Ante-Terrorism

HELP for the Study of, and Defense from, Bioterrorism

(Although Dr. Green wrote the file "Biowar2.hlp" it is not accessible for download or transfer by email, so it's content is summarized below).

CONTENTS

Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies

Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
Visit www.hopkins-biodefense.org

Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies
Visit www.cns.miis.edu

Center for Terrorism Preparedness

Center for Terrorism Preparedness, The University of Findlay
Visit www.ufctp.org

Center for Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation

The Henry L. Stimson Center for Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project
Visit www.stimson.org/cwc/index.html

Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections

Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections, St. Louis University School of Public Health
Visit www.slu.edu/colleges/sph/bioterrorism

Center for Disease Control

CDC Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program
Visit www.bt.cdc.gov

Centech Group's CBRN Detection, Protection, Decontamination Systems

Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) detection systems, protection equipment and decontamination systems.
Visit www.centechgroup.com

Response Equipment Company

Visit www.r-e-c.com

Israeli Gas Masks

View www.platinumdefense.com

American Safe Air

Visit www.americansafeair.com

Antibiotics for Pets

Visit www.drsfostersmith.com

Counter-terrorism Strategy and Tactics

Visit Kingdom of Green
Dr. Green's " Kingdom of Green" demo-website offers several strategies and tactics for ante-terrorism, counter-terrorism, and Intelligence Theory. Of special interest is a nuclear fission reactor which not only offers a fuel cycle which raises technological barriers to terrorism but also eliminates the long-lived waste stream flaw of convention fission reactors.

About BioWar HELP

"Bio War 2" HELP for Study of, and Defense from, Bioterrorism
Bio War original version created by Dr. Green (see Ante-Terrorism); this version last updated November 5, 2003.

Protective Response

Visit www.protective-response.com/security-operations-solutions.html
Visit www.protective-response.com/anthrax-and-chemical-threat.html
Anthrax and Chemical Threat (source: link as above)
In the event of a chemical or biological threat
Protective Response International (PRI) are now in regular communication with government agencies and other specialised services and will update and expand this information frequently.
Do Not Panic
Anthrax is NOT spread from one person to another person. Anthrax organisms can cause infection in the skin, the gastro-intestinal system, or the lungs. To do, so the organism must be rubbed into broken skin, swallowed, or inhaled as a fine mist or powder. The disease can be prevented after exposure to the anthrax spores by early treatment with appropriate antibiotics.
For anthrax to be effective as a covert agent, it must be aerosolised into very small particles. This is difficult to do, and requires a great deal of technical skill and special equipment. If these small particles are inhaled, life-threatening lung infection can occur, but prompt recognition and treatment are effective.
Identifying suspicious packages and letters
Suspicious packages and letters include Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and Chemical or Biological packages. Some characteristics of suspicious packages and letters include the following...
Excessive postage
Handwritten or poorly typed addresses
Incorrect titles
Title, but no name
Misspellings of common words
Oily stains, discolorations, or odour
No return address
Excessive weight
Lopsided or uneven envelope
Protruding wires or aluminium foil
Excessive security material such as masking tape, string, etc.
Visual distractions
Ticking sound
Marked with restrictive endorsements, such as "Personal" or "Confidential"
Shows a city or state in the postmark that does not match the return address
Dealing with suspicious unopened letters or packages
How to handle suspicious unopened letters or packages which may be marked with a message specifying a specific biological, chemical or explosive threat.
Do not shake or empty the contents of any suspicious envelope or package.
Place the envelope or package in a plastic bag or some other airtight container to prevent leakage of the contents.
If you do not have an appropriate container, then cover the envelope or package with anything -- eg, clothing, paper, rubbish bin, etc, and do not remove that covering.
Then leave the room and close the door. Do not allow anybody else to enter the room or area.
Wash your hands with soap and water to prevent spreading any powder to your face.
Advise your supervisor or security officer who will advise the police.
Make a list of all people who were in the room or area when this suspicious letter or package was found. Be ready to give the emergency services this list. It will assist police and others who will conduct an investigation.
Dealing with spillage or leakage
What to do when a suspicious envelope spills a powder or substance out onto a surface.
Do not try to clean up the powder. Cover the spilled contents immediately with anything (eg, clothing, paper, rubbish bin, etc) and do not remove this covering.
Then Leave the room, close the door, and prevent others from entering
Wash your hands with soap and water to prevent spreading any powder to your face.
Advise your supervisor or security officer who will advise the police.
Remove contaminated clothing as soon as possible and place it in a plastic bag, or some other container that can be sealed. This bag of clothing should be left for emergency service responders for proper handling.
Shower with soap and water as soon as possible. Do not use bleach or other disinfectant on your skin.
If possible, make a list of all the people who were in the room or area, especially those who had actual contact with the powder. Give this list to the local public health authorities so that proper instructions can be given for medical follow-up, and as well to law enforcement officials for further investigation.
Dealing with contamination by aerosolisation
For example: a small device triggered, a warning that air handling system is contaminated, or a warning that a biological agent has been released in a public space.
Turn off local fans or ventilation units in the area.
Leave the area immediately.
Close the door, or section off the area to prevent others from entering.
Advise your supervisor or designated security/safety representative who will advise the police.
Shut down the air conditioning system in the building if possible.
If possible, make a list of all the people who were in the room or area. Give this list to the attending emergency services so that proper instructions can be given for medical attention, and to the Police who will want to commence an investigation.

LSU

Visit www.vetmed.lsu.edu/whocc/mp_world.htm
World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Public Health
Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA

WISC

Visit www.bact.wisc.edu/bact330/lectureanthrax
Source: above link for material by Kenneth Todar, University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology
The anthrax bacillus, Bacillus anthracis, was the first bacterium shown to be the cause of a disease. In 1877, Robert Koch grew the organism in pure culture, demonstrated its ability to form endospores, and produced experimental anthrax by injecting it into animals.
Bacillus anthracis is very large, Gram-positive, sporeforming rod, 1 - 1.2µm in width x 3 - 5µm in length. The bacterium can be cultivated in ordinary nutrient medium under aerobic or anaerobic conditions. Genotypically and phenotypically it is very similar to Bacillus cereus, which is found in soil habitats around the world, and to Bacillus thuringiensis, the pathogen for larvae of Lepidoptera. The three species have the same cellular size and morphology and form oval spores located centrally in a nonswollen sporangium.

CBC Redlies Index

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/index.html
Biological Warfare and the Soviet Union (source: link above)
It was a horrible accident -- for the people who died and for what it revealed. It would show the world the effects of anthrax on a civilian population, and it would expose the existence of a massive biological weapons program in the former Soviet Union; a program, some fear, exists to this day.
"People began to die around the fifth or sixth of April," says Dr. Marguerita Ilyenko, a hospital administrator in Sverdlovsk, Russia. "Before that, the doctors had noticed that animals were dying, sheep, pigs. Then the people began dying. I get in my office in the morning, and Rosa Gazeeva, who still works as a doctor in our hospital, tells me 'Five people died on me overnight.' So I say 'are you out of your mind?'
"I threw down my purse, rushed upstairs. It really was a nightmare. Ambulances were constantly bringing in patients. Some were still alive, others already dead."
In Sverdlovsk (now called Yekaterinburg), Russia, the faces of the dead on dozens of tombstones bear silent witness to one of the Soviet Union's darkest secrets: all mark one point in time; early April, 1979.
For years, there was very little information to explain why or how the people died. The cause of death was explained away with lies to conceal one of the most frightening developments of the Cold War.
While the world worried about the nuclear threat, the Soviet Union was secretly amassing the largest biological weapons program in global history. It involved thousands of scientists, who spent two decades turning deadly diseases like anthrax and smallpox into weapons of mass destruction. There are those who fear that work continues inside Russia today.
Sverdlovsk has a long association with death. Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed in Sverdlovsk. Today, if its one million citizens were asked to choose a sister city, it might well be Hiroshima.
In April, 1979, a horrifying accident happened at a secretive military base called "Compound 19." Behind imposing walls, a deadly production line turned out tonnes of anthrax powder for the Soviet Union's biological arsenal. One April morning, a small amount of the dust was accidentally released through the ventilation system. The invisible plume was blown over a working class neighbourhood and nearby ceramics factory.
Ivan Vershinin worked at that factory. His wife remembers the last time she saw him alive.
"By the time I got home, the ambulance was already there. The doctors said 'put some clothes on him right away or he'll die at home.' I said good-bye to him and the ambulance took him away and that was it.'
The sick began pouring into hospitals all around Sverdlovsk. Some were vomiting blood, many complained their lungs were on fire. Most died within 48 hours, as doctors frantically searched for the cause.
Dr. Marguerita Ilyenko was the director at one hospital.
"I walked up to one of the patients," she remembers. "I can still see him before my eyes, and he is talking to me, he is still alive. But right there in front of me, I can already see death spots forming all over his body! On his neck, on his back, doctors know what this means. Then he began to vomit and died. It was a very quick death."
Tamara Markova arrived at another hospital, searching for her husband.
"I got there, but he wasn't on the list, so they went to look for him in the morgue and they found him," Markova says. "I forgot to tell you -- when they were conducting the autopsy, the doctor said his lungs looked like jelly. They were completely destroyed."
The city's chief pathologist, Dr. Faina Abramova, was urgently called back to work, late at night, to observe one of the very first autopsies. She remembers one victim's brain membrane was covered with something that looked like a hat.
"It was red, so there was hemorrhage," she says. "So we were wondering what could cause this? I remembered that when I was a student, we learned that anthrax causes lesions in the brain. When this happens, the lesions resemble a cardinal's hat. But where could this anthrax have come from?
" They were trying to convince us that the illness came from meat. They said that somewhere outside the city, an entire herd of cattle had fallen ill and that the anthrax had come from them."
It was reasonable to suggest it had come from a farm around Sverdlovsk. Anthrax is a spore that grows naturally in pastures. Animals occasionally eat it when they graze, and people can pick up the infection if their skin comes in contact with diseased animals. It is not usually fatal in humans. There was another important difference. This anthrax had been inhaled, and the Soviet military knew it.

