Biohazard

The techniques used to manipulate viral genes are more complicated than those for bacteria. Some viruses, like Venezuelan equine encephalitis, are made of RNA, or ribonucleic acid, an inverted version of ordinary DNA. The gene sequences of RNA viruses must be transposed before genetic experiments can be performed. Once this has been done, the viral genome is sliced with special enzymes called restrictases and knit together with the foreign genes to create what is called recombinant DNA.

Within six months, in the spring of 1990, Netyosov reported that he had successfully inserted a DNA copy of VEE into vaccinia. Space had been found for the transplanted material in a gene of vaccinia called thymidine kinase, and it multiplied along with its new host. Netyosov's team immediately began similar genetic manipulations with Variola major.

At the time, I was not confident of their success. Western geneticists had discovered that when VEE and vaccinia were combined, the vaccinia appeared to lose its virulence. This was a problem for us: we did not want to weaken our smallpox weapon.

By 1990, as my attention was drawn to preparations for the foreign inspectors, I lost track of Netyosov's work. But the research continued.

Two years later, in 1996, the same team published an article in Molecular Biology, a journal published by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The scientists reported that they had found a space in the vaccinia genome where foreign genetic material could be inserted without affecting virulence. They claimed the purpose of this it search was entirely peaceful — to explore different properties of the vaccinia virus. But what medical reason could there be for experiments aimed at preserving its virulence?

The Vector scientists had used a gene for beta-endorphin, a regulatory peptide, in their experiments. Beta-endorphin, capable in large amounts of producing psychological and neurological disorders and of suppressing certain immunological reactions, was one of the ingredients of the Bonfire program. It was synthesized by the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

In 1997, the same team reported in the Russian publication Questions of Virology that they had successfully inserted a gene for Ebola into the genome of vaccinia. Once again, a benign scientific explanation was put forward: they said it was an important step toward creating an Ebola vaccine. But we had always intended vaccinia to be our surrogate for further smallpox weapons research. There was no doubt in my mind that Vector was following our original plan.

One of our goals had been to study the feasibility of a smallpox-Ebola weapon.

Vector has been the official repository for Russia's smallpox stocks since they were moved from the Ivanovsky Institute in Moscow in 1994. Sandakchiev and I first tried to transfer the strains from Ivanovsky to Vector in 1990, hoping that these "legal stocks" would serve to cover up Vector's smallpox work. The Ministry of Health turned us down at the time, but four years later the Russian parliament approved the same plan with no public explanation. The transfer aroused little international attention.

The research at Vector was by no means an isolated case. In 1997 scientists at Obolensk reported in the British scientific journal Vaccine that they had developed a genetically altered strain of Bacillus antbracis capable of resisting anthrax vaccines. In earlier articles, they claimed to have developed a multi-drug-resistant strain of glanders. Both projects were initiated in the 1980s.

My American interlocutors were skeptical of my concerns. Some doubted a combined weapon was possible. Scientists whom I respect wondered why anyone would want to make such a weapon. Smallpox and Ebola, they pointed out, were each sufficiently lethal on their own. Dr. Peter Jahrling of USAMRIID, who was present at some of my early debriefing sessions, has called the concept "sheer fantasy."

I have no way of knowing whether a combined Ebola-smallpox agent has been created, but it is clear that the technology to produce such a weapon now exists. To argue that these weapons won't be developed simply because existing armaments will do a satisfactory job contradicts the history and the logic of weapons development, from the invention of machine guns to the hydrogen bomb.

I told my debriefers that Russia's biological labs should be as carefully monitored as its nuclear arsenal. I was told in turn that it is wrong to conclude intentions from the nature of scientific research, and that the work being conducted in Russia should be accepted as peaceful until there is a compelling reason to think otherwise.