BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS UPDATE
31 May 2007
In this issue:
Previous editions of Biological Weapons Update are available
at: http://www.basicint.org/update/bwu.htm.
U.S. bio-defense
April 5 saw the opening of a $14.4 million, 22,000-square-foot
building at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth,
which was built primarily to be the home of the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security's center for botulism research.
Global Security Newswire
reported that a terror attack on a planned biological
defense laboratory at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in California could cause the release of dangerous biological
agents into the environment. The report cited a Department
of Energy news release dated April 11. The Biosafety Level
3 facility would be used to store and research samples of
microbes such as anthrax, plague, botulism and Q fever, which
have been identified as potential agents of bioterrorism.
The Insurance Journal reported
that a Kentucky-Tennessee consortium is advancing efforts
to attract the proposed federal National Bio and Agro-Defense
Facility to Pulaski County, KY. Federal officials were also
scheduled to visit four locations in Texas that could house
the planned facility, the San Antonio Express-News
reported. The Associated Press
reports on North Carolina's bid for the lab.
Bio-security lapses in Denmark
According to a study from the Danish Health Ministry's Statens
Serum Institute (SSI), Danish biological research laboratories
offer an open invitation to thieves who wish to obtain chemicals
and other substances for bioterrorism. The review examined
35 laboratories and discovered that 33 permitted open access
to freezers holding lethal viruses and bacteria, such as anthrax.
Smallpox
On 18 May, member states of the World Health Organization
agreed to postpone until 2011 any decision on whether
to destroy the world's last known stockpiles of smallpox.
Using genetically engineered plants as a factory, scientists
at the Center for Neurovirology at Thomas Jefferson University
in Philadelphia say they have produced
a protein that could help them create an effective and safe
smallpox vaccine. The findings are preliminary, since the
protein has only been tested against smallpox in mice. But
plants show plenty of promise as a manufacturing center for
drugs, said study co-author Dr. Hilary Koprowski, the developer
of the live polio vaccine.
Anthrax vaccine
On April 18, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) issued two separate
notices of intent to procure up to a combined total of
22.75 million doses of BioThrax (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed).
Publications
Anthrax
Detection: DHS Cannot Ensure That Sampling Activities Will
Be Validated, by Keith A. Rhodes, chief technologist,
Center for Technology and Engineering, applied research and
methods, before the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, House
Committee on Appropriations. GAO-07-687T, March 29.
The Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich has just
released the International
Biodefense Handbook 2007: An Inventory of National and International
Biodefense Practices and Policies.
BIODEFENSE IN THE DEPARTMENT
OF HOMELAND SECURITY FY08 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BUDGET,
A Statement by Gerald L. Epstein, Senior Fellow for Science
and Security, Homeland Security Program, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, March 8, 2007.
Maxim Golovkin, Sergei Spitsin, Vyacheslav Andrianov, Yuriy
Smirnov, Yuhong Xiao, Natalia Pogrebnyak, Karen Markley, Robert
Brodzik, Yuri Gleba, Stuart N. Isaacs, and Hilary Koprowski,
Smallpox subunit vaccine
produced in planta confers protection in mice, PNAS 2007
104: 6864-6869.
Strengthening the BWC's Confidence Building Measure Regime:
A Catalogue of Recommendations, Occasional Paper No. 3,
Research Group for Biological Arms Control at the University
of Hamburg.
Colonel Coleen K. Martinez, Biodefense
Research Supporting the DoD: A New Strategic Vision, Strategic
Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, April 2007.
Ron Cleminson, INTERNATIONAL VERIFICATION
OF WMD PROLIFERATION: APPLYING UNMOVIC's: LEGACY, Journal
of Military and Strategic Studies, Spring 2006/07, Vol.
9, Issue 3.
Issue 84 of Disarmament Diplomacy contains four
articles on BW:
The
2006 BWC Review Conference: The President's Reflections
by Masood Khan
The President of the Sixth Biological and Toxin Weapons
Review Conference reflects on the factors that contributed
to a significant success, with lessons for future multilateral
diplomacy.
Rising
Out of the Doldrums: Report on the BWC Review Conference
by Richard Guthrie
From the author of daily reports during the BWC conference,
a detailed assessment of the conduct and outcome, with annexes
on the proposed (but unadopted) Action Plans and civil society
contributions.
A
Counter-Bioterrorism Strategy for the new UN Secretary-General
By Barbara Hatch Rosenberg
Argues for new multilateral approaches for dealing with
bioterrorism, including reorganisation and resourcing of
the UN Secretary-General's investigational capability to
strengthen BWC compliance.
Strategies
to Prevent Bioterrorism: Biosecurity Policies in the US
and Germany
by Jonathan B. Tucker
A detailed comparison of US and German approaches for addressing
biosecurity in the age of international terrorism, drawing
out the strengths and weaknesses.
Robert Sherman,
Avoiding the Plague: An Assessment of US Plans and Funding
for Countering Bioterrorism, Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), April 2007.
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