In a rare unclassified report on the Pentagon's

biodefense plans, James B. Petro, a top official in the Defense Intelligence

Agency, recently called for a new federal " threat assessment " facility for

advanced bioweapons. Such a facility, he wrote, would investigate topics

with " limited implications for the general bioscience community, but

significant application for nefarious scientists. "

 

 

 

To many observers, the statement indicated that the United States is moving

toward a pre-emptive approach, attempting to beat terrorists to the punch by

being the first to produce novel pathogens. " What they seem to be saying to

me is that we are actually in a defensive/offensive arms race, " says Malcolm

Dando, a British bioweapons expert at Bradford University. " If the U.S. goes

down these roads, it indicates routes that people can follow. " What do you

think?