News About Chemical and Biological Agents and Threats

These news items were compiled by Hans G. Andersson of OUTBREAK. The reports are from reliable news sources, but cannot be fully verified by OUTBREAK, ProMED, or the Federation of American Scientists.

Part 3: February, 1998

Part 2: January, 1998

Part 1: November & December, 1997

"How could Iraq, after eight years of sanctions and after destroying its weapons, use weapons it did not have to start with and how could Iraq deliver such weapons to Britain while being under the embargo?" asked the statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.

In another comment, Col. Terry Taylor, a former UN weapons inspector, emphasized the difficulty of smuggling Anthrax weapons over borders.

"If it was really being sent like this, in bottles, it's quite difficult to keep alive and to get it out in a form that might actually kill somebody," he said.

Sources: The Associated Press, March 24, 1998.

A special warning has been issued by the Home Office (interior ministry), on the Prime Minister's orders.

"We can confirm that an all-ports warning has been circulated," said a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A source with access to intelligence in Baghdad gave the alert before Christmas, according to the London Times. Details were shared the US and other members of Nato. However, information to UK senior customs officials and police officers was not sent until last Wednesday (3/18).

The Iraqi threat was contained in a confidential document sent to Customs and Excise, Special Branch, police, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. No such countrywide warning about a feared b/c attack has been issued before.

The all-ports warning, that was circulated on Monday (3/23), said:

"Iraq may launch a chemical and biological attack using materials disguised as harmless fluids. Could officers therefore be alert for any items which may contain harmful substances. Particular attention should be given to containers of any size holding liquids with specific characteristics."

All British ports have been put on alert for large quantities of Anthrax, possibly smuggled in bottles of alcohol, perfume and cigarette lighters.

Iraq planned to target "hostile countries" including the United States, Britain and other NATO members in revenge for any military strikes.

The UK government said there was no evidence the plot had been carried out.

"A threat may have been made. Obviously that has to be taken seriously but we do not believe there is cause for alarm," said a spokeswoman.

The Iraqi threat was uncovered by intelligence sources in Baghdad.

Sources: The NandoTimes, March 23, The Times, March 24, 1998.

Erik Smulson, Sen. Jeffords' spokesman, called the incident "a sad situation, not only because of the potential threat of injury to innocent people but also because we are clearly dealing with an individual who is quite ill and in need of help."

Laboratory tests have shown that it was the gunpowder in the packages.

"There was a return address on the package, and the individual who was responsible for sending it has been interviewed," said Charles Tetzlaff, the U.S. Attorney in Vermont. "No one is in custody, and the matter is still under investigation."

The packages reportedly contained threats toward former President Reagan, but Tetzlaff said he didn't see anything threatening in the rambling letters.

"There were a number of possible federal violations that were being looked at," said Tetzlaff. "What I think we are left with is a possible violation of the postal laws."

It's illegal to send gunpowder through the US mail.

Source: The Associated Press and Reuters, March 24, 1998.

A worker at Jeffords' Burlington office called police on Monday before opening the inner package that contained the substance, but three workers at Glenn's Ohio office were injured when that package was opened.

The package had been sent from Vermont and both appeared to be from the same person, according to Eric Smulson, Jeffords' spokesman.

"They opened the box and inside the box appeared to be some questionable black material," he said. "The Burlington police were contacted, as well as Secret Service and the Capitol Hill Police. It is currently being investigated."

Smulson said no one was injured in the Burlington office because they called the police before opening the inner package.

"The actual inner package was not opened. When they saw that, the police were alerted," he said.

The package sent to Glenn also contained a 12-page handwritten letter full of racial and ethnic slurs, said Vicki Butland, spokeswoman for Glenn's Columbus office.

"It was a militia type," she said.

Deputy Fire Chief Ned Pettus said the unidentified substance caused the workers' hands in Ohio to turn a purplish color and numbed them for several hours Monday. The workers were treated and released from Ohio State University Medical Center late Monday night, said hospital spokesman Bob Fitzsimmons.

The Ohio federal building in downtown Columbus was evacuated from 5:30 p.m. to about 10 p.m. so firefighters and hazardous materials crews could examine the substance, Pettus said. The 6th floor, where Glenn's office is located, remained sealed early this morning.

"The package was addressed to Glenn and contained a sweater," said Pettus. "Inside the package was a plastic bag with the substance. It spilled onto one employee's hands when the package was opened, and other employees came in contact with it when they tried to sweep it up."