CBC Redlies 2

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/redlies2.html
Compound 19
Behind the walls of Compound 19, the Soviet army was secretly coping with its own casualties. In the aftermath of the accident, the Soviets would lie to their own people in order to conceal what they were doing from the outside world.
Long before this accident, the Soviet Union and many other countries had signed the Biological Weapons Convention. It was a promise to end decades of germ warfare research by both sides in the Cold War. The Soviets had eagerly helped write the 1972 treaty. But in the process, they realized just how far their own research lagged behind the West.
So at the very moment they were publicly signing the treaty, they were secretly laying plans to break it.
Within one year of the signing, senior Soviet scientists, like Dr. Igor Domaradskizh, received marching orders from the Kremlin to begin covertly advancing the biological arms race.
The Kremlin established a biological warfare research program called Biopreparat.
"I think one of the reasons was that it was assumed that due to the great achievements in the area of molecular biology and genetics in England, the States, probably Canada, that they had likely managed to be ahead of where we were at that stage," Domaradskizh says. "Somehow we had to make up the gap that developed between us and those countries. And it was precisely because the convention had already been signed by them, that all this research was happening."
The headquarters of Biopreparat was established down a tree-shrouded laneway not far from the Kremlin. From behind its walls, officials coordinated the efforts of 47 different research facilities spread across the Soviet Union. Thousands of scientists took deadly germs like anthrax, smallpox and plague, and studied ways of releasing them into the air as weapons; perfected formulas were turned over to military facilities for mass production and stockpiling by the tonne.
As the program continued to grow and seek out new scientific talent, one promising young doctor was recruited right out of medical school. At the time of the anthrax accident in Sverdlovsk, Ken Alibek was just beginning his career at Biopreparat.
"I was, what you say, hardliner," Alibek says. "I was a Communist, and you know I was a person who believed this weapon was a part of the Soviet Union's arsenal."
Alibek says he never stopped to wonder why doctors trained to cure diseases were now using them to make weapons of mass destruction.
"Nobody considered people's life something precious. You know for us, we didn't calculate individuals -- we calculated millions and millions. You know when you calculate millions, it's statistics; it's not tragedy."
So for a military that calculated deaths in the millions, the accident was but a blip on the learning curve. The KGB quickly descended on the city's hospitals to confiscate all medical records and alter death certificates. To ensure the final accident report cited food poisoning as the cause, Moscow despatched a more compliant pathologist named Dr. Nikiforov.
When Nikiforov's paper came out, it was a complete surprise -- not only for us, but also for everyone," says Sverdlovsk pathologist Dr. Abramova. "All of the doctors who worked on this talked to each other. After the autopsy, all thought that this was a respiratory form of anthrax poisoning. In other words, it occurred through breathing. But this was just talk and it was quickly being muffled. Why? We were being advised to talk as little as possible."
A massive clean-up operation ordered to eliminate any trace of the military's anthrax. The city of Sverdlovsk was placed under a dusk to dawn curfew.
Teams of men wearing decontamination suits began making unexplained visits to the homes of those who died.
"An ambulance arrived and they sprayed everything in our house," Markova says. "They took away the linen and took away everything. They even sprayed our dishes."
Officials decided all of the dead would be buried together in a single section of the city's cemetery. Hospitals were ordered to look after many of the burials because families were too frightened to retrieve the bodies of loved ones.
"We were given instructions on how the corpse was to be wrapped in polyethylene sheets with a chlorine solution inside," Ilyenko says. " Teams were formed around the city, mostly composed of police officers, but they wouldn't get close to the coffins. They were also afraid, and stood there smiling. They wouldn't carry the corpses, so I had to get our own guys, carpenters, plumbers. I told them 'guys, I'll give you a bottle of alcohol each. Just help us.' That's how, using our own cars, we buried these people."
Some of the only records of the accident that still exist are documents Dr. Ilyenko managed to hide in a safe. They list the names of the those who died in civilian hospitals, almost 70 people in all. She says that number doesn't include the many soldiers who would have died.

CBC Redlies 3

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/redlies3.html
The Defectors
By the time of the 1979 accident, Compound 19 was already the target of intense interest by Western intelligence agencies. In London, suspicion turned to alarm with news of the mysterious deaths in Sverdlovsk. Dr. Christopher Davis was a biological weapons expert with British intelligence.
"The professionals in the field were convinced that there was a large and growing program," Davis says. "What that program contained, where it was headed, just how complex it was, is another issue. It's difficult to accuse large buildings of bad things, you know. You've got to have someone inside them walk out and say we're doing x, y and z. And then you can say, uh huh, well we thought so."
It would take ten long years, but that's exactly what would happen, with the defection of Vladimir Pasechnik in 1989. Pasechnik was the administrative head of Biopreparat when he was whisked out of Moscow by British agents.
"I came to the conclusion that one possible way to stop the program will be bring the news about it to the Western side," Pasechnik says.
"He confirmed how much of a cover-up we'd been subject to," Davis says. "I think surprise is not quite the word; it's a sort of gulp feeling, and you think "oh dear." You've got a very strong impression of a deliberate planned program. We're talking, you know 25 to 30,000 people working on the program; uh maybe more in different capacities over a large number of years. It is sometimes difficult to convey the sheer magnitude and sophistication of it. And it's easily said oh, they had a big program. It wasn't just big, it was massive."
By the time Vladimir Pasechnik defected to Britain, Ken Alibek had risen to become Biopreparat's chief scientist. During a scientific exchange visit to the United States, Alibek came to the unsettling conclusion the U.S. was not engaging in similar biological weapons research. With the CIA's assistance, he defected to the West, bringing with him firsthand scientific knowledge of the Soviet's secret program.
"They were shocked; shocked because you know they couldn't imagine that the Soviet Union had such an enormous, very powerful and sophisticated offensive program," Alibek says.
In the years since the Sverdlovsk accident, Alibek and a research team had taken the Soviet military's anthrax and made it even more deadly. He developed a process to take ground up anthrax spores and coat each particle in plastic and resin. It kept the anthrax aloft four times longer, increasing its ability to infect people.
"The main idea was just to make it more efficient. Just, for example, using a pretty small amount of this weapon to cover as much as possible territory, populated territory, [ to kill as many people as possible.]" Alibek says.
Over remote parts of the Soviet Union, Alibek's new anthrax and other biological weapons were tested on animals. The various substances were later placed inside cantaloupe shaped balls that could be packed inside the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Richard Preston , author of books and articles on the effects of biological warfare, "It appears the Soviets had enough biowarhead material on hand to be able to knock out the top 100 cities in the United States."
"It appears that the Soviet government had developed intercontinental missile systems that were targeted on North America. They were loaded with such things as smallpox, black death, anthrax and the Marburg virus, which is a close cousin of ebola, and causes this massive hemorrhagic bleeding in human victims," Preston says.
Ken Alibek is now a consultant to the Pentagon. He has warned a Congressional committee the U.S. still has much to fear from the Russians.
"Until the Russians have provided a complete accounting of the biological weapons activities, it's very difficult to believe that they have ceased all these activities," Alibek says.
His words fell on receptive ears. The Soviet Union may have collapsed and Russian officials may insist all biological weapons research has stopped, but there are fears the Russian military may still be developing such weapons on its own.
"I see a lot of very very suspicious signs," Alibek says. "We need to understand we don't have to believe in everything that Russia says. There is a Russian expression: believe, but check. So we need to check; we need to be sure that nothing is going on."
It's one of the ironies of this massive biological weapons program that its only victims, so far, have been the Russian people themselves -- offering the world a rare human example of the horribly real effects of biological weapons.
"What we know about the effect of nuclear weapons is largely from studying what happened to human populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Preston says. "What we know about anthrax is largely what we can tell from what happened in Sverdlovsk."
In an overgrown corner of the Sverdlovsk cemetery, the forgotten shallow graves of at least some of the soldiers who died inside Compound 19. Weather and time have worn away the only bare reminder of their existence. What the world cannot yet establish is whether the program they worked for has really ended -- or continues, buried and hidden, like its victims.

