BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS UPDATE
27 March 2007
In this issue:
Previous editions of Biological Weapons Update are available
at: http://www.basicint.org/update/bwu.htm.
Biodefense
U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN.) plans to seek another
$100 million in Nunn-Lugar threat reduction funds in the fiscal
2008 federal budget for biodefense efforts in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia. The money would supplement $144.5 million
included in the White House's proposed budget for biological
threat programs in a number of countries. See Lugar press
release here.
The Homeland Security Department's biological agent detection
system in more than 30 cities has been overhauled after years
of poor management, according to the agency's oversight office.
Released February 7, the report by the
department's Inspector General's Office described a number
of problems with the Biowatch monitoring network that could
have undermined its effectiveness.
On March 11 the Associated Press
reported that more than five years after the September
11, 2001 attacks, the government cannot show how the $5 billion
given to public health departments has better prepared the
country for a bioterrorism attack or flu pandemic.
Bioterrorism
In the wake of September 11, 2001, the government and the
media have periodically alerted the American people to potential
threats of bioterrorism. Now, a team of researchers at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
has
found that such messages measurably raise anxiety levels,
which could pose adverse health effects.
The National
Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a federal panel
of scientists and experts formed in 2004, has developed preliminary
criteria for identifying research that could enable acts of
biological terrorism, along with a code of conduct for those
performing such studies.
UPI reported March
19 that representatives of 16 Arab countries were in Muscat,
Oman, to begin a three-day seminar on bioterrorism, organized
at the request of Interpol.
Laboratories
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported
January 29 that a biodefense laboratory at the University
of Pittsburgh is expected to open no earlier than January
2008, putting it at least a year behind schedule.
The Kansas City Star
reported January 30 that Kansas is calling on high-profile
officials and biodefense experts to make the case why federal
officials should build a $451 million research lab in the
state. Kansas has two locations among sites in 14 states being
considered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Federal
officials intend to build a new laboratory complex to replace
a facility in New York.
Operations planned for a new laboratory at Fort Detrick in
Maryland would violate a federal law against the development
of biological weapons, the Biological Weapons Antiterrorism
Act of 1989, which President George H.W. Bush signed in 1990.
The U.S. Army is replacing its Military Institute of Infectious
Diseases with a new laboratory that would be a component of
a biodefense campus operated by several agencies. The laboratory
is intended to continue research that is only meant for defense
against biological threats, according to the Army. However,
University of Illinois international law professor Francis
Boyle, who authored the act,
said the Fort Detrick work "will include acquiring, growing,
modifying, storing, packaging and dispersing classical, emerging
and genetically engineered pathogens." Those activities, as
well as planned study of the properties of pathogens when
weaponized, "are unmistakable hallmarks of an offensive weapons
program," Boyle wrote in comments submitted to Fort Detrick
as part of its environmental impact assessment of the new
facility.
On March 18 The Wichita Eagle reported that Kansas
State University this month is scheduled to open a $50 million
Biosecurity Research Institute that will conduct research
on anthrax and other potential bioterrorism agents.
Smallpox
In January the Executive Board of the World Health Organization
reaffirmed the institution's goal of destroying the last known
stocks of smallpox virus, but recommended deferring a decision
on the destruction date until at least 2010. In a draft resolution
passed January 29, the board recommended continuing study
of the retention issue with the goal of reaching a consensus
of WHO members in three or four years. The draft resolution
is set to be reviewed by the World Health Assembly later this
year.
Publications
An in vitro and in vivo disconnect uncovered through high-throughput
identification of botulinum neurotoxin A antagonists.
The weapon potential of human pathogenic fungi.
Homeland Security
Presidential Directive/HSPD-18, (Medical Countermeasures
against Weapons of Mass Destruction), January 31, 2007.
Three
Explanations for al-Qaeda's Lack of a CBRN Attack.
Biological Research Laboratories:
Issues Associated with the Expansion of Laboratories Funded
by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
U.S. Government Accountability Office, February 22, 2007.
Air
Force Doctrine Document 2-1.8, "Counter-Chemical, Biological,
Radiological and Nuclear Operations, January 26, 2007.
The
National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center: Issues
for Congress, February 15, 2007.
Jez Littlewood, "Out of the Valley: Advancing
the Biological Weapons Convention After the 2006 Review Conference,"
Arms Control Today, March 2007.
The Living
Weapon, American Experience history series, Public
Broadcasting System, February 5, 2007:
Program transcript
Recently released
government films on bioweapons
Experts Q & A
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