Biotechnology and bioterrorism: An unprecedented world

Survival

Volumn 46, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 143-162

  Chyba, Christopher F ^a   Greninger, Alex L ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 26844441871     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: 14682699     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330412331343703     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. President John F. Kennedy, News Conference Number 52, 21 March 1963, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Washington DC, http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfk-press-conference-630321.html. While this authorisation legislation has had some success in the United States Senate, it has faced more difficulty in the US House of Representatives.
2. Albert Wohlstetter, Moving Toward Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd? ACDA/ PAB-263, prepared by Pan Heuristics Division of Science Applications Inc., Los Angeles, December 1975, revised April 1976.
3. A subsequent version may be found as Chapter 6, 'Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd', in Albert Wohlstetter, Thomas A. Brown, Gregory S. Jones, Henry Rowen, Vince Taylor and Roberta Wohlstetter, Swords from Plowshares (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 126-150.
4. Much of this history is reviewed in Christopher F. Chyba, 'Biological Terrorism and Public Health', Survival, vol. 43, no. 1, spring 2001, pp. 93-106.
5. For statistics on disease emergence over the past two decades, see Jonathan R. Davis and Joshua Lederberg (eds), Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective: A Summary of a Workshop of the Forum on Emerging Infections (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2001).
6. Global Pathogens Surveillance Act of 2003, S. 871, 108th Congress, 1st Session, http://www.theorator.com/biHsl08/s871.html.
7. This history and that of mass-casualty terrorism in the 1990s is reviewed in Christopher F. Chyba, 'Biological Terrorism and Public Health'.
8. US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker, quoted in Brad Knickerbocker, 'In an age of biowarfare, US sees new role for nukes', The Christian Science Monitor, 26 November 2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1126/p02sO2-usmi.htm.
9. Also quoted in Wendy Lubetkin, 'US Welcomes Biological Weapons Convention Work Plan', http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ usa/2002/usa-021115-usia0l.htm.
10. For one assessment of those states in various stages of biological weapons programmes, see Milton Leitenberg, 'An Assessment of the Biological Weapons Threat to the United States', Journal of Homeland Security, January 2001, http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/ Leitenberg.htm.
11. For the US State Department list of countries not in compliance with the BWC, see US Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control and Nonproliferation Agreements and Commitments (Washington DC: Bureau of Verification and Compliance, 2002), available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/22466.pdf.
12. Reviews of the bioweapons that genetic engineering might make possible include: Steven M. Block, 'Living nightmares: Biological threats enabled by molecular biology', in Sidney D. Drell, Abraham D. Sofaer and George D. Wilson, The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1999), pp. 39-75;
13. Claire M. Fraser and Malcolm R. Dando, 'Genomics and future biological weapons: The need for preventive action by the biomedical community', Nature Genetics, vol. 29, November 2001, pp. 253-256;
14. and Mark Wheelis, 'Biotechnology and biochemical weapons', The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2002, pp. 48-53.
15. 'Recombinant DNA' refers to DNA produced by recombining fragments of DNA from different organisms. For a review of the policy debates engendered by recombinant DNA research, see Christopher Chyba, 'The recombinant DNA debate and the precedent of Leo Szilard', in Sanford A. Lakoff (ed.), Science and Ethical Responsibility (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1980), pp. 251-264.
16. For illustrations of the capabilities provided by recent techniques, see, for example, Andreas Crameri, Sun-Ali Raillard, Ericka Bermudez and Willem P.C. Stemmer,'DNA shuffling of a family of genes from diverse species accelerates directed evolution', Nature, vol. 391, 15 January 1998, pp. 288-291;
17. Nay-Wei Soong, Laurel Nomura, Katja Pekrun, Margaret Reed, Liana Sheppard, Glenn Dawes and Willem P.C. Stemmer, 'Molecular breeding of viruses', Nature Genetics, vol. 25, August 2000, pp. 436-439;
18. Ying-Xin Zhang, Kim Perry, Victor A. Vinci, Keith Powell, Willem P.C. Stemmer and Stephen B. del Cardayré, 'Genome shuffling leads to rapid phenotypic improvement in bacteria', Nature, vol. 415, 7 February 2002, pp. 644-646.
19. Gerald F. Joyce, 'Directed molecular evolution', Scientific American, December 1992, pp. 90-97;
20. Ronald R. Breaker and Gerald F. Joyce, 'Inventing and improving ribozyme function: Rational design versus iterative selection methods', Trends in Biotechnology, vol. 12, July 1994, pp. 268-275.
21. Ernst & Young Economics Consulting and Quantitative Analysis, prepared for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, The Economic Contributions of the Biotechnology Industry to the US Economy, May 2000, http://www.bio.org/news/ernstyoung.pdf.
22. David Barboza, 'Development of Biotech Crops is Booming in Asia', New York Times, 21 February 2003.
23. Staff report, 'PAEC to Train Foreign Muslim Scientists', The Daily Times, Lahore, 17 January 2004.
24. Wayne Arnold, 'Singapore goes for Biotech: A $280 Million Complex, Complete with Mice', New York Times 26 August 2003.
25. Kendall Hoyt and Stephen G. Brooks, 'A Double-Edged Sword: Globalization and Biosecurity', International Security, vol. 28, no. 3, Winter 2003-04, pp. 123-148.
26. See, for example, Christopher F. Chyba, Biological Terrorism, Emerging Diseases, and National Security, (New York: Rockefeller Brothers Fund Project on World Security, 1998), http://rbf.org/publications/sec.html
27. and Christopher F. Chyba, 'Biological Terrorism and Public Health'.
