BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS UPDATE
30 June 2006
In this issue:
Previous editions of Biological Weapons Update are available
at: http://www.basicint.org/update/bwu.htm.
Tightening bio-controls
On May 19 a coalition of thirty-five international organizations
including scientists, environmentalists, trade unionists,
biowarfare experts and social justice advocates called for
inclusive public debate, regulation and oversight of the rapidly
advancing field of synthetic biology - the construction of
unique and novel artificial life forms to perform specific
tasks. Synthetic biologists meeting that weekend in Berkeley,
California announced a voluntary code of self-regulation for
their work . The organizations signing the
Open Letter are calling on synthetic biologists to abandon
their proposals for self-governance and to engage in an inclusive
process of global societal debate on the implications of their
work.
A panel of experts has urged Russia and the United States
to expand their cooperation on biological security issues.
Some Group of Eight Global Partnership nations notably
Canada, France, Ukraine and the United States have elevated
the priority of biological weapons threat reduction programs,
according to a report sponsored by the Russian
American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.
On June 12 the U.S. Department of Commerce's The Bureau of
Industry and Security (BIS) published a
final rule to expand the Export Administration Regulations
(EAR) controls over identified biological agents and toxins
that have the potential to pose a severe threat to human,
animal and plant life, and impact upon the U.S. economy.
New laboratories: plans and objections
The Associated Press
reported that opponents of a proposed biological research
laboratory in Boston University filed a federal lawsuit May
18, claiming that federal regulators improperly reviewed and
approved the construction of the lab in a densely populated
urban neighborhood.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University
of California are considering building a Biosafety Level 4
biodefense laboratory, the San Francisco Chronicle
reported May 28. A 50,000-square-foot Biosafety Level
4 facility in Tracy, Calif., would be authorized to work with
the most dangerous human and animal pathogens. The two institutions
are already collaborating on a Biosafety Level 3 facility,
which they hope to open this year to study diseases such as
anthrax, botulism and plague.
Public health preparedness for attack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
reported May 20 that Centers for Disease Control officials
are working with investigators for Senate Finance Committee
Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to determine whether "taxpayers
have gotten their money's worth" from a $3.8 billion grant
program for states to bolster public health preparedness in
case of a bioterrorist attack. The CDC program -- designed
to prepare for biological, chemical and radiological attacks
through measures including bioterrorism surveillance and the
improvement of communication and alert systems -- was called
into question after a whistleblower from CDC expressed concern
about whether the grants were being used effectively.
On June 13 Trust for America's Health (TFAH) released a new
study Shortchanging America's
Health: A State-By-State Look at How Federal Public Health
Dollars Are Spent 2006 that finds the amount of federal
funds states receive for disease prevention and bioterrorism
preparedness differs by more than $40 per person.
The Richmond Times Dispatch
reported May 23 that the Wildlife Center of Virginia is
developing a national surveillance network that would help
detect diseases in wildlife that may be linked to bioterrorism.
Project Tripwire would be the first comprehensive effort to
monitor wildlife for signs of bioterrorism.
Other efforts, according to the
Boston Globe, include a new surveillance program to collect
information daily from commercial pet hospitals, the recent
establishment of a federal ``wildlife disease data warehouse"
to swap information, and the work of the Canary Database at
Yale University, which has assembled thousands of scientific
articles on links between wildlife and human health.
CTR Program lives another year
On June 20 the Washington Post
reported that the United States and Russia had broken
a logjam in negotiations over renewal of the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program a few weeks before President Bush travels
to St. Petersburg, Russia for the July 15-17 G-8 summit. The
CTR Program secures and destroys Soviet nuclear warheads,
chemical weapons and killer germs.
WHO deadlock on destruction of smallpox
stocks
At its 59th annual meeting in May, the World Health Assembly,
the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization
(WHO), WHA considered a draft resolution on destruction of
smallpox virus stocks. The resolution was the first to be
considered on the issue since 2002. The assembly of the 192-nation
WHO was unable to fix a date for the destruction of the last
stocks of the virus. Nor could it agree on how to organize
a review of the stocks before they are eventually destroyed.
The WHA deferred any decision
on destruction to the meeting of its Executive Board in January
2007.
Pinochet bioweapon program used for killing
The Guardian reported May 18
that accusations have emerged connecting former Chilean leader
Gen. Augusto Pinochet with the 1982 death of former president
Eduardo Frei Montalva. Officials presented a Chilean court
with evidence that a biological agent developed under Pinochet's
regime was used to kill Frei at a hospital as he recovered
from a hernia operation. The agent was designed within a secret
biological weapons program led by Eugenio Berrios, who produced
anthrax, botulism and sarin nerve agent for the Pinochet regime.
WWII Japanese germ warfare
Global Security Newswire reported June 12 that Jan van Aken,
a former U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
weapons inspector in Iraq, is preparing a report for the United
Nations on the germ warfare practiced by the Japanese in China
prior to the end of World War II.
Publications
Smallpox eradication:
destruction of variola virus stocks, World Health Organization,
59th World Health Assembly, A59/10, May 18, 2006.
Bacteriological Warfare in the United
States. After several years, the FBI has released some
early portions of its file on biological warfare. Of all the
pages reviewed so far, the FBI has released 709 (often heavily
redacted) and has declined to release 1,074 pages (some of
these will be referred to other agencies for review). The
documents so far are from the years 1941 through 1950. Further
releases are expected.
The Case
of Thomas Butler: The Last Chapter, Secrecy News, Federation
of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
On June 1, 2006 the international Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission released its report Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological,
and Chemical Arms. The report represents the culmination
of over two years of study and deliberation by the 14 eminent
members of the Commission, led by Dr. Hans Blix, former head
of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This document by the Center
for Arms Control and Nonproliferation summarizes the chief
findings and recommendations of the Commission with regard
to biological weapons.
Congressional
Seminar: Preventing Terrorist Exploitation of the Biotechnology
Revolution, June 5, 2006.
Advancing
International Cooperation on Bio-Initiatives in Russia and
the CIS, May 12, 2006.
The ANNALS OF TERRORISM: Abandon all skepticism, June
06, 2006.
Meeting the Challenges of
Reviewing the Biological & Toxin Weapons Convention,
The Geneva Forum. The report summarizes the discussions of
35 high-level representatives of governments, international
organizations and NGOs that took place in Glion on March 9-10.
Federal Funding
for Biological Weapons Prevention and Defense, Fiscal Years
2001 to 2007, Biological and Chemical Weapons Control
Program, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, June
21, 2006.
Jonathan B. Tucker and Andrew J. Grotto,
Biosecurity: A Comprehensive Action Plan, Center for American
Progress, June 2006
Posture
Statement by Dr. David Franz, Vice President & Chief
Biological Scientist, The Midwest Research Institute for the
House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on
Opportunities for Reducing Biological Threats at the Source,
June 22, 2006
Transparency
in past offensive biological weapons programmes: An analysis
of Confidence Building Measure Form F, Occasional Paper,
Hamburg Centre for Biological Arms Control.
Milton Leitenberg, Unresolved Questions Regarding
US Government Attribution of a Mobile Biological Production
Capacity by Iraq, June 2006.
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