Biohazard

In the past twenty years, scientists have created antibiotic-resistant strains of anthrax, plague, tularemia, and glanders. Biopreparat research proved that viruses and toxins can be genetically altered to heighten their infectiousness, paving the way for the development of pathogens capable of overcoming existing vaccines. The arsenal of a determined state or terrorist group could include weapons based on tularemia, anthrax, Q fever, epidemic typhus, smallpox, brucellosis, VEE, botulinum toxin, dengue fever, Russian spring-summer encephalitis, Lassa fever, Marburg, Ebola, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever (Machupo), and Argentinean hemorrhagic fever (Junin), to name a few of the diseases studied in our labs. It could also extend to neurological agents, based on chemical substances produced naturally in the human body.

It is easier to make a biological weapon than to create an effective system of biological defense. Based on our current level of knowledge, at least seventy different types of bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, and fungi can be weaponized. We can reliably treat no more than 20 to 30 percent of the diseases they cause.

Few Americans are aware that they are living under a state of national emergency relating to weapons of mass destruction. On November 14, 1994, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12938, asserting that the potential use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons by terrorist groups or rogue states represented "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." The order made it illegal for Americans to help any country or entity to acquire, design, produce, or stockpile chemical or biological weapons and placed the country in a state of emergency. It has been renewed every year since. In 1998, it was amended to include penalties for trafficking in equipment that could indirectly contribute to a foreign germ warfare program.

In June 1995, Clinton outlined a new policy against "super terrorism" — terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. Today, as a result of that policy, the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, together with the FBI and the CIA, oversee a wide network of military and civilian agencies dedicated to identifying biological or chemical attacks and to coping with their consequences. Among those agencies are USAMRIID, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the Department of Agriculture's Exotic Disease Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Meanwhile, existing military units such as the Marine Corps Chemical and Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF), the army's Technical Escort Unit, and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) have been upgraded.

In 1997 the government authorized a $52.6 million Domestic Preparedness Program for emergency response teams or "first responders" in 120 selected cities across the United States. Police, fire department, and public health officials in those cities will receive special training and equipment to help them contain and combat biological and chemical terrorism. Denver was the first city chosen for the pilot program. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Washington, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Kansas City were added to the list in 1998 and are expected to be fully operational by the end of 1999. Parallel efforts are under way to explore methods of strengthening the security of public buildings with tamper-proof ventilation systems and improved air filtration units.

On May 22, 1998, in a speech to the graduating class at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, President Clinton proposed a five-year $420-million initiative to create a reserve stockpile of vaccines and antibiotics to protect Americans against biological attacks. The initiative was intended to broaden an immunization program introduced five years earlier to safeguard American troops on the battlefield. Since then, biological terrorism has become one of America's principle security concerns. In January 1999, after a year in which the American military attacked Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq and dozens of anthrax scares were reported throughout the country, Clinton unveiled a new plan for combating bioterrorism at home. "The fight against terrorism is far from over," he said in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences, "and now terrorists seek new tools of destruction. The enemies of peace realize they cannot defeat us with traditional military means, so they are working on new forms of attacks."