"bioterrorism"
"bioterrorism"
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/07/opinion/biology-gone-bad.html?searchResultPosition=1
1997-11-07-nytimes-opinion-biology-gone-bad.pdf
Biology Gone Bad
By Richard Preston
Nov. 7, 1997
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At the center of the trouble between Iraq and the United Nations is the issue of genetically engineered biological weapons, or what some experts call ''black biology.'' Today, genetic engineering has become a normal part of the process of bioweapons development.
It has become a straightforward matter to move genes from one organism to another, and the technique has obvious military value. High school science students are taught how to put genes for antibiotic resistance into bacteria. If teen-agers can do it, the world should assume that Iraqi military biologists are doing it better with anthrax and other lethal bioweapons.
Richard Butler, the head of the United Nations weapons inspection commission for Iraq, has said that Iraq has an ongoing bioweapons program. But what strains does Iraq have? What can Iraq do with its bioweapons?
The answers are alarming, based on reports I've heard from members of United Nations inspection teams, top government officials and scientists, as well as photographs and United Nations documents. Experts believe that an international black market in ''hot strains'' -- deadly organisms -- has developed, and they suspect that Iraq, among other countries, has bought military strains from Russian scientists who stole them from the Russian bioweapons program. Iraq may possess engineered, antibiotic-resistant strains of anthrax and Black Death, as well as botulinum toxin and possibly the Ebola virus, which apparently can be freeze-dried for dispersal in the air.
American inspectors on the United Nations teams have been using a simple tool to try to ferret out bioweaponry in Iraq: a medical swab. It is used to collect dirt from the corners of buildings, liquids dripping out of bio-reactors, crud from unwashed test tubes, soil. Using such samples, machines can find the molecular fingerprint of a bioweapon. The Iraqi ''minders,'' or escorts, ''kind of clump up in a group and get real agitated whenever we whip out our swabs,'' one American inspector told me.
By demanding that the United Nations teams include no Americans, Saddam Hussein seems to be buying time. Bio-production equipment is portable and can be moved by truck quickly. The Iraqis are disabling the United Nations' videocameras and other monitoring equipment, presumably to hide such movement.
Bioweapons development in Iraq is a potential health threat to the entire world. It is a danger to the Iraqi people themselves, because accidents happen. And Iraq is by no means the only offender. The American Government estimates that some 16 countries now have bioweapons programs. Major suspects include China, Russia, Syria, Iran, Libya and possibly Israel.
And what if a bioweapon were used in a terrorist act? The American Government is not ready for such an event. How can it be? No one knows what a biological weapon might do in a city. It could be terror in slow motion, an unrolling horror with a death toll equivalent to dozens of Oklahoma City bombings occurring day after day.
Intelligence experts seem particularly fearful of the smallpox virus, which they believe has moved into the international market. Most people have no immunity to smallpox, even if they've been vaccinated, because the shot wears off after 10 to 20 years. Smallpox is fantastically contagious in the air. One smallpox victim can easily infect 20 other people by coughing. Because natural smallpox has been eradicated, the global supply of smallpox vaccine is almost nonexistent. For an engineered smallpox, there might be no vaccine at all.
The Government's plans for dealing with a bioterror event are inadequate or nonexistent. The Government would need to rush huge quantities of medicines to the affected population, medicines that might not work if the weapon were genetically altered. There would be a need for quick forensic work to try to find out what the weapon was and who released it.
The world community, through the United Nations, should keep the pressure on Iraq to end its bioweapons program, since it is a threat to people everywhere. The scientific establishment, which for years paid no attention to bioweapons, should live up to its responsibilities and speak out now. Scientists can put direct personal pressure on their colleagues in foreign countries to stop the work.
Finally, American leaders should tell the public what they know about biological weapons in other countries -- for much is known that has not been told to the American people. Such weapons are not a nice thing to talk about, but they are real, and the world will have to come to grips with them.
"bioterror"
Smallpox Vaccine Urged to Fight Terrorist Attacks
March 11, 1998
1998-03-11-nytimes-smallpox-vaccine-urged-to-fight-terrorist-attacks.pdf
In a major turnaround, the scientist who led the campaign that eradicated smallpox and eliminated the need for vaccination worldwide now says the United States should resume making the vaccine to deal with the threat of biological warfare.
