Last year, a likable and accomplished scientist named Serguei Popov, who for nearly two decades developed genetically engineered biological weapons for the Soviet Union, crossed the Potomac River to speak at a conference on bioterrorism in Washington, DC. ...The story is getting little play in the blogosphere in spite of the fact that Glenn Reynolds first posted it way back on 12 March. I believe the subject deserves at least some level of attention due to the potential harm of such technology as well as the amount of money currently being spent to combat possible bioterrorist attacks.
The article notes that what once took Soviet bioweaponeers a great deal of time and money can now be duplicated comparatively easily with gene-sequencing equipment bought secondhand on eBay and unregulated biological material delivered via FedEx. Technology has advanced to the point where larger and larger DNA sequences can be engineered by rogue states or even independent terrorist organizations.
Some of the most interesting scenarios presented are bioweapons that modify behavior by targeting the nervous system, thereby inducing effects like temporary schizophrenia, memory loss, heightened aggression, immobilizing depression, or fear — scenarios that have already undergone proof of concept by Soviet bioengineers. Also possible are ethnic-specific pathogens.
What to do?
In the public debate about how to defend ourselves against biological weapons, the advance of biotechnology has been little discussed. Instead, most biologists and security analysts have debated the merits and shortcomings of Project BioShield, the Bush administration's $5.6 billion plan to protect the U.S. population from biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear attack. After last year's bioterrorism conference in DC, I called on Richard Ebright, whose Rutgers laboratory researches transcription initiation (the first step in gene expression), to hear why he so opposes the biodefense boom (in its current form) and why he doesn't worry about terrorists' synthesizing biological weapons.To be fair, Technology Review prints a short rebuttal article, Assessing the Threat. The author notes the limited successes of biological attacks in the past, from the Japanese dropping plauge-infected materials on Chinese cities in WW II to the anthrax mailings of 2001. However, these were crude attempts when compared to resequencing DNA to produce a plague-Ebola combination, a possibility studied by the Soviets."There are now more than 300 U.S. institutions with access to live bioweapons agents and 16,500 individuals approved to handle them," Ebright told me. While all of those people have undergone some form of background check -- to verify, for instance, that they aren't named on a terrorist watch list and aren't illegal aliens -- it's also true, Ebright noted, that "Mohammed Atta would have passed those tests without difficulty." ...
On the one hand, we can clamp down on biodefense research, stunting our ability to respond to biological threats. Alternatively, we can continue to push the boundaries of what is known about how pathogens can be manipulated -- spreading expertise in building biological systems, for better and for worse, through experiments like Buller's assembly of a mousepox-IL4 recombinant -- so we are not at a mortal disadvantage. One day, we must hope, technology will suggest an answer.
The author continues by noting scarcity of data for estimating the effects of a bioterrorist attack:
To predict accurately the effects of bioweapons, data are needed on the amount of agent required to infect a person, the percentage of people who survive an infection (which depends on the health of the population), the transmission rate if the agent is contagious, the ability to aerosolize and disperse an agent effectively (which depends, in turn, on climatic conditions), the environmental stability of an agent, the population density, and the abilities of the public-health system, including when an attack is detected and whether prophylactics, vaccines, or antidotes exist and, if so, in what quantities.With these unknowns, the author does not call for more research but rather for concentrating on the known:For any one pathogen -- even one familiar to us, like smallpox and anthrax -- not all of these variables are known, and therefore quantitative predictions are not possible with a high degree of certainty. In the words of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in a 2002 report, "these factors produce an irreducible uncertainty of several orders of magnitude in the number of people who will be infected in an open-air release."
While a state-sponsored program might have the means to do that work, terrorist groups probably don't. With so much uncertainty surrounding the outcome of a bioweapons attack, it does not make sense to plan extensive biodefense programs when more-certain threats, particularly those involving nuclear weapons, require attention.The blogosphere has virtually ignored the rebuttal article, although I recommend Chicago Boyz post on the subject, Bioweapons, Unk-Unks, and Delayed Gratification, in which it is theorized that bioterrorism lacks the dramatic flair of less effective but more spectacular events such as 9/11, and thus will not be the focus of terrorist efforts.
Technorati Tags: bioweaponry, bioweapons, bioterrorism, terrorism, biodefense.
Once the flagship of the USSR Navy, the aircraft carrier Minsk was sold to a Chinese firm in 1998 to be turned into a theme park:A Chinese travel agency describes the theme park as "a harmonious combination of carrier appreciation, military recreation, typical seaside lifestyle in south China and military atmosphere."But a Shenzhen court declared the company bankrupt last year and so the Minsk will go on the auction block on March 22nd.The ship's attractions included torpedoes and a Russian dance troupe that performed folk dances, the agency says.
Save your pennies. Bidding is expected to start at $16 million.
Technorati Tags: China, Chinese+Military, Minsk.
We are witnessing a remarkable event: the death of a great nation not through war or devastation but through its inability to rouse itself from its own suicidal tendencies. The ideological vacuum was mostly filled with a nihilist fatalism. Churchill got it wrong: Russia is a vacuum wrapped in a nullity inside an abyss.
Maltsev has met with Condoleezza Rice, whom he believes brings a more realistic assessment than Bush to what Putin is all about. “She speaks Russian as well as myself, maybe better,” he says. Rice studied Russia during the height of the cold war, and she is likely to push U.S. policy into a more wary posture toward Putin. “We may have a new member of the Axis of Evil,” says Marshall Wittmann, a scholar at the centrist Democratic Leadership Conference. At the very least, the next time Bush looks into Putin’s eyes, he’ll have Rice at his elbow telling him that the window into Putin’s soul can best be found at KGB headquarters.