The package was sent certified mail and had a return address from Vermont, Butland said. The package was addressed to Glenn but the letter inside was not, she said. Butland and Jack Sparks, Glenn's press secretary in Washington, D.C., said they did not know from where in Vermont the package was sent.

The letter was angry and rambling but the intentions of the package were perfectly clear, fire Battalion Chief Howard White said.

"Someone's trying to make a statement," White said. "It wasn't meant to explode, it was meant to harm."

A sample of the substance was sent to Battelle Laboratories for identification, Pettus said. The rest of it was left in a drum on the scene and will remain there until the substance is identified.

The substance appeared to be gunpowder, according to one official in Ohio.

The three injured workers are Brian Coombs, 29; Yolanda Brock, 26, and Nate Coffman, 27.

Sources: The Associated Press, CNN and The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), March 24, 1998.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen today announced the establishment of a Consequence Management Program Integration Office to oversee the integration of the Reserve components into domestic preparations to respond to terrorist or other incidents involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The office will be led by Air Force Lt. Col. Jay Steinmetz and will report to the director of Military Support. The secretary of the Army, as the executive agent for domestic preparedness, will supervise the office and its integration efforts.

Integrating the reserves into national plans to respond to domestic WMD incidents is another step in fulfilling Cohen's recent mandate to achieve full integration of the Reserve and active components. In his Sept. 4, 1997 Memo on the Integration of the Active and Reserve Components, he called on the military services to provide the National Command Authorities with a total force that provides "the flexibility and interoperability necessary for the full range of military operations."

The new office's primary function will be to bring Reserve Component integration in synch with current interagency WMD preparedness programs; and to establish 10 Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection (RAID) elements. The RAID elements will enhance DoD's immediate response capability.

Each RAID element, consisting of 22 highly trained, full-time National Guard personnel, will have the mission of providing early assessment, initial detection, and technical advice to local incident commanders during an incident involving a weapon of mass destruction; and then initiating requests for additional state or federal response assets. Their goal is to deploy rapidly and arrive quickly at the site of a domestic WMD incident.

The Department will also leverage the capabilities of existing National Guard and Reserve component reconnaissance and decontamination units to provide additional support to civilian authorities during an incident involving domestic WMD. With guidance from the Program Integration Office, these units will be given additional training and equipment to accomplish this mission. Reserve component medical personnel also will receive training to better prepare them to perform their duties while operating in potentially contaminated areas.

The office will integrate overall WMD training and exercises, purchase equipment for the military response elements, and coordinate the necessary training for each. It will also work closely with the Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other federal agencies.

As with any operation involving military assistance to civilian authorities, the Department will play a support role. Local authorities will retain their overall jurisdiction and FEMA will retain its role as the lead federal agency for consequence management.

$49.2 million has been requested in the FY99 President's Budget and forwarded with the following recommendations:

$19.9 million for 220 Active Guard/Reserve positions to stand up Army National Guard RAID elements.

$15.9 million for patient decontamination and WMD reconnaissance element training (over two years).

$6.9 million to establish and staff the Consequence Management Program Integration Office.

$3.3 million to prepare medical personnel for operating in contaminated areas.

$1.8 million for additional Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer training days.

$1.4 million to upgrade simulation systems with WMD-effects modeling.

A copy of the report "Integrating National Guard and Reserve Component Support for Response to Attacks Using Weapons of Mass Destruction" is available online.

Source: News Release from The Department of Defense, March 17, 1998.

The National Guard will establish 10 units, each composed of 22 full-time members.

"These teams will arrive quickly, assess the scene and help ensure these affected areas get the federal assistance'' they need, Cohen said in a speech at the National Press Club.

The regular Army and Marine Corps currently have a small number of such "chem-bio" teams, including experts who can identify chemical and biological agents. That modest effort would be broadly increased with a proposed $49.2 million budget rise for fiscal 1999 beginning next October, according to Cohen.

The Defense Secretary said as many as 25 nations could make chemical or biological agents and the threat from unconventional warfare or terrorist attack was increasing worldwide.

"Today, I am announcing the creation of the military's first-ever rapid assessment teams to ensure the Department of Defense is even more prepared," Cohen said.

"Ten special National Guard teams will be dedicated to assisting local civilian authorities in the event of a chemical or biological attack. These teams will arrive quickly, assess the scene and help to ensure affected areas get the federal assistance they need."

