Abstract
Experts don't agree on the means to ensure biosecurity (or even how to define it), but they are beginning to talk about it with greater urgency. Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security recently hosted a series of seminars where scientists and policy makers discussed bioweapons treaties, the risks associated with biodefense laboratories, and the types of dual-use life science research that should raise red flags. Excerpts from some of the seminars follow.
THE NONSTATE THREAT
It is my judgment that biological weapons for a number of psychological reasons are so abhorrent to states that nobody, even a rogue state, can afford to say, “If you aren't nice, I'll use biological weapons.” They know that in doing so they would simply destroy any and all international support they had with their position, no matter what provocation… . Nonstate actors constitute the bulk of the threat and certainly the most imminent threat. Nonstate actors don't have the same inhibitions that states do about the prospect of using biological weapons.
There are three particular subsets of the biological weapons threat out there today. One is cults or religious movements, because religious fanaticism causes people to do really odd things and because martyrdom is a useful tool for that kind of fanaticism. The second is terrorist groups. It is hard to deter terrorist groups because they have no targets to hold at risk. Plus, it is hard to find out who they are in many instances or to locate them, even though they might identify themselves as terrorist movements. If Osama bin Laden said this afternoon that he had just launched a biological weapons strike, and it turned out he was telling the truth, the whole world might want to retaliate to make sure he understood that that is an unacceptable method of behavior. But does anyone have a good idea of where to go? I don't.
The third subset is individuals who may want to do this for all kinds of reasons. I am not convinced, for example, that the anthrax episode that took place in the United States in October 2001 was an international plot of any shape or form. It was someone trying to say, “I can show you that you can't do things that you say you can do, and therefore you are vulnerable.” Killing five people may or may not have been their objective. Those sorts of things can happen. And then there is always the young kid with a chemistry set who wonders if he can actually do this and finds out that he can. This is where the threat is located.
PREVENTION PROTOCOL
Biosecurity can only be achieved by preventive measures. In an ideal world we would just prevent bioweapons from existing. If we can prevent bioweapons from being made, we cannot be attacked. It is a very simple argument.
If you cannot achieve the complete prevention of bioweapons development, then you need to at least make sure that the bioweapons and the people who have the knowledge to make them are secure and stay put in a given place that you know about. This holds true for any country. If you are not really sure that you can achieve this–for example, in Russia in the 1990s when the Soviet Union broke down and scientists dispersed and changed jobs–then you need to assume that people could have bioweapons in their hands. And you need to come up with the next preventive measure: the development of vaccines and other prophylactic measures.
After you try all of these options, with all of the finances and resources at hand, you need to understand the biology of potential threat agents and of what terrorists could do. Understanding biology means regular, open, transparent, bench research. Public health experts in zoonotic and tropical diseases have focused on these agents for some time–with very little money and very few resources because nobody was really interested in them. Now that people know how these agents could be used for terrible things, we should boost these areas of research and continue with regular public health research. It has nothing to do with biodefense, per se, but feeds into it.
Unfortunately, our biodefense priorities are very different. Right now, we focus on vaccines and therapeutics first, then regular molecular biology, and only then prevention. Nobody talks about the bioweapons convention or ways to increase transparency anymore. These should have the utmost priority.
THE PURPOSE OF BIOLABS
We have to think about bioterrorism and the anthrax attacks in the context of infectious disease emergence. They are simply one facet of the emergence of infectious disease. This is a really critical point. There are many people who think that all Biosafety Level (BSL) 4 labs are biodefense labs, and that all biodefense relates to our ability to defend against biological weapons. There is some of that for sure. But that wasn't what drove the construction of the Shope BSL 4 laboratory in Galveston, Texas. It was the threat of emerging infectious diseases… .
We need these laboratories to be able to understand the pathogenesis of these emerging infectious diseases, to be able to understand how to intervene and to mitigate their consequences, to prepare and assess the efficacy of vaccines, and to test the effectiveness of anti-viral drugs against these viral diseases… .
Do BSL 4 labs enhance or reduce the possibility of inappropriate or malevolent use of biological agents? Does their existence promote the possibility of a biological arms race? These are difficult questions to answer. I can't say that the answer is entirely no. Looking at the profusion of BSL 4 labs being planned or built, not only in the U.S. government and academic sectors but around the globe, you have to ask whether there are too many of these labs. You have to ask who is going to actually work in these facilities and who is going to train these individuals.
We have no cohesive national strategy for developing the highly trained workforce required for the safe and productive operation of these facilities. We have such a workforce in Galveston, but there are not too many worldwide. Much good could be accomplished, and the promise of these labs more clearly realized, if we were to develop and implement a national plan for training these individuals.
RESEARCH RESTRICTIONS
There are those who think that restrictions on scientific communications may offer protection against the intentional misuse of technology. In general, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and its members, all of whom have some science background, don't buy into that. We believe that while restrictions on open communications may provide a sense of security, this logic is seriously flawed and has the potential to do great harm. Instead, you need to be able to anticipate, mitigate, and respond effectively to various infectious threats as they arise. If you think about the SARS epidemic, for example, the amount of information that was generated internationally in a very short period of time actually stopped that potentially huge epidemic. Localizing that outbreak shows how important a robust life science enterprise is… .
The NSABB has tried to find a threshold of what would be considered dual-use research of concern, and we've tried to set that threshold pretty high. To do that, knowing the scope and immediacy of research's potential impact was critical. If research could be directly misapplied to do something nefarious, it possessed a level of immediacy that could warrant concern. Secondly, this misapplication would have to have a broad scope. If someone creates a horrible organism, but it can't be transmitted to anyone or anything, it doesn't have broad consequences.
The evaluation of dual-use potential should be based on our current understanding of the implications of the research. In other words, you can't sit here and say, “gee, in five years, if something else happens, then this might be a problem.” It has to be within our current understanding, because none of us foresees the future very well. There has to be a sense of reasonable anticipation.