CBC Redlies 4

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/redlies4.html
The Work Continues
In the spring of 1990, a limousine carrying British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was on its way to the Kremlin. A defector named Vladimir Pasechnik had just told British intelligence the Soviets have a top secret biological weapons program. Thatcher was ready to confront President Mikhail Gorbachev. Publicly their meeting was a cordial one. Privately, Thatcher accused Gorbachev of lying to the West, while secretly violating an international treaty. Gorbachev refused to confirm anything. It was just another in a long series of red lies.
Less than two years later, the Soviet Union would collapse, and with it, the elaborately constructed lies surrounding its secret biological weapons program. Boris Yeltsin, then President, would later admit his country had manufactured arsenals of deadly germs and diseases in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention. Yeltsin later tried to reassure the international community that the program was over, once and for all. Western governments have spent the better part of this decade trying to verify that claim, and they remain deeply suspicious that some kind of biological weapons program continues inside Russia today.
The Kremlin's initial attempts to reassure the West began with an offer to inspect its biological research labs. A top secret facility in Obolensk, south of Moscow, was one of the labs that had long been the target of Western suspicion. Inside these walls, scientists spent two decades turning deadly diseases like anthrax, smallpox and plague into airborne weapons. It was all part of a biological weapons empire known as Biopreparat, which, at its height, employed roughly 35,000 people. No one from the West had ever set foot here, but now with inspectors on their way, the Soviets had some cleaning up to do before company arrived.
Dr. Igor Domaradskizh was a senior scientist at the Obolensk facility when his boss, Vladimir Paseshnik, defected to Great Britain. He recalls how the Soviet government temporarily suspended their research work.
"So everything we were doing was taken under more stringent control," Domaradskizh says. "Gradually they would stop all our projects, because international inspection teams would come, one after another, to Obolensk and Koltsovo. We were forced to show these buildings and laboratories. So Paseshnik's departure put a halt to our project; officially, in any case."
The West was not easily misled. Former British intelligence agent Christopher Davis inspected the Obolensk facility. He still laughs at the excuse offered to explain away one suspicious test chamber.
"We were fully aware that they had undertaken explosive experimental work there. In other words, explosive dissemination of agents in the closed chamber," Davis says. "Anyway, so I said what are these marks here? You know, they look like explosion marks and what have you, damage etcetera. They said 'Oh no. No, that was due to one of the workmen when he put the door on, um it wouldn't go on properly, so he hit it with a hammer.' And I mean some of the things that came out. I mean if it were -- if the situation were not such, you'd have burst out laughing. I mean I think we did chuckle to ourselves. It was so absurd."
Absurd, yes. But it was a beginning. To eliminate Soviet suspicions of a secret U.S. biological weapons program, Washington invited Soviet scientists to inspect American military labs. That inspection team included Ken Alibek, the Soviet program's chief scientist and the man credited with inventing the deadliest form of anthrax ever known. Alibek had spent his entire career believing he was in a deadly biological arms race with the U.S.
"We thought the United States at least had such a program," Alibek says. "As a response to the United States program, we had to develop our own program; not just a simple program, a more powerful, more intensive, more sophisticated program."
The Soviets were brought to Fort Detrick Maryland, the headquarters of the U.S. military's biological research program. The Soviets had always suspected that this was where the U.S. secretly researched its own biological weapons, and once upon a time, those suspicions were correct. Back in the 1950's, in the earliest days of the Cold War, the U.S. not only trained its troops against biological attack, it had its own biological weapons program. Anthrax was the most popular weapon with the U.S. and its allies because it was a robust, long-lasting bacteria that killed very efficiently. The U.S., Canada and Great Britain conducted joint experiments, using a variety of animals, including rabbits, who were injected with anthrax to test its lethal power.
Those allied programs all came to an end in the early 1970's with the signing of the Biological Weapons Convention. So by the time Ken Alibek arrived at Fort Detrick, it housed only a handful of scientists conducting peaceful vaccine research. Feeling deceived by his own government, Alibek defected to the United States, providing the CIA with its most complete picture yet of the Soviet secret program.
Times were changing. The new Russian government was trying to show the West that deadly research, at labs like this one in Saratov, had come to an end. It allowed more inspections, and Biopreparat began laying off its highly skilled scientists. The U.S. realized those who remained would need to be converted to peaceful work. It came up with some money for joint vaccine research, there was even talk of exchange programs. But just as the West was finally beginning to trust Russia's intentions, a bombshell; it came from the labs at Obolensk, a facility the West thought it no longer had to worry about. While scientists here were researching improvements to Russia's anthrax vaccine, they created a deadly invention.
In the December 1997, issue of the medical journal Vaccine, the Obolensk scientists claimed to have 'inadvertently' developed a new genetically altered strain of anthrax. Its most frightening attribute, this new strain overpowers Russia's anthrax vaccine, rendering it completely useless. North America's vaccine is different. But if this new anthrax defeats one vaccine, there's a fear it could defeat the other. At Fort Detrick, the study set off alarm bells.
"The idea of genetically engineered weapons has been of concern for some time," says : Dr. Arthur Friedlander, the U.S. military's top anthrax expert. He is concerned by the implications of Russia's newly developed anthrax. 'It raises a concern that such an organism could be resistant to the U.S. vaccine if someone were to weaponize it," he says.
Fort Detrick's chief scientist, Dr. Peter Jahrling, has trouble assessing Russia's scientific motives. "That's the problem with all these biotechnology questions, is that for every offensive use, you can also cite a defensive use. It's possible to mount an offensive program under the cover of a defensive one."
If American scientists have difficulty assessing Russia's intent, Ken Alibek does not. The Russian scientists conducting this research were once his underlings at Biopreparat.
"I know them perfectly, all of them experts in developing biological weapons," Alibek says. "When they published an article regarding development of a new strain that would overcome immune system after vaccination with existing vaccines. For me the purpose of that work is clear…to develop a new agent to be used in biological weapons."
Igor Domaradskizh knows the scientists still at Bioprearat and questions their motivation. The current lead scientist was once Domadardskizh's protogee. "I don't know what can be done with anthrax so as to make the vaccine ineffective, change its genetic structure?" he says. "Maybe that's what he did, but what for? Then his work was of a military character. Such work isn't needed for peaceful goals."
After scientists at Biopreparat created their new "super anthrax," the U.S. government asked for a sample to test it against the North American vaccine. The Russians turned the request down flat.
By 2001, the U.S. had still not received a sample. But on September 4, The New York Times reported that the U.S. government was launching its own program to create genetically modified anthrax, at a laboratory of the Battelle Memorial Institute in West Jefferson, Ohio.

CBC Redlies 5

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/redlies5.html
Obolensk
The Obolensk facility is concealed within miles of pine forest. "Corpus One" is the facility's biocontainment lab centrepiece. All around it are the other rundown buildings where Biopreparat scientists spent two decades secretly developing biological weapons. It was inside these labs that scientists recently created a new genetically altered strain of anthrax that may defeat the world's vaccines; renewing suspicions that Russia continues to develop biological weapons. When we were there in 1998, our requests for interviews were rebuffed at every turn.
For a facility with nothing to hide, our arrival at Corpus One provoked a tense confrontation.
"Is it possible for us to speak with anyone from the institute about the research that goes on here?" reporter Michael Mcauliffe asked.
It began with polite denials from the facility's chief of security. Minutes later the police arrived, followed by agents of the First Security Bureau, the former KGB. Then armed soldiers emerged and surrounded our van, their presence at a peaceful civilian research facility was never explained. We were taken into custody, questioned for several hours and our cameras were seized. We managed to conceal our tapes.
"Of course it leaves us in highly suspicious," Christopher Davis says. "There was a point, in perhaps the early part of 1992, where we really thought we were going to move ahead into a new relationship, but it slid back, and retrenched attitudes in Russia. If you ask me the straight question, which I think is what you're leading to, do you think the program continues today? My answer would have to be yes."
Author Richard Preston has written several best- selling books about biological weapons, and he says Biopreparat's labs are by no means the only concern.
"There is the big question about the closed military labs in Russia; the ones that the television people will never see," Preston says. Some of them are located near the city of Kirov, not far from Moscow. These are biological facilities that are absolutely controlled by the Russian military. Is genetic engineering taking place there with scientists who are not in contact with the West? Nobody knows."

CBC Redlies 6

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/redlies6.html
More questions
Compound 19 is on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk, now called Ekaterinburg. It is one of the many secretive military complexes where deadly biological weapons were actually produced. For years, this facility churned out tonnes of lethal anthrax powder for the Soviet's secret arsenal.
Unlike Russia's scientific facilities, military facilities like Compound 19 remain top secret and closed to inspectors. No one from the West has ever been through the iron gates, so no one knows whether the production lines are still active or whether the underground vaults still contain stockpiles of biological agents.
Russia's most senior generals know the answer, and one of them has publicly suggested the military is maintaining some form of biological program. Alexandre Lebed is now a politician, but until recently, he was a prominent Russian general who rose to become Boris Yeltsin's security council chief. Answering a question once about the state of Russia's nuclear and biological arsenals, Lebed agreed "they are the weapons of wimps, but we have to preserve it; we have nothing else."
James Woolsey, former CIA director says "Russia is a chaotic place. The military often gets involved in things that they don't fully share with their political leadership." He finds the Russian military's continuing secrecy alarming.
"There has not been a long tradition of anything approaching civilian control of the military in Russia," Woolsey says. "The Russian military, historically, has not really been involved in coups and the like, but it has had a great deal of autonomy. It's difficult to assess how much of the information about what was going on with the offensive biological work had filtered up to someone like President Yeltsin or his immediate advisors. One just doesn't know."
Dr. Peter Jahrling knows that at least some of Biopreparat's former scientists are now working for the Russian military.
"Biopreparat did some cutting edge research,' Jahrling says. "They clearly had great capability and they continue to have great capability. It's very clear that some of that capability was transferred over to the ministry of defense, which was the side of the house that developed these weapons for offensive use and the delivery systems and what have you. That whole side of the house is a black box. We still have not penetrated that and I don't know that we ever will."
The prospect of Russia's military launching a biological attack on the Western world seems extremely remote these days. With the country's deepening economic crisis, Russia's leaders clearly have more important things on their mind than world domination.
Poverty poses its own threat. There are reports that some of Biopreparat's scientists haven't been paid for six months, and thousands more have been laid off, with no hope of finding jobs elsewhere.
"Certainly with the decline of Biopreparat, a lot of very capable scientists lost their jobs and some have disappeared off the screen," Jahrling says. "Where they might have surfaced and what they might be doing, is a real concern. In the nuclear arena some of their nuclear scientists have surfaced in rogue states, and there's no reason to believe that similar things have not occurred with their with their former offensive biological warfare scientists."
That potential migration is worrying Western militaries, particularly in places like the Persian Gulf. Earlier this year, Canada despatched HMCS Toronto and other military personnel to the Gulf, as the world prepared for another showdown with Saddam Hussein. Concern over his biological weapons program prompted anthrax vaccinations for all Canadian military personnel. If Russia has in fact developed a new anthrax strain capable of defeating that vaccine, how long before Saddam buys either the formula or the scientists necessary to make it a weapon?
"We would be in bad shape if we were faced with a genetically altered strain that we had not yet been able to vaccinate our military personnel against," Woolsey says.
It hasn't happened yet, but former CIA Chief James Woolsey knows it's not out of the question.
"We're not really talking rocket science here. The information, in and of itself, might be enough for someone who had reasonably capable lab techniques and so forth. An experienced individual would be even more troubling, if he or she went to work with some Mideast government, say that was supporting terrorism."
The spectre of thousands of either unemployed or unpaid Biopreparat scientists selling their know-how to rogue states sends chills through the Western intelligence community. Even though the U.S. doesn't yet fully trust the Russians, it has recently taken the controversial step of giving Biopreparat even more money, to keep at least some of those scientists employed in peaceful research. It is only two million dollars.
Author Richard Preston fears it is too little too late. "Take one of the biggest virus laboratories in Russia, Vector, which is in Siberia," he says. "At its height, it was clearly a biowarfare lab; at its height, there must have been 4,500 scientists and technicians working there. Today, maybe a thousand. Where have the other thousands gone? Some have gone into other jobs in the Russian economy. But many of them have not been employed, and it's obvious that many of them have left Russia."
"When scientists in Russia don't have an opportunity to feed their children, when they sell flowers on Moscow streets, when they don't have an opportunity to buy sometimes food for their families, of course if they've got an opportunity to sell such results, nothing would stop them," Alibek says.

CBC Redlies Time

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/time.html
Neolithic and indigenous people. Native South Americans use curare or amphibian toxins in poison darts.
Roman Empire   Soldiers catapult corpses and dead animals into besieged cities.
1346   Tatar forces besieging Kaffa (now Feodossia, Ukraine) catapult plague corpses into the city
1347-1351   Bubonic plague (the Black Death) kills 25 million people in Europe.
June 24, 1763   Capt. Ecuyer, a British officer under the command of Gen. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, distributes smallpox infected blankets to Indians during the French and Indian War in North America.
1881 Louis Pasteur develops bacterial vaccination.
1918-1919 Spanish flu kills 50 million people around the world
1925   Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of Use in War of Asphyxiating. Poisonous or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.
1932-1945   Japanese establish biological weapons program, known as Unit 731, at Pin Fan, Manchuria and other cities in China. Human experiments were used and 3,000 prisoners died.
1941   Japanese attack the city of Changteh with cholera. It is estimated 10,000 civilians and 1,700 Japanese soldiers die.
1942   British test anthrax on sheep on the Scottish island of Gruinard. The uninhabited island is still believed to be contaminated and is still off-limits.
1942   United States begins research into biological weapons
WWII Czech resistance uses anthrax as a weapon against German occupiers by spreading spores on envelopes.
1960s   Vietcong smear excrement on pungi sticks used as booby traps; the United States develops a biological warfare arsenal.