The scientist, Dr. Donald A. Henderson, a former deputy White House science adviser and dean emeritus of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, spoke at an international meeting on new and emerging diseases here today.
The United States is ill-prepared to confront a terrorist attack using biological weapons, and health officials need more money to prepare against such attacks, Dr. Henderson and other experts in infectious diseases said at the meeting, which was partly sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The speakers said their new concern reflected the Iraqi buildup of biological weapons, terrorism attacks in Japan, and a breakdown in security at Russia's advanced bioweapons center in Koltsovo near Novosibirsk.
Doctors, health departments and the Federal Government were urged to develop clear plans to diagnose and treat victims of such attacks because very few doctors have ever seen cases of anthrax and smallpox, which are prime candidates for use in biological attacks.
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In 1980, the World Health Organization, a Geneva-based agency of the United Nations, certified the worldwide eradication of smallpox, a viral disease that had killed one in four victims. Smallpox vaccinations stopped, and now much of the world's population has little, if any, immunity against smallpox.
The United States had stopped routine smallpox vaccination of civilians earlier, in 1972. About 15 million doses of the remaining vaccine were kept at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and smaller amounts in a few other countries.
Dr. Henderson said in an interview that the United States stores should be increased by 20 million doses and speculated that the cost would be about $2 a dose. But Dr. Henderson stressed that the vaccine would be injected only if the bioterrorism threat materialized. Dr. Henderson also said that if more vaccine were ever needed, manufacturers should have capacity to produce it within several weeks, not the months it would now take.
Smallpox vaccine was traditionally prepared in cows. But Dr. Henderson held out hope that an experimental vaccine prepared in test tubes might be used and that studies might find effective anti-viral drugs against smallpox, a disease that could not be treated.
Dr. James Hughes, an official at the disease-control centers, said Dr. Henderson had asked ''a good question.'' The initial victims of an attack with biological weapons would probably be buried before the correct diagnosis was made, the speakers said. Health officials should also designate where victims would be taken and how many isolation centers need to be set aside for their care in a bioterrorism attack, they said.
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The speakers also pointed to scientific ignorance about how to decontaminate areas where biological agents had been dispersed and when, if ever, it would be safe for residents to return to their apartments and homes and workers to their offices.
Dr. Marcelle Layton of the New York City Health Department said that despite steps the city had taken in recent years, it was not ready for an attack. The Mayor's Advisory Task Force will soon conduct a larger drill than the one it held two weeks ago against an imagined release of anthrax bacteria. Despite such efforts, she said she was uncertain whether it was possible to be effectively prepared for such attacks.
Dr. Michael Skeels of the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory recalled that the disease-control centers withheld for 12 years a report of the first bioterrorism attack in this country until it allowed publication in 1997. The attack involved 751 cases of salmonella infection among the 10,500 residents of The Dalles, Ore., after followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had deliberately contaminated restaurant salad bars. Initially, Dr. Skeels said, health officials did not consider the possibility of terrorism, and he advised others not to be so naive in the future.
In providing a wake-up call, speakers said it was more prudent to prepare for what many hoped was the remote possibility of bioterrorism attacks than to continue to ignore the idea. Dr. David Franz of the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., expressed a wider view in saying that ''a prepared society acts as a deterrent to use of biological weapons.''
Earlier, Donna E. Shalala, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, told the meeting that her department had begun coordinating with other Federal and military agencies to insure proper training ''to address the growing threat of potential bioterrorism'' that could create the next worldwide epidemic.
In welcoming the Secretary's efforts, several experts who spoke only on condition that their names not be used, said these steps should have come long ago.
Scientific knowledge about biological attacks is limited because so few have occurred.
In 1970, a rare natural outbreak caused by airborne transmission of smallpox virus occurred when a German electrician returned from Pakistan. He infected 19 people in several floors of the hospital, including a visitor who had spent less than 15 minutes in the hospital and did not visit the patient.
In 1972 in Yugoslavia, a pilgrim brought back smallpox from Iraq, infected 11 others, and they, in turn, infected 138 more people. The outbreak led to the emergency vaccination of 20 million people in less than two weeks. Also, 10,000 people who had contact with the infected patients were isolated for two weeks. Other countries closed their borders with Yugoslavia.