© Bill Parry
Bill Parry is a freelance writer and also works at the Institute of Biology 

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.46.14

It is said that the world changed with the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Indeed, the whole world drew its breath in shock. Yet what is now apparent amid the ‘war on terrorism’ is that we, in the West, will have to sacrifice some ‘freedom to’ in order to secure some ‘freedom from’. In terms of day-to-day work, this affects few, though for many bioscience researchers in the UK there are calls for their work to be more closely monitored, and the controversial Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, passed in December 2001, will affect many UK researchers and institutions. Society is waking up to the now more palpable threat of biological warfare and bioterrorism, and research in the biosciences and biotechnology in the UK is inevitably coming under closer scrutiny.

Aspects of this increased scrutiny have recently become law, in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act. One of its less controversial elements is a section entitled ‘The control of pathogens and toxins’. Dr Jeff Kipling, from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), says that UK researchers, institutions and the biotechnology sector should be concerned and aware of the implications and obligations these measures raise. Under the revised Act, managers of laboratories with stocks of certain pathogens are legally required to notify their holdings and to comply with ‘any reasonable security requirements’ that the police may impose following an inspection of the premises. In addition, managers are obligated upon police request to provide the names and details of personnel with ‘regular access to dangerous diseases’ held in the lab. Authorities can conduct background checks on named individuals and restrict their access to such pathogens.

Kipling says that the ABPI is working with the Home Office to bring a more pragmatic view to the issue, and has called for more consultation with industry on the matter. While it supports the spirit of the changes, the ABPI is concerned over the needless bureaucracy that these changes will add in many situations, as there is no provision for the minimum quantity of toxins; thus a minute and insignificant amount would entail the full panoply of regulations.

Others fear that these changes in the law will compromise research confidentiality more than at present and possibly result in unwarranted discrimination in labs.

In addition to these changes in the law, the biomedical community has been called upon by Malcolm Dando, an expert on biological warfare and professor of International Security at the University of Bradford, to accept responsibility for the potential misapplication of its research, and to introduce steps to review and monitor research that could be applied to biological warfare.

‘Until the biomedical community accepts ownership of the enormous malignant potential of such research, government and society will fail to take the issue seriously. Within a decade or so, offensive biological weapons programmes could lead to the stockpiling of deadly biological agents. Then there will be a much greater chance of these materials falling into the hands of terrorists,’ he warns.

Although Dando feels that bioterrorism on a massive scale is relatively low, he believes that the likelihood will multiply in the coming 10 to 15 years with advances in genome research.

The recent anthrax attacks in the United States underline the exigent need for proactive action by governments and the bioscientific community worldwide. These attacks, cleverly targeted at the media and US government, inflicted wide scale panic and uncertainty with minimum effort and few casualties. Dando warns that a future attack successfully carried out with a contagious agent such as small pox or Plague could result in a catastrophic loss of life, a healthcare meltdown and social collapse. He points to the recent foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Britain and the confusion, mayhem and carnage that it brought. Imagine such an infectious – yet deadlier – agent spreading through humans.

Our history of biological weapons gives us cause for concern. Dr Simon Whitby, author of Biological Warfare against Crops (Palgrave 2002), and Research Fellow in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, warns:

‘At the back of our minds we have to remember that every scientific revolution so far has been used to refine weapons of war and we will have to work hard to prevent the current revolution in biotechnology from suffering the same fate’ (Whitby p.208).

Dr Nikki MacLeod, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, agrees that attitudes have to change, but feels she is probably in the minority: ‘I’m utterly ashamed by the almost total lack of moral judgement displayed by many of my colleagues on such matters, from Los Alamos onwards.’ Her feelings echo Richard Preston’s summing remarks in his 1998 article published in The New York Times.

Biological weapons are a disgrace to biology. The time has come for top biologists to assert their leadership and speak out, to take responsibility on behalf of their profession for the existence of these weapons and the means of protecting the population against them, just as leading physicists did a generation ago when nuclear weapons came along. Moral pressure costs nothing and can help; silence is unacceptable now. 

From National to International Measures: the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)

You would have thought that the extraordinary and unprecedented terrorist attacks of 2001 would have consolidated and bolstered international resolve to implement a comprehensive means of minimising the proliferation of biological weapons. You might have expected the US to have led such an effort, much like George Bush Sr did a decade ago, signing the US up to the Chemical Weapons Convention after he saw the deadly potential of chemical weapons during and after the Gulf War. But, surprisingly, you’d have been wrong, since the US has recently, almost single-handedly, torpedoed such a convention – the BTWC. On the other hand, you might have predicted as much, citing the Bush Administration’s record of adopting a unilateral and isolationist approach, and withdrawing insouciantly from key international treaties, despite international outrage and condemnation.

The BTWC – a brief history

For over 140 signatory countries, many NGOs globally, and scores of experts, the United Nations BTWC, which came into force in 1975, is regarded as the best means – albeit largely symbolically, so far – of minimising the spread of biological weapons. The Convention prohibits all states parties from the development, production, stockpiling, or acquisition of biological agents for offensive purposes. Yet because the BTWC did not have a verification regime to monitor compliance, it was deemed powerless, and therefore ineffective.