1968 U.S. conducts biological weapons tests at Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific.
1969   U.S. and U.K. officially end their 'offensive biological weapons program
May 1971- February 1973    United States destroys biological weapons stockpile.
1973    Soviet Union begins Biopreparat biological weapons program.
March 1975   Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention comes into effect
1978   Bulgarian agents assassinate Georgi Markov in London, using a ricin pellet and attempt to assassinate Vladimir Kostov.
1978 - 1980   Natural anthrax epidemic in Zimbabwe. Estimated 10,000 cases
April 2, 1979   Anthrax accident at Sverdlovsk, Russia. More than 66 civilians and an unknown number of military personnel are killed.
1980   World Health Organization eradicates smallpox. Officially, two labs have the virus, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Ivanovsky Institute in Moscow. It is believed biowarfare units may still have smallpox stocks.
1980-1988 Gulf War (Iran-Iraq)   Iraq uses chemical weapons and works on biological weapons.
1984 Soviet Union reportedly creates super plague.
1985-1989   Ken Alibek (Kanatjan Alibekov) develops creates Alibekov Anthrax, a weapons grade strain.
1989   Valdimir Pasechnick defects to the U.K. and reveals Soviet biowar program.
1990-1991 Gulf War (Desert Storm)   Iraq prepares biological weapons for possible use.
April 11,1990    U.S. and U.K. demand that the Soviet Union cease their biological weapons program. Gorbachev later 'officially' cancels the program.
January 1991   U.S. and British experts inspect a Biopreperat facility
1991   Ken Alibek quits Biopreperat and defects to the United States.
1992 Boris Yeltsin officially cancels Russia's 'offensive' weapons program
1993 NATO creates working groups on biological warfare defense.
1995    Aum Shrinikyo releases sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. AUM also researches biological weapons.
1995   U.S. accuses Russia of continuing its bioweapons program and helping Iran develop a biowar program
1996   United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) inspectors destroy Iraqi biological weapons.
1997 Soviet scientists publish details of genetically altered anthrax in Vaccine.
February, 1998   FBI arrests two men, including Larry Wayne Harris in Nevada, alleging they are carrying anthrax. They are later cleared.
March 1998   United States orders that all troops receive anthrax vaccination.
Spring 1998   Canada orders troops in the Gulf to receive anthrax vaccination.

CBC Redlies Dic

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/dic.html
BIOWAR DICTI0NARY
Aflatoxin - a toxin created by bacteria that grow on stored foods,especially peanuts, rice and cotton seeds.
Al Hakam – an Iraqi biological production facility on the Tigris River 60 kilometres southwest of Baghdad. UN inspectors say the Iraqis produced bacillus anthracis (anthrax) weapons there.
Alibekov Anthrax – a form of weapons grade anthrax, developed by Ken Alibek (Kanatjan Alibekov) that is said to be four times more deadly than natural anthrax.
Anthrax – a contagious bacterial disease that can spread from animals to man which can infect lung, intestinal and nervous system.
ATP – adenosine triphosphate. A key chemical in all living cells, which governs how the cell uses energy.
Aum Shinrikyo – The Japanese cult that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway.
Bacillus anthracis – the anthrax bacteria.
Bacteria – single cell or multicellar living creatures, with a simple nucleus, which can reproduce rapidly . Some can form themselves into a cyst when environmental conditions are harsh. Bacteria that could be used for biological warfare include anthrax, brucellosis, cholera, glanders, meningitis, plague and tularemia.
BDS - British Biological Detection System, deployed during the Gulf War. It uses luciferarse, the enzyme produced by fireflies to detect ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which is present in all living cells, as an indicator of possible biological weapons.
BIDS - Acronym for US Army's Biological Integrated Detection Systems. A detector that samples the air for biological weapons
Biopreparat - The Russian biological weapons program. The secret program involved 35,000 workers, including 9,000 scientists working at laboratories at 47 sites across the former Soviet Union.
Black Death - bubonic plague, which devastated Europe in the 14th Century AD.
Blackpox - the disease that could be caused by Ebola pox.
Botox - Botulism toxin
BWC - Biological Weapons Convention,1972
BW - Biological Warfare
CBDCOM - the U.S. Chemical and Biological Defence Command
CBIRF - the U.S. Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, an American Marine Corps. rapid response team that deals with chemical and biological warfare threats. It's been called a germ warfare 911.
Compound 19 - a secret Russian biological weapons facility at Sverdlovsk.
Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons - A 1972 treaty that prohibits the development, possession and storing of bioweapons and the development of systems to develop weapons. Short name is Biological Weapons Convention or BWC.
COLPRO - Collective Protection units for protection against chemical and biological weapons.
Corpus One - A containment building at the Russian biowarfare facility at Obolensk.
CSIS - Canadian Security Intelligence Service
CWC - Chemical Weapons Convention.
CW - Chemical weapons, including chlorine, hydrogen cyanide, mustard gas, sarin, VX.
DARPA - U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Ebolapox - A genetic combination of Ebola and smallpox, said to have been developed by Russian biological weapons experts. Parts of the Ebola virus were grafted into a smallpox virus.
Ekaterinburg – new name for the Russian city of Sverdlovsk where the anthrax disaster occurred.
Febrile Disease – a disease that causes fever.
Fomite – an object, other than food, that can convey infection, such as bedding or clothing.
FSU – Former Soviet Union.
Geneva Protocol 1925 – The 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use In War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. The first treaty to prohibit the use of biological weapons.
Glanders – a contagious bacterial disease that causes inflammation in horses, donkeys and mules.
GUOMO –Directorate of the (Russian) Ministry of Defence (Glavnoye Upravleniye Ministertvo Oborony). Russia's 12th Guomo handles nuclear weapons.
IPE - Individual Protective Equipment for chemical and biological agents.
Johnston Atoll - a U.S. open-air biological weapons test facility in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Hawaii.
JSCMAD – US Joint Service Chemical Miniature Agent Detector. A small US-developed battlefield chemical weapons detector.
LD50 - a lethal dose of a substance that kills 50 % of those infected.
Marburg virus - a virus similar to Ebola that causes a hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever and has been identified as a potential biological weapon.
MOD - Ministry of Defence (UK).
MVD - Acronym for the Russian Ministry of the Interior.
Obolensk – A Russian biowarfare facility.
Oblask – a Russian word meaning military district.
Omutninsk – A Russian biological warfare facility.
ONR – U. S. Navy Office of Naval Research.
Paralytic cobra toxin – the toxin produced by the cobra. There are reports the Russians have used recombinant DNA to introduce venom producing genes into bacteria.
Protein toxin – a small poisonous molecule, produced naturally from bacteria or plants. Botulinum toxin, most often found in contaminated food, is one of the deadliest toxins.
Rebirth Island – A Russian biological weapons testing ground in the Aral Sea, used for open-air testing of weapons.
Ricin – a highly poisonous protein toxin from castor oil plant. A weapons grade was developed by the KGB and used by the Bulgarian Secret Service to assassinate defectors.
Rickettsia – a parasitic micro-ogranism, intermediate between bacteria and viruses, often found in lice, ticks, mites and fleas that can cause typhus or Q-fever, which has flu-like symptoms.
Sergiyev Posad – A Russian Ministry of Defence biological weapons northeast of Moscow.
Slaman Pak – An Iraqi biological weapons facility.
Smallpox - Smallpox was used as a biological weapon against Native Americans by distribution of infected blankets during the French and Indian War, 1754-67.
State Research Center for Applied Microbiology – A Russian biological research facility, suspected of working on biological weapons, especially bubonic plague.
Tularemia – a bacterial disease common in rodents that is spread by fleas and ticks. It can infect humans, causing fever, enlarged lymph glands, depression and loss of weight. The Russians created Schu-4, a weapons grade strain of tulaermia.
UNIT 731 - A Japanese biological warfare unit during the Second World War that carried out experiments on local Chinese and on allied prisoners of war.
USAMRIID – U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases.
Variola major – the virus that causes smallpox
Vector – a Russian virology research institute near Novosibirsk in western Siberia. It was dedicated to the creation of virus weapons.
VEE – Venezuelan equine encephalitis, a brain virus that causes headaches and a coma, but is not usually fatal.
Vibrio cholerae – the bacteria that causes cholera.
Virus – an often infectious living creature, the simplest known life-form smaller than a bacteria, consisting of an outer coat and containing a few strands of nucleic acid.

CBC Redlies Links

Visit www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/redlies/links.html
(links to be added)
Biological Weapons FAQ
A personal website with an interest in US political issues and biological weapons.
ASA Newsletter - 98-2
Applied Science and Analysis newsletter.
Biological and Toxin Weapons Verification Program
The Federation of American Scientists' Program on BTW Verification has functioned on two fronts: (a) developing technical and political confidence-building measures to encourage all signatories to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) to abide by its spirit as well as by its terms and (b) exploring ways to prevent further proliferation of biotechnology for military applications through a legally binding protocol that will contain both verification measures and incentives.
U.S. Army SFREP - Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases Page
Page for the U.S. Army Summer Faculty Research and Engineering Program at Ft. Detrick
Participating US Army Research organizations.
Fort Detrick - Home Page
Ft. Detrick is a US Army Medicine Installation that is home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and 36 other tenant organizations including the US Army Medical Reseach Institute for Infectious Diseases
Interaction
Article on defending the United States against biological attack from the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Jane's Information Group: News: Defence, geopolitical, transport and police info
Janes publishes a number of defence and military related magazines, with search capabilities for extensive information on biological warfare.
The Bioweaponeers
Major article from the New Yorker on Ken Alibek and the Soviet/Russians biological weapons program.
BG1182: Microbes and Mass Casualties: Defending America Against Bioterrorism
Article on defending the United States against biological attack from the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Biological and toxin weapons: Introduction and overview
Website created for a European Federation on Biotechnogy conference.
Biowar treaty in danger
Article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Terrorism's New Breed
Are today's terrorists more likely to use chemical and biological weapons? Article from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
The Ebola Virus
A background page on the Ebola virus
CSIS - Main Menu
Home page for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The Government of Sverdlovsk region.
Home page for Sverdlovsk (in Russian)
Ekaterinburg ReLIZ: Official Site of Sverdlovsk Oblast Government
Home page for the Sverdlovsk Oblast (region) in English

CBC Anthrax

Visit www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/us_strikingback/backgrounders/anthrax_smallpox_faqs.html
Anthrax and Smallpox
John Bowman & Sabrina Saccoccio, CBC News Online | October 2001
Are there different strains of anthrax?