28. Christopher F. Chyba, 'Toward Biological Security', Foreign Affairs, vol. 81, no. 3, May/June 2002, pp. 122-136.
29. The BW capabilities and mistakes of Aum Shinrikyo have been assessed by Milton Leitenberg, 'An Assessment of the Biological Weapons Threat to the United States', Journal of Homeland Security.
30. See, for example, Jonathan B. Tucker, 'Preventing the Misuse of Pathogens: The Need for Global Biosecurity Standards', Arms Control Today, June 2003, http://www.arinscontrol.org/act/2003_06/ tucker-juneO3.asp.
31. See, for example, Gerald Epstein, 'Controlling Biological Warfare Threats: Resolving Potential Tensions Among the Research Community, Industry and the National Security Community', Critical Reviews in Microbiology, vol. 27, no. 4 (2001), pp. 321-354.
32. A specific example of this approach is Richard Danzig, Catastrophic Bioterrorism - What Is to Be Done? Center for Technology and National Security Policy, August 2003.
33. For more information on these programmes, see The NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda for CDC Category A Agents: Progress Report, August 2003, accessible at http://www2.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense/research/ strat-plan.aspx,
34. and The White House, 'President Details Project Bioshield', http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030203.html.
35. The term 'fallacy of the last move' was, to our knowledge, first used in Herbert York, Race to Oblivion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), p. 211.
36. Ronald J. Jackson et al., 'Expression of a mouse interleukin-4 by a recombinant ectromelia virus suppresses cytolytic lymphocyte responses and overcomes genetic resistance to mousepox', Journal of Virology, vol. 75, no. 3, February 2001, pp. 1,205-1,210.
37. For a less technical historical account, see Jon Cohen, 'Designer Bugs', The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/ cgi-bin/send.cgi?page=http%3A//www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/07/ cohen-j.htm.
38. National Research Council, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism, (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2004), p. 26.
39. Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Pau, and Eckard Wimmer, 'Chemical synthesis of poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template', Science vol. 297, pp. 1,016-1,018, 9 August 2002,.
40. See also Steven M. Block, 'A Not-So-Cheap Stunt', Science Online, vol. 297, 2 August 2002, pp. 769-770.
41. Hamilton O. Smith, Clyde A, Hutchison III, Cynthia Ftannkoch, and J. Craig Venter, 'Generating a synthetic genome by whole genome assembly: fX174 bacteriophage from synthetic oligonucleotides', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Early Edition, http://www.pnas.org/cgi/ doi/10.1073/pnas.2237126100.
42. James Stevens et al., 'Structure of the Uncleaved Human H1 Hemagglutinin from the Extinct 1918 Influenza Virus', Science, vol. 303, 19 March 2004, pp. 1,866-1,870.
43. For a less technical perspective, see Edward C. Holmes, '1918 and All That', Science, vol. 303,19 March 2004, pp. 1,787-1,788.
44. For some of these claims, see Ken Alibek, Biohazard (New York: Dell Publishing, 1999), p. 173;
45. Sergei Popov, NOVA Online Bioterror Sergei Popov, http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/nova/bioterror/biow-popov.html.
46. Nobuyuki Shimono et al., 'Hypervirulent mutant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis resulting from disruption of the mcel operon', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 100, no. 26, 23 December 2003, pp. 15,918-15,923.
47. Mark L. Cunningham, Richard G. Titus, Salvatore J. Turco, and Stephen M. Beverley, 'Regulation of differentiation to the infective state of the protozoan parasite Leishmania major by tetrahydrobiopterin', Science, vol. 292,13 April 2001, pp. 285-287.
48. World Health Organization, The World Health Report 2003 - Shaping the Future, Annex 2: Deaths by cause, sex and mortality stratum in WHO Regions, estimates for 2002, http://www.who.int/whr/2003/annex/enl.
49. World Health Organization, The World Health Report 2003 - Shaping the Future, Chapter 5: SARS: Lessons from a New Disease, http://www.who.int/ whr/2003/chapter5/en/
50. Richard J. Webby and Robert G. Webster, 'Are We Ready for Pandemic Influenza', Science vol. 302, 28 November 2003, pp. 1,519-1,522.
51. Christopher F. Chyba, 'Toward Biological Security'.
52. In his January 2004 State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush stated that 'dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities' had been identified by post-war inspections in Iraq. See, The White House, 'State of the Union Address'. United States Capitol, Washington DC, 20 January 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2004/01/20040120-7.html.
53. National Research Council, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism, (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2004).
54. John Steinbruner, Eisa D. Harris, Nancy Gallagher and Stacy Gunther, Controlling Dangerous Pathogens: A Prototype Protective Oversight System, September 2003, http://www.cissm.umd.edu/documents/ pathogensmonograph.pdf.
55. Quoted in Art MacEoin, 'IRA Bombs British Cabinet in Brighton', An Phoblacht/Republican News, 11 October 2001, http://republican-news.org/ archive/2001/Octoberll/llhist.html.
56. Harold Varmus et al., 'Grand Challenges in Global Health', Science vol. 302, 17 October 2003, pp. 398-399
57. 'Dissuasion by denial'has sometimes been called 'deterrence by denial'; we accept the distinction that 'deterrence' refers exclusively to prevention by the threat of punishment, so that 'dissuasion' is appropriate here. For a discussion of this terminology, see Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995), pp. 3-4.
58. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad,'US Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits', New York Times, 4 September 2001;
59. see also Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 287-314.
60. See Department of Defense, 'Department of Defense Directive Number 2060.1', 24 November 2003, http://w-ww.dtic.mfl/whs/directives/corres/ pdf/d20601010901/d20601p.pdf.