Consequently, VEREX, a group of governmental experts, was established in 1991 to identify and assess possible verification mechanisms from scientific and technical points of view. To take this further, the Ad Hoc Group (AHG) was established in 1994 by the states parties to negotiate and create a legally binding verification regime, known as the Verification Protocol, for the Convention. The mandate of the AHG covers four areas: definitions of terms and objective criteria; incorporation of existing and further-enhanced confidence building and transparency measures, as appropriate, into the regime; a system of measures to promote compliance with the Convention; and specific measures designed to ensure the effective and full implementation of Article X, which provides for scientific and technological exchange for peaceful purposes and technical cooperation.

Oddly, 2001 was a year of major setbacks for the BTWC. In July the Bush Administration flatly withdrew its support for the Verification Protocol, causing talks to collapse – just weeks before the terrorist suicide hijackings and anthrax attacks. Then at the 5th Review Conference of the BTWC in November and December, as US B-52s were carpet bombing Afghanistan, the US delegation again surprised and incensed other states parties by sabotaging the Conference at the eleventh hour, by calling for the mandate of the AHG to be terminated. Consequently, the states parties agreed to adjourn until the 11 to 22 November 2002 in order to salvage what they could, and to allow for a ‘cooling off’ period.

A mistake of mythical proportions?

In Greek mythology, Heracles was given a series of labours by the oracle of Delphi to atone for earlier sins. His second labour required him to slay the Hydra of Lerna, a formidable serpent with nine heads. But every time Heracles struck off one of the heads, two grew in its place. George Bush Jr and his Administration’s unilateral stance on combating the spectre of biological warfare and terrorism are, to many, as gung-ho and futile – and infuriating to countries committed to forging a meaningful and effective convention. Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, an NGO, calls the US position a ‘Wing and a Prayer doctrine’: ‘The Wing and a Prayer doctrine is a dangerous substitute for UN verification. The wings are those of cruise missiles streaking toward a suspected bioweapons facility. The prayers are for US intelligence to be right. The consequences are fatal … and a further destabilising breakdown of international cooperation to avert biological warfare. It is a flawed doctrine that proposes eliminating single threats while creating more.’

The US cites three central problems with the Verification Protocol: it poses significant risks to US biodefence programmes and national security; it poses significant risks for the intellectual property rights of its huge, lucrative and politically influential pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; and the Protocol is too weak to catch would-be transgressors.

Certainly the US pharmaceutical and biotech industries would have much more to lose than those of any other country through intellectual espionage, given their global dominance. And many agree that the Protocol does require strengthening if it is to be efficacious. However, the US’s concerns over industrial espionage are unfounded. Graham S Pearson of the HSP Advisory Board counters this claim, stating: ‘The frequency of visits to such facilities in the US under the projected Protocol is necessarily seven or less per year – a minute fraction of the numbers of inspections carried out by regulatory agencies. In Europe, industry recognises that such visits will be rare and will not be nearly as intrusive as the visits carried out much more frequently by international, national and regional regulatory agencies…’.

As for the Protocol being too weak, many rightly reply that the US has been instrumental in diluting the Protocol.

Recent revelations of secret and controversial US biodefence programmes, however, may have cast a new light on the Administration’s real reason for rejecting the Protocol. Nicholas Sims, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the London School of Economics, evaluates the US’s objections on two levels:

The first pertains to the BTWC and US biodefence programs. The revela- tion by The New York Times [days before the suicide hijackings] of three US biodefence projects, none of which had been declared under the BTWC’s programme of confidence-building programmes, explains US intransigence: if the US won’t put them under a politically-binding CBM (Confidence Building Measure), it certainly won’t put them under a legally-binding obligation to declare them to a new organisation under the Protocol.

Of the three reasons given by [the US] Ambassador Mahley, initially they were all given equal weight; but in the light of The New York Times’ revelations, this certainly is the most prominent reason, ahead of commercial proprietary concerns about loss of confidential information, and ahead of the supposed inability of the Protocol to unmask likely proliferators (if the Protocol is acceptable to Iran then it can’t be strong enough, or well enough targeted, to satisfy the US). The national security concerns are evidently about biodefence, the strongest of the three reasons, to which Mahley gave equal weight on 25 July 2001 [when the US rejected the Verification Protocol].

Sims, as well as many others, adds the Bush Administration’s penchant for ditching international treaties: ‘They consider multilateral mechanisms “slow-moving and misguided”’, he says. ‘Given the US’s dominance, it has the luxury to decide whether to do things unilaterally, where as for the rest of the world, and certainly Europe, the treaty approach seems natural and the best means available to counter threats.’

Of Might and Men

The Hydra wasn’t slain single-handedly. Mighty Heracles was dependent upon the help of Iolaus ultimately to defeat the Hydra. In the run-up to the resumption of talks to determine the BTWC’s future later this year, hopefully George Bush Jr will appreciate that his country’s war on terrorism requires united international cooperation and effort. And that the BTWC, despite its flaws, is regarded by the majority of states parties as the best and wisest option available internationally to combat the spectre of biological weapons.

As for bioscientists in the UK, Dando warns that ‘now is certainly the time for them to take ownership and the initiative to establish ethical committees to monitor their work. If they don’t show some form of self-regulation soon, equivalent measures will be placed upon them once the government and society appreciate the deadly potential of their research.’

The big question is, of course, whether history will repeat itself.