There are hundreds of different strains of anthrax bacteria, most are no more deadly than any other soil bacteria. About 10 strains are used regularly in American laboratories.
Officials initially reported that the strain of anthrax sent to the U.S. Senate was especially "potent." Health authorities later stated that the strain was not particularly virulent and was easily treated with antibiotics.
Some strains of anthrax do produce toxins that are stronger than others, and some are more resistant to certain antibiotics and vaccines.
The Ames strain is the one most commonly used in veterinary and medical labs to develop vaccines and tests for anthrax. While this strain is resistant to some vaccines, it can be easily killed with antibiotics.
It is possible to compare the DNA of one sample of anthrax bacteria to another. Different strains have different genetic markers that are particular to that strain.
Yet there is still disagreement as to whether it is possible to track a strain to its geographical origin, even to a particular lab if the strain is rare. Some scientists say it can be done, however other experts say that, since the same strain can come from any one of hundreds of different sources, it would be difficult to make a match.
Has Iraq developed anthrax weapons?
About 10 countries have experimented with anthrax as a biological weapon, including the United States, Russia, Iraq and North Korea. Only Iraq has made large amounts of the bacteria recently.
After the 1991 Gulf War, the UN sent inspection teams into Iraq to dismantle its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Some suspect, however, that Iraq still has a large stockpile of anthrax weapons.
Iraq originally made its anthrax weapons based on a liquid spray, an ineffective method of dispersal. They have since attempted to refine their weapons, using a dry powder instead.
Is it true smaller spores of anthrax are more dangerous?
To infect someone with the most deadly form of anthrax, the bacteria spores would have to be freeze-dried and ground down to a fine powder that can easily be inhaled.
Anthrax spores tend to clump together, so the spores would have to be treated with a detergent to keep the clumps small.
The spores found at the U.S. Senate are said to be small and uniform in size, suggesting a certain degree of sophistication in the manufacturing process.
"This wasn't the stuff that some amateur cooked up in a fermenter in his bathroom," said Richard Butler, the former head of the UN inspection agency sent to Iraq, in a TV interview.
Anthrax spores, even small ones, don't stay in the air for very long. Because anthrax is a soil bacterium, the spores are meant to fall to the ground.
For this reason, putting anthrax spores into a building's ventilation system would not be an effective way to spread the disease.
The people working in the Soviet bioweapons program realized this would be a problem and, in the 1980s, developed a resin coating for anthrax spores that kept them in the air longer.
Is Cipro the only treatment for anthrax?
Many antibiotics, including penicillin, will treat anthrax. Ciprofloxacin, or Cipro, has become a sort of celebrity drug, like Viagra before it, featured on TV news programs and in David Letterman monologues.
Demand for the drug, even among healthy people, has skyrocketed. Pharmacists in Tijuana, Mexico, where Cipro is available over the counter, say sales of the drug have doubled.
Taking antibiotics without a medical reason only helps bacteria become resistant to the drug. Antibiotics also have potential serious side effects, such as irregular heart beat and digestive problems.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAQ: Wasn't smallpox eradicated?
After a world-wide vaccination campaign, there have been no cases of naturally-occurring smallpox since 1977. The last recorded instance was in Somalia in October of that year. However, about a year ago Russia's Ministry of Health confirmed eight kids got sick in Vladivostok, Russia, from playing with discarded vaccine containers.
What's the difference between smallpox and its vaccine?
The smallpox vaccine is different from the smallpox virus. Edward Jenner introduced the vaccine — Vaccinia virus — in 1798 from what was probably cowpox. The vaccine belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox and, like the disease, is contagious through human contact. Being injected with a bit of the vaccine virus is meant to create at least temporary immunity to smallpox or Variola major. Long ago, mothers used a similar trick by putting dried smallpox scabs (a symptom of the virus) in the nostrils of their healthy babies.
After exposure to smallpox, there is an incubation period ranging from seven to 17 days. Symptoms begin with high fever, fatigue, headaches and back pain, followed by a rash on the face, arms and legs a few days later. The rash starts out flat and red and transforms to pus-filled lesions that crust in two weeks, and scab and fall off in three to four weeks.
Is there a cure for smallpox and how long does the vaccination last?
Although no cure exists for smallpox, if vaccinated within four days of exposure patients can recover. Routine smallpox vaccination campaigns ended in 1972. Intravenous fluids, fever medicine, painkillers and antibiotics for secondary infections all help. And despite media reports that say smallpox is "widely considered the most deadly biological weapon," most people with smallpox do recover. About 30 per cent of patients with smallpox die, compared to a biological weapon like pneumonic plague that kills 50 to 90 per cent.
Edward Jenner claimed his vaccination lasted for life but officially it's effective for three years when there's no smallpox around and about a year when there's a full-blown epidemic. Moreover, vaccines are preventative rather than 100 per cent effective. Routine campaigns in children are 85 to 90 per cent effective.
But no vaccine is without its risks. There are side effects to any vaccination, including smallpox. Health Canada's data sheet on the vaccine lists various complications, such as encephalitis (inflation of the brain), secondary infections and rashes. It also says people who are vaccinated can pass the virus on to people who are not. And some individuals are immunocompromised (have immune systems that can't handle even small amounts of the virus). For example, people with eczema experience serious side effects. Health Canada's data also find death is most often the result of those who develop encephalitis from the vaccine or are immunocompromised and get vaccinated. However, the risk of all of these side effects is extremely low.
Does smallpox or its vaccine still exist anywhere?
Although smallpox doesn't exist as an epidemic anymore, two labs still store the virus. These are the World Health Organization (WHO)-collaborating centres in Atlanta, Georgia, and Koltsovo, Russia. After years of discussion within the WHO, a destruction date for the virus was chosen — June 30, 1999 — but later put aside to allow studies of the virus to continue.
Many countries have stores of the smallpox vaccine. The United States currently has 15.4 million doses. Health Minister Allan Rock says Canada has 380,000 doses left over from the 1970s and is considering whether to buy another 30 million doses.
The WHO recommends the countries keep the vaccine around for four reasons. One: People working in labs handling the virus need vaccination. Two: Treatment for some strains of the vaccine (Vaccinia) that infect animals, such as the cowpox variety. Three: Researchers refer to the vaccine to make new doses against other diseases. Four: In case of a "deliberate or accidental" release of smallpox.
Governments talk of starting smallpox vaccinations again. How will that process occur?
American health officials say it would take six to nine months to amass hundreds of millions of doses of the smallpox vaccine. A report released in February 2001 called the Canadian Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) says all levels of government need to be involved in prophylaxis considerations in order to avert a resurgence of smallpox. It says government officials, emergency services and the public must prepare together or else inefficiency and panic will occur. An inefficient response to deadly micro-organisms usually results in more people being infected. Speed in distribution of vaccines and co-ordination between respective agencies would reduce the spread of naturally-occurring or bioterrorist-induced smallpox.
How would smallpox be spread?
People contract smallpox through face-to-face contact, passed through infected saliva droplets. It's most contagious during the first week of the illness but can be transmitted until all the scabs have fallen off. According to the CCDR, smallpox could spread pretty quickly because the incubation period can be as long as 17 days.
Dr. Leonard Cole, author of The Eleventh Plague told CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks in 1998 that anyone with a basic understanding of microbiology and several thousand dollars worth of equipment can start a bio-weapons lab, but it is extremely difficult to deliver a biological agent like smallpox. One method of delivery may be through an aerosol cloud, yet changes in weather conditions make this completely unpredictable.

CBC Bioterrorism

Visit www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/bioterrorism.html
Biological Warfare
(Source link above)
Amina Ali and John Bowman, CBC News Online | Sept. 26, 2001
The use of biological and chemical weapons is considered the most heinous type of warfare. When it was first tried on a large scale in 1915, at Ypres, France, against French, Algerian and Canadian troops, the German High Command had a hard time finding officers who would participate in the use of poison gas against an enemy. It was considered unchivalrous, indiscriminate, dangerous and possibly setting a precedent for reprisal. Not to mention illegal, under The Hague convention on rules of warfare.
Nowadays, the idea of taking advantage of the ability of bacteria to reproduce, mutate and produce toxins makes some experts fear the use of biological weapons more than nuclear weapons.
Here's a look at biological and chemical weapons, their history and application in warfare.
What are biological and chemical weapons?
Biological weapons are naturally occurring organisms that cause disease. The two most common examples are the bacteria Bacillus anthracis, which produces a toxin, and smallpox, a highly infectious viral disease.
Chemical weapons are poisons such as mustard gas and nerve gases like sarin.
How do biological and chemical weapons work?
Anthrax bacteria produce shell-like spores that allow them to live in a dormant state in soil. When used as a weapon, the spores enter the lungs where they are carried into the blood and immune systems. The spores become active, reproduce in large numbers and release a devastating toxin that is lethal to cells. If enough spores are inhaled, it can kill.
MORE: Who were the first to use it?
Chemical/
Organism Symptoms Mortality Treatment
Sarin gas
Colourless, odourless gas. Attacks nervous system Blurred vision, chest tightness, nausea, vomiting, convulsion, heart rate fluctuations, loss of conscious- ness, seizure, eventual paralysis and death Can kill within two to 15 minutes of exposure. Extremely toxic Compressed oxygen, forced oxygen mask. Immediate de- contamination and life support
Anthrax
Two forms: pulmonary (more deadly) and cutaneous, relatively large, spore-forming bacteria found in soil Initial symptoms are fever, malaise, fatigue then respiratory distress, septic shock If vaccin- ated before exposure and treated with antibiotics after exposure then good chance of survival. Death within 24 or 36 hours without vaccine and very quick, heavy dose of antibiotics Penicillin but bacteria may be resistant. Vaccines available
Smallpox
Highly infectious viral disease. Last recorded naturally-occurring case eradicated in 1977 after aggressive worldwide vaccination campaign Influenza-like symptoms. Rash spreading over body. Pus-filled blisters develop. Complications: blindness, pneumonia, kidney damage Unvaccinated mortality rate is about 30 per cent Early treatment with vaccine (availability limited)
Ricin
Toxin derived from castor bean Toxicity only exceeded by botulinus and tetanus toxins Nausea, muscle spasms, fever vomiting, convulsions, death. Fluid build-up in lungs leads to respiratory distress Takes effect in few hours, can kill in three days. No antitoxin or vaccine available
Botulism
Neurotoxin released by bacteria Clostridium botulinum Most poisonous substance known. Associated naturally with rotting food in infected cans If toxin is ingested or breathed in, symptoms of nerve disruption occur. Cold, flu-like symptoms with trace of numbness in lips, fingertips, double vision, chest paralysis. Death from respiratory failure Untreated mortality nearly 100 per cent. Treated mortality 25 per cent. Recovery complete but slow (months). Quick administration of antitoxin essential
Pneumonic plague
Rare result of bubonic plague Caused by infected flea bite. If turns into pneumonic plague then becomes contagious and virulent form of pneumonia. Symptoms include fever, chills, cough, difficulty breathing, and rapid shock 50 to 90 per cent if untreated; 15 per cent when diagnosed and treated for all plagues Antibiotic treatment as soon as possible
Tularaemia or rabbit fever
Biological infection of wild animals in the Northern Hemisphere In humans bitten by ticks by contact with infected animal tissue Incubation period of 2 to 10 days. High fever, skin reaction where bitten or scratched, aching, swollen glands Fatal in about 5 per cent of cases. Without treatment, risk of death can jump to more than 30 per cent, depending on the form of the disease Treated with antibiotics. No vaccine available
Sources: AP, EPA, CDC
Who were the first to use biological weapons?
The history of biological weapons is surprisingly long. Almost as soon as humans figured out how to make arrows, they were dipping them in animal feces to poison them.
The Roman Empire used animal carcasses to contaminate their enemies' wells. This had the effect of both demoralizing their enemies and making them sick. And a demoralized, sick army is an easier one to beat. This strategy was used again in Europe's many wars, in the American Civil War and even into the 20th century.
Carthaginian leader Hannibal is credited with an interesting use of biological weapons in 184 BC. In anticipation of a naval battle with the Pergamenes, he ordered his troops to fill clay pots with snakes. During the battle, Hannibal sent the pots crashing down on the deck on the Pergamene ship. The confused Pergamenes lost the battle, having to fight both Hannibal's forces and a ship full of snakes.
In 1346, Tartar forces led by Khan Janibeg attacked the city of Kaffa, catapulting the plague-infected bodies of their own men over the city's walls. Using dead bodies and excrement as weapons continued in Europe during the Black Plague of the 14th and 15th centuries. Even as late as the early 18th century, Russian troops fighting Sweden resorted to catapulting plagued bodies over the city walls of Reval.
Biological warfare came to the New World in the 15th century. Spanish conquistador Pizarro gave clothing contaminated with the smallpox virus to natives in South America. Britain's Lord Jeffery Amherst continued the practice into the late 18th century, spreading smallpox among Native Americans during the French-Indian War by giving them blankets that had been used at a hospital treating smallpox victims.
In the First World War, the Germans used poison gas on their Eastern and Western fronts after 1915. They were also accused of infecting livestock with the bacteria that cause anthrax and glanders and shipping them to enemy countries, but no hard evidence of this could be found.
In 1918, the Japanese military formed a special unit to investigate biological weapons. Britain and the United States followed in 1942, even after the signing of the Geneva Convention prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons, because of fears that the Germans and Japanese were developing them. The U.S. ended its program in 1969.
In 1972, 103 countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibited the development of biological and chemical weapons, as well as their use. Even so, both Russia and Iraq are known to have developed biological weapons since the convention.
The Biological Weapons Convention still allows for research into defences, such as vaccines, against biological weapons. Early in September 2001, the Pentagon announced it was developing a deadly new form of anthrax, for defensive research.
How easy are biological weapons to get and use?
The agents of biological warfare are surprisingly easy to find. Anthrax and botulism are caused by common soil bacteria. The smallpox virus, on the other hand, was eradicated in 1977, the only remaining cultures kept under tight security in Atlanta, Georgia and Koltsovo, Russia. Despite this, experts in biological weapons still consider smallpox a threat.
Some experts say the ease with which biological weapons can be created is their most frightening property. Dr. Leonard Cole, author of The Eleventh Plague told CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks in 1998 that anyone with a basic understanding of microbiology and several thousand dollars' worth of equipment can start a bio-weapons lab.
But Michael Moodie, president of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, speaking with CBC Morning in September, said that developing biological weapons is not as easy as it is portrayed in the media.
Moodie says the resources of a government and scientific expertise are needed for a viable biological weapons program. Not only would a group have to isolate and culture an agent, but they would have to contain and deliver the agent.
Containing an agent is the most troublesome part of using biological weapons, and one of the most important reasons they haven't been widely used. The bacteria and viruses don't discriminate between an ally and a foe, and the so-called boomerang effect, the biological agent affecting those who released it, is a common occurrence.
Delivering a biological agent is difficult, as well. Spreading a disease through the air would most likely involve delivering it in an aerosol cloud. Any change in the weather would make the behaviour of that cloud completely unpredictable.

CNS

Visit http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol09/91/91whee.htm
(Source: Link above)
Biotechnology and Biochemical Weapons
Mark Wheelis[1]
Dr. Mark Wheelis is Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of California (UC), Davis, where he has been teaching in the field since 1970 and is also Director of the Program in Nature and Culture. He has authored numerous pieces on the history of biological warfare and the control of biological weapons, including two chapters on biological warfare in Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (Oxford University, 1999). Dr. Wheelis has also developed a website devoted to the threat of agricultural biowarfare and bioterrorism for the Federation of American Scientists.
Biomedical sciences and the pharmaceutical industry are in the midst of a revolution in the science and technology of drug discovery that will significantly complicate the control of chemical and biological weapons (CBW). The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)[2] and the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC)[3] prohibit the development and possession of these weapons, and the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits their use.[4] All three treaties are thus threatened by these technological developments. Scientists in fields that are contributing to this revolution must understand these implications of their work. Likewise, arms control experts must recognize that there is a profound revolution underway in biology and that the technical landscape of chemical and biological arms control is rapidly changing.[5] This article seeks to bridge the gap between science and arms control, in order to raise awareness in both fields of the potential ramifications that this scientific and technological revolution may have on CBW proliferation.
New drugs have traditionally been discovered by screening naturally occurring compounds for biological activity in bacterial or viral cultures, tissue cultures, or live animals. Once a compound with biological activity was discovered, it would be chemically modified in various ways in the hopes that one of the variants would have increased activity. Sometimes the spectrum of effectiveness seen with the variants would suggest the critically important chemical features of the molecule (e.g., the ß_lactam ring of the penicillins and cephalosporins), allowing a semi-rational approach to further modification.
For scientists seeking to develop new drugs, the principal bottleneck used to be discovering the initial compounds for screening; however, significant technological advances have now alleviated this problem, and further significant advances are on the horizon. Currently, new compounds are generated in large numbers by combinatorial methods and assayed for potential activity by ultra-high-throughput screening techniques. In the future, genomic and proteomic methods (described in more detail below) will encourage increasing use of computer modeling techniques to identify new drugs. These same scientific developments will also rapidly deepen our understanding of physiological processes in both healthy and diseased states. This understanding will provide the necessary knowledge base for identifying new drug targets and for predicting the consequences of interfering with their normal functioning.
While the drivers of this revolution are to a large extent methodological, the result is a shift in the underlying strategy of drug discovery. Rather than first identifying compounds with biological activity and then determining their mode of action, the new approaches generally rely on identifying likely targets first, then finding compounds that can bind to them and affect their functioning. Drug targets are usually proteins (which are responsible for most of the activities of living organisms) that have binding sites on their surfaces that normally bind specifically to particular compounds (called ligands). Drugs (and many toxins) generally bind in place of the natural ligands and alter the ability of proteins to perform their normal function. Increasingly, the strategy is to identify particular proteins that, because of their function in the body, are likely drug targets, and then to use the techniques described here to find artificial ligands that bind to them. Thus the process is becoming less empirical and more rational, a trend that will accelerate as our physiological understanding deepens. These trends have significant implications for chemical and biological weapons control, because they are driving a rapid increase in the identification and development of new potential CBW agents. The pace of this technological revolution threatens to outstrip current biological and chemical arms control treaties, and it opens up new possibilities for states and terrorist groups seeking to develop biological and chemical weapons.
This article will review the principal technologies involved in this revolution in the drug discovery process, and point out their relevance to the discovery of new chemical/biological weapons agents.These technologies include: combinatorial chemistry, genomics, microarrays, proteomics, toxicogenomics, and database mining. The relevance of these developments to CBW control under the CWC and the BWC are then discussed, with particular attention to the destabilizing effect of non-lethal weapons development. It concludes with an evaluation of what is needed to prevent a renewed biochemical weapons threat.
THE CBW IMPLICTIONS OF THE PHARMACOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
Combinatorial Chemistry and Ligand Identification
The increasingly widespread use of combinatorial chemistry is one technology driving the pharmacological revolution. Combinatorial chemistry refers to techniques that produce complex sets ("libraries") of related compounds.[6] Typically it involves multiple rounds of reaction between a base compound and other compounds that can react with it, which may in turn provide additional reactive sites. If the process is sequential, batteries of computer controlled microreactors perform each synthesis by adding appropriate reactants and catalysts, and the products then provide starting material for the next round of synthesis. The result of a number of rounds of robotic synthesis and separation is a library of hundreds to thousands of separate, related compounds. Each can then be tested for biological activity against a target—purified protein molecules, tissue cultures, microbial cells, etc. The screening techniques are conducted robotically, allowing extremely high throughput rates.[7]
If the reactions are simultaneous, the result is a mixture of all products, typically thousands to tens of thousands of different compounds. Ligand binding to a target protein can be detected by affinity selection methods: the library is incubated with the target protein, which is then separated from unbound small molecules by micro-scale molecular sieving.[8] Bound ligands are then separated from the protein and identified.
Currently, a single industrial research facility can screen several hundred thousand new compounds per day against several dozen different proteins. In aggregate, the pharmaceutical industry is screening several million new potential ligands per year, and the results are stored in proprietary databases. In the course of toxicity testing of ligands identified in this way, about 50,000 compounds are identified each year that are highly toxic.[9] For the pharmaceutical company, such toxic compounds have little potential as drugs and further development is halted. However, any one of these is a potential lethal chemical weapon (CW) agent.
Genomics and Target Identification
With the complete sequence of the human genome nearly in hand, and with many hundreds of different single-nucleotide polymorphisms (individual sequence variations) identified, a new set of drug development techniques is becoming available to scientists.[10] Genomic sequences allow the identification of many new possible targets for drugs. For instance, many currently effective drugs target either ion channels or membrane receptor proteins. Many new proteins of these types are being identified in genomic sequences, since they have homology to already identified proteins. Others possess features that are easily recognized in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequences (e.g., transmembrane domains, ATP- or GTP-binding domains, etc). Once a new target has been identified, the gene can be cloned and the protein produced in quantity for study and for use in screening combinatorial libraries. Thus, as genomic sequences are annotated (assigned a function), the number of potential targets for pharmaceutical development will skyrocket. So too will the potential targets for novel CW agents.
Microarrays and the Measurement of Gene Expression
How genes are expressed into ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequences, and then (usually) proteins, can be important information. The conditions under which genes are expressed at high levels can give hints to their function (important because many genes identified in genomic sequences have unknown functions). Furthermore, comparison of the levels of expression can give an indication of possible therapeutic targets. For instance, genes expressed at high levels in cancer cells but not in normal tissue would be potential targets for anticancer drugs; and microbial genes that are turned on during infection of a host would be potential targets for antimicrobial drugs.
Such differential gene expression is now readily measured using DNA microarrays—glass slides or silicon chips on which thousands of DNA sequences are imprinted. Each spot on the microarray contains millions of identical single-stranded DNA molecules, whose sequence matches that of one of the genes of the organism being tested. A single slide can have tens of thousands of spots, representing each gene of the organism.
These microarrays are exposed to fluorescently-labeled RNA (or a DNA copy of the RNA) from an organism, and then the amount that hybridizes with each gene is measured by determining the amount of fluorescence from each spot. With this method, the cellular levels of expression under a range of conditions can be readily measured, aiding an understanding of the cellular function and importance of each gene, and pointing to the most likely targets of new drug (or weapons agent) design.
Proteomics and Rational Agent Design
Proteomics is the study of the full complement of proteins of the cell.[11] Unlike the genome, the proteome is intrinsically dynamic: the cellular complement of proteins changes throughout the cell cycle in every cell, is different in different tissues, and can alter in response to environmental changes. Some of these changes can be measured by DNA microarrays, but some of them are the consequence of modification of proteins after synthesis and can only be studied at the protein level.
Much of proteomics is currently concerned with identifying cellular proteins using two-dimensional gels and mass spectrometry, matching them to their genes in genomic sequences, and determining their interactions with other proteins.[12] These efforts will complement genomics in helping to understand pathological states and to identify promising targets for new drug design.
Protein microarrays are under rapid development; a nearly complete microarray of the yeast proteome was recently produced.[13] Comparable human proteome chips are on the horizon, as well as ones for a variety of other organisms of interest. Protein microarrays, combined with combinatorial chemistry, will dramatically broaden the search for new ligand-target combinations with therapeutic (or weapons) applications. They also allow the identification of protein-protein interactions, a critical part of cellular communication systems, and another possible set of drug/weapon targets.
Furthermore, rapid progress is being made in predicting protein three-dimensional structure from genomic sequences.[14] It is now possible to predict the structure of simple proteins with fairly high accuracy, as well as that of more complex proteins when they are homologous to proteins whose structure has been determined experimentally. In the near future it should be possible for most protein structures to be predicted with a high degree of accuracy from their genomic sequences alone. Knowing the structure of the active site allows rational design of ligands with a shape and charge distribution that is precisely complementary to it. This computer modeling approach to drug design promises to complement, and probably eventually supplant, traditional wet chemistry methods of ligand identification (although of course any design has to then be validated by traditional experimental approaches). The same techniques would allow rational design of new weapon agents.
Toxicogenomics, Database Mining, and the Prediction of Toxicity
Most drug candidates are eliminated in clinical trials due to toxicity problems. Since this constitutes a significant cost to the pharmaceutical companies, there is intense interest in predictive algorithms for toxicity, so that toxic compounds can be eliminated before they enter clinical trials. Of course, exactly the same approach would be useful if the goal were to develop more toxic compounds.
Two approaches have shown significant promise. First, toxicogenomics employs proteomic and microarray techniques to analyze the response of cells to known toxins.[15] If the changes in patterns of gene expression or in the proteome induced by a novel compound are similar to the response to known toxins, the likelihood is that the new compound will prove to be toxic. This allows probable toxins to be screened out at an earlier stage; however, it also allows early identification of potential new biochemical warfare agents.
Second, the analysis (using sophisticated neural network approaches) of databases of drugs and nondrugs allows the selection of a range of descriptors that together can predict whether a compound is likely to be drug-like (pharmacologically active, with low toxicity), or non-drug-like (not pharmacologically active or toxic).[16] Similar algorithms could possibly predict compounds with a variety of other desirable traits for novel biochemical weapons agents, in addition to high toxicity.
THE RATE OF PROGRESS IS VERY HIGH AND ACCELERATING
An immense amount of time and money are being invested into these biomedical fields, and the rate of discovery is very rapid. Furthermore, this is a field in which fundamentally new methodologies are one of the principal drivers. Since new methods open up entire new categories of questions, they act to stimulate the rate of progress significantly.
The intellectual base of the methodologies is supported by an immensely sophisticated and rapidly growing micro-scale instrumentation and computational base. The computer-controlled reaction vessels, ultrahigh throughput screens, robotic microarray printers and readers, time-of-flight mass spectrometers, high speed sequencers, and other devices have been critical to the development of the field. So, too, has the exponential growth of computer speed and memory, as well as the sophistication of software, since all of these laboratory technologies depend on computers for the collection and analysis of data. Indeed, bioinformatics is probably now the rate-limiting technology, as the flood of genomic and proteomic data is overwhelming the capacity to integrate and understand it.
The intellectual momentum of this science is immense and clearly unstoppable. Thus a very large number of new, highly toxic compounds with precisely understood and controllable physiological effects will soon be discovered. Many of these will enter production as drugs or as research reagents. The range of known potential CW agents will thus broaden by a very large factor in a very short period of time, and most of them will be synthesized from precursors that are not currently regulated under the CWC.
THE PROBLEM OF NON-LETHAL AGENTS UNDER THE CWC
The CWC allows states to possess chemical agents and delivery systems designed for riot control and other law enforcement purposes. Non-lethal chemical agents are otherwise illegal: the Convention defines a CW agent as "any chemical, which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals."
Furthermore, the CWC explicitly prohibits the use of riot control agents "as a method of warfare." However, at least one State Party (the United States) has interpreted this wording as limiting the prohibition to interstate armed conflict.[17] This reading leaves open a wide variety of military operations in which such agents could be legally used, including counterterrorism, peacekeeping, monitoring, and the like. Given the potential tactical utility of non-lethal chemical agents in such "military operations other than war," their development, and the development of munitions to deliver them, is being actively pursued. Unless the States Parties to the CWC can reach consensus that the prohibition of riot control agent use covers a much wider range of hostile actions than merely international military conflict, there is certain to be widespread development of this capability.
New "riot control" agents are likely to be of a variety of different kinds.[18] Neuropharmacology is one of the areas in which rapid expansion of knowledge can be confidently predicted. The toll of mental illness, and the growing promise of chemical treatment, makes it certain that a wide range of new psychoactive chemicals will be discovered, as well as chemicals that affect transmission across neuro-muscular and neuro-endocrine synapses. It is likely that in the near future a range of agents will be developed that affect perception, sensation, cognition, emotion, mood, volition, bodily control, or alertness. Given the great potential for such agents to be abused, it would be prudent to delay arming the militaries of the world with them until their long-term implications have been carefully analyzed.
In fact, a categorical distinction between lethal and non-lethal chemical agents is not strictly possible, since "non-lethal" agents may be lethal at high concentration or for specific individuals. More seriously, synergy between two different non-lethal agents may make their combination highly lethal. The molecular techniques I have discussed will soon allow rational strategies to discover such synergistic pairs. Thus the development of multiple non-lethal agents may provide a lethal CW capability, in violation of the intent of the Convention.
Furthermore, allowing states to develop stockpiles of incapacitating chemical agents and munitions for their delivery in combat situations would defeat one of the fundamental purposes of the Convention: to prevent states from entering wars with a stockpile of CW whose use is proscribed, but which might nevertheless be considered under the doctrine of military necessity.
Finally, a legal development program of new riot control agents would provide a nearly impenetrable cover for a covert development program for new lethal agents, thus reducing the capacity of the international community and the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to detect violations of the CWC. For all of these reasons, continued development of non-lethal CW threatens the stability of the regime.
RELEVANCE OF THE BWC
A better case can be made that the BWC prohibits non-lethal biochemical weapons, although it, too, possesses weaknesses. It prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons (BW) agents and delivery devices, as the CWC does for CW, but it lacks the CWC's verification provisions. Furthermore, the scope of its terms "microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production" is ambiguous. However, there appears to be a consensus that "other biological agents" includes all of the biochemical products of the living body that in abnormal doses can be used as toxins, including bioregulators, neurotransmitters, and hormones.[19] Since the final document of the Second Review Conference affirmed that the Convention applied to analogues of toxins as well as to their native form, it would seem that the BWC would apply to all of the biochemical compounds whose discovery I discuss here.[20] Since their activity is a function of their ability to bind specifically to an active site on a protein, they are by definition analogues of the natural ligands and thus covered by the BWC. As toxic chemicals, they are also covered by the CWC. The BWC and the CWC thus overlap quite substantially, and the term "biochemical" weapon agents can be used to describe toxic chemicals in this overlap category.
The BWC prohibits the possession of devices designed to employ biological agents "for hostile purposes or in armed combat." It thus contains a more expansive prohibition than the CWC—hostile purpose is clearly a broader category than armed conflict, which is, in turn, broader than war. Furthermore, there are no exclusions in the BWC for riot control or for other law enforcement purposes. For these reasons, it would appear that the agents outlined here would be categorically prohibited by the BWC.
States Parties might argue that domestic riot control is necessary to preserve the public peace and thus legal under the BWC general purpose criteria of allowing "protective, prophylactic, or other peaceful purposes." However, an equally strong case could be made that even domestic riot control should be considered a hostile use, given the very general prohibition on hostile purposes beyond armed conflict, and that BW are not to be used even here. The BWC would, like the CWC, benefit from constructive Review Conference consideration of the boundary between permitted and prohibited activities.
CONCLUSION
The emerging biotechnology of drug discovery promises great advances in medicine, biology, psychology, and a host of related sciences. However, the same tools that are revolutionizing drug discovery can be used to discover novel biochemical agents for the purpose of weaponization. Related developments in chemistry and chemical engineering have similar implications.[21]
Most of these novel agents will be synthesized from unlisted precursors and will be nearly invisible to the verification regime of the CWC, although their development, production, and stockpiling will be unambiguously prohibited. Containing proliferation will thus become significantly more difficult, especially in states with mature biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Given the rapid dissemination of industrial biotechnology, this will soon include a very large number of States Parties.
Effective responses from the Conference of States Parties and the OPCW will be difficult. Certainly a willingness to revise the "Schedules of Chemicals" regulated by the CWC as the need arises will be essential. Vigilance will be necessary, especially during inspections of production facilities that produce discrete organic chemicals. States Parties with the capability may be able to use intelligence and national technical means to detect covert CW programs. This capability, coupled with a willingness to employ challenge inspections, could serve to some extent as a deterrent. In the end, however, the only effective long-term solution is a universal norm against such weapons, which can only be reached via sustained efforts for universality of both Conventions and transparency in chemical and biological defense programs.
Equally threatening is the interest of some States Parties in the development of non-lethal CW in the guise of riot control agents, and their assertion that such development is not prohibited as long as the agents are not intended for use in hostilities between states. This position opens the door to the widespread development, production, and stockpiling of non-lethal chemical agents and munitions designed for their use in military combat. This is clearly contrary to the intentions of the CWC.
If states want to avoid the widespread integration of non-lethal biochemical agents into military arsenals, with all the problems that this will bring, they will need to act decisively to affirm that one or both of the Conventions prohibits all military use of these agents (except perhaps for narrowly specified purposes, such as domestic riot control). Obviously, such an affirmation of the understanding of the meaning of the BWC or the CWC would require consensus; the States Parties that are now engaged in non-lethal weapons development would have to acquiesce in an affirmation that would force them to abandon their efforts.
Even if a consensus were to be reached, it would still be a challenging problem to distinguish the legal development of new riot control agents (if this is allowed under the BWC) from the prohibited development of new non-lethal biochemical weapons. Probably the best curb on the development of a military capability to wage chemical warfare with riot control agents would be to circumscribe legal munitions and delivery devices to those that are already in common use by police forces worldwide.
[1] Thanks to Dr. Lynn Klotz for helpful suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Workshop on the Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, Oegstgeest, Netherlands, June 2001.
[2] The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction opened for signature in Paris on January 13, 1993, and entered into force on April 29, 1997.
[3] The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction opened for signature in Washington DC, London, and Moscow on April 10, 1972, and entered into force on March 26, 1975.
[4] The Protocol Prohibiting the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed in Geneva on June 17, 1925, and entered into force on February 8, 1928.
[5] Claire M. Fraser and Malcolm R. Dando, "Genomics and Future Biological Weapons: The Need for Preventive Action by the Biomedical Community," Nature Genetics 29 (2001), pp. 253-256; Mark Wheelis and Malcolm Dando, "New Technology and Future Developments in Biological Warfare," Disarmament Forum 4 (2000), pp. 43-50.
[6] Jonathan Ellman, Barry Stoddard, and Jim Wells, "Combinatorial Thinking in Chemistry and Biology," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 94 (1997), pp. 2779-2782.
[7] Ronald E. White, "High-Throughput Screening in Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetic Support of Drug Discovery," Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 40 (2000), pp. 133-157.
[8] Kollol Pal, "The Keys to Chemical Genomics," Modern Drug Discovery 3 (2000), pp. 47-55.
[9] Tamas Bartfaì, "Genomic Identification of Receptors and Their Polymorphisms, and Ligand Design," in Malcom Dando, Graham Pearson, and Bohumir Kriz, eds., New Scientific and Technical Developments of Relevance to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (forthcoming).
[10] David J. Lockhart and Elizabeth A. Winzler, "Genomics, Gene Expression and DNA Arrays," Nature 405 (2000), 827-836.
[11] Akhilesh Pandey and Matthias Mann, "Proteomics to Study Genes and Genomes," Nature 405 (2000), 837-846; Rosamonde E. Banks et al., "Proteomics: New Perspectives, New Biomedical Opportunities," Lancet 356 (2000), pp. 1749-1756.
[12] John R. Yates, "Mass Spectrometry: from Genomics to Proteomics," Trends in Genetics 16 (2000), pp. 5-8.
[13] Heng Zhu et al., "Global Analysis of Protein Activities Using Proteome Chips," Science 293 (2001), pp. 2101-2105.
[14] David Baker and Andrej Sali, "Protein Structure Prediction and Structural Genomics," Science 294 (2001), pp. 93-96.
[15] Jeffery F. Waring and Roger G. Ulrich, "The Impact of Genomics-Based Technologies on Drug Safety Evaluation," Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 40 (2000), pp. 335-352.
[16] Ajay, W. Patrick Walters, and Mark A. Murko, "Can We Learn to Distinguish between `Drug-Like' and `Nondrug-Like' Molecules?" Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 41 (1998), pp. 3314-3324; Jens Sadowski and Hugo Kubinyi, "A Scoring Scheme for Discriminating between Drugs and Nondrugs," Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 41 (1998), pp. 3325-3329.
[17] Margaret-Anne Coppermoll and Xavier K. Maruyama, "Legal and Ethical Guiding Principles and Constraints Concerning Non-Lethal Weapons Technology and Employment," Presentation at the Non-Lethal Defense III Symposium in 1998, Defense Technical Information Center, <www.dtic.mil/ndia/NLD3/copp.pdf>. For details of U.S. non-lethal chemical agent development, see the Sunshine Project, "Non-Lethal Weapons Research in the US: Calmatives and Maloderants" and "Non-Lethal Weapons Research in the US: Genetically Engineered Anti-Material Weapons," <www.sunshine-project.org>.
[18] Malcolm Dando, A New Form of Warfare: The Rise of Non-Lethal Weapons (Washington DC: Brassey's, 1966).
[19] Personal communications from a number of diplomats and technical advisors to delegations to BWC Review Conferences and to the Ad Hoc Group, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000-2001. See, for instance, the comment by Sweden that hormones or transmitter substances might be developed as bioweapons in its background paper to the Second Review Conference, document BWC/CONF.II/4, 18 August 1986, p 3.
[20] Second Review Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (1986), Final Document, BWC/CONF.II/13, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.
[21] George W. Parshall, "Scientific and Technical Developments and the CWC," in Jonathan B. Tucker, ed., The Chemical Weapons Convention: Implementation Challenges and Solutions (Washington DC: Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2001), pp 53-58.

ICRC

Visit www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList.../274d020806432963c1256c3e005c433

FAS - Germ Warfare Treaty

Visit www.fas.org/bwc/news/latimes09-06-01.htm.
Federation of American Scientists
Chemical and Biological Arms Control Program
Who's Afraid of a Germ Warfare Treaty?
LA Times, September 06, 2001
By Barbara H. Rosenberg, Milton Leitenberg
Declaring that "mankind already carries in its hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction," President Nixon unilaterally renounced biological weapons in 1969.
This led to international agreement on the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which codifies the ban on development and possession of germ weapons. The United States then terminated its biological weapons program and focused on defenses.
New information has just come to light, however, that raises questions about recent U.S. compliance with the ban. In July, Donald Mahley, the chief U.S. negotiator for a new treaty to monitor the ban, admitted to Congress that more than one U.S. government agency conducts biological activities that appear ambiguous. Consequently, to protect their interests, the agencies have objected to certain monitoring measures, Mahley said. Two weeks later, Mahley stunned the negotiators from 55 countries assembled in Geneva to finalize the treaty by refusing to continue negotiating.
Some of the reasons are now becoming clear.
An obscure part of the Energy Department's annual report refers to at least three large installations for studying explosive and nonexplosive aerosol delivery of dangerous microorganisms. The underground installations aim to examine various attack modes and study their effectiveness in causing disease.
In addition, the construction and testing of a germ production plant and a replica of a Soviet "bomblet" or germ dispersal unit for combat use was reported Tuesday in the New York Times. These are the kinds of quasi-secret activities that had been terminated in the U.S. in 1969.
Similar activities in other countries have led the United States to label them biological weapon proliferators. Yet no doubt those countries would ascribe their activities to benign "threat assessment" necessary to develop appropriate military defenses and medical treatments, just as the U.S. is now describing its activities.
With modern technology, much that can be carried out in the name of biological threat assessment is indistinguishable from preparations for the offensive use of biological weapons, activities such as creating new, genetically engineered pathogens and testing how well they work as aerosols delivered under simulated battlefield conditions. Stockpiles of bacteria, viruses or toxins no longer are necessary; they can be produced rapidly on demand. That is why it is essential that biological activities be conducted in the open. There is no other way to defuse the corrosive suspicions that otherwise are bound to arise.
The aura of subterfuge and suspicion that surrounds U.S. biological activities would be dispelled if they were openly declared and subject to on-site visits by international inspectors. An effective monitoring regime would not require divulging our specific defensive strengths and weaknesses; the draft treaty rejected by the White House contains multiple safeguards for confidential national security and commercial information.
By rejecting the treaty, the Bush administration has implicitly acknowledged its value for exposing questionable activities and thus for deterring violations of the ban. Most of the countries of the world believe that the treaty is badly needed to fill a major gap in global security arrangements.
In their hostility to international treaties, administration officials like to say that only the bad guys should be subject to rules. Evidently, the administration prefers no rules to any that would bind the U.S. But the "good guys" will suffer along with the rest of the world if disease, which recognizes no boundaries, is loosed as a weapon.
Had the United States been willing to accept the minimal level of oversight required by the compromise text under consideration, it would have been virtually impossible for any other country at the negotiations to reject it. Instead, it will take great effort and perhaps a biological disaster to rebuild the necessary consensus on a treaty.
Preventing an undercover arms race to develop weapons of disease, fueled by new biotechnologies, is a primary responsibility of the international community. There are no defensive measures that can protect civilian populations from biological weapons and no military countermeasures that can reverse the epidemic spread of new and uncontrollable diseases. There is no alternative to monitoring the ban on biological weapons.