"The experts tell us that it's not 'if' but 'when' a weapon of mass destruction will be used in this country," said acting Army Secretary Robert Walker, at a Pentagon news conference.

The 10 rapid-response teams will be formed over 12 months from October and be stationed in 10 geographical areas designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The initial military response teams will be backed up by dozens of other National Guard teams on call and specializing in areas such as b/c decontamination.

Cohen said that in addition to the domestic National Guard teams, part-time military reserve units trained to help regular forces assess chem-bio emergencies around the world would expand such efforts within the United States.

"In its first year, this entire plan will avail nearly 4,000 more personnel trained and ready to assist civilian authorities," he said.

"This new initiative will be the cornerstone of our strategy for preparing America's defense against the possible use of weapons of mass destruction."

Source: The Associated Press and Reuters, March 17, 1998.

"By the time the aircraft landed in New York, each passenger would have become a biological weapon.

"From there, they might leave to travel all over the United States, to Detroit, to Florida, each one a new focus for the disease. The incubation period of smallpox is two to 14 days, so before people realised they had been infected, they would be infecting other people. The hospitals would be overwhelmed."

"Thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - might die."

Alibek is worried about the threat:

"I'm not trying to scare people. I don't want to over or underestimate this problem. I'm not an expert in counter-intelligence. But in my opinion, biological weapons - or at least the most primitive variants - are not a problem to manufacture or to apply. They are not complicated to make like nuclear weapons.

"It would be very easy to use them and escape undetected. Nobody will die immediately, but suddenly, after a few days, we will see a massive influx into hospitals. Only then will we realise this is a terrorist attack."

Source: Electronic Telegraph, March 14, 1998.

"The specter of biological weapons use is an ugly one, every bit as grim and foreboding as the picture which has been painted of a nuclear winter," he said. "It is not 'if' but 'when' ... and I hope we're going to be prepared."

Henderson warned experts at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases on Tuesday (3/10) that they will likely be the front line of defense against bioterrorism directed at US populations.

"The first evidence of the intent to use such weapons will almost certainly be the appearance of cases in hospital emergency rooms," he said. The initial victims of an attack with biological weapons would probably be buried before the correct diagnosis was made, said another scientist.

So, the speed of an accurate diagnosis could mean the difference between hundreds of casualties and tens of thousands, or worse.

One problem, according to Henderson, is that the microbes most likely to be used - Smallpox, Anthrax and Plague - are not usually seen in this country or in any emergency room. Laboratories are equally unfamiliar with the organisms.

Health officials must also designate where victims should be taken and how many isolation centers need to be set aside for their care in a bioterrorism attack, according to researchers. Speakers also pointed to scientific ignorance about how to decontaminate areas where biological agents had been dispersed and when, if ever, it would be safe for residents to return to their apartments and homes and workers to their offices.

"We cannot delay in the development and implementation of strategic plans for coping with civilian bioterrorism." Henderson said.

Dr. Marcelle Layton of the New York City Health Department said that despite steps taken by the city, it's uncertain whether it's possible to be effectively prepared for biological attacks.

Dr Henderson, who led the campaign that eradicated Smallpox, now suggests the US should produce and store more Smallpox vaccine to deal with biological warfare and terrorism threats. Henderson proposes production and storage of another 20 million doses, in addition to the 15 million doses today stored by the CDC in Atlanta. He said that if more vaccine were ever needed, manufacturers should have capacity to produce it within several weeks, not the months it would now take.

Donna Shalala, the secretary of health and human services, told the meeting that her department had begun coordinating with other federal and military agencies to insure proper training "to address the growing threat of potential bioterrorism" that could create the next worldwide epidemic.

Dr David Franz of the USAMRIID, expressed a wider view in saying that "a prepared society acts as a deterrent to use of biological weapons."

Sources: The New York Times and CNN/AP, March 11, The Houston Chronicle, March 10, 1998.

An eight-block stretch of a major street in east Phoenix was closed for security reasons while police investigated. About 10 people were treated at the scene for possible exposure, but police said they had been told by poison control officials it was "highly unlikely" that there were Anthrax spores in the letter because the material was difficult to transport.

"There is a possibility that it is Anthrax, but the chances are that it is not," said Capt. Charles Hood, a Phoenix fire department spokesman.

``But in this situation we have to be pessimistic and go the whole route in our treatment of it and in our investigation,'' he said.

Source: Reuters, March 10, 1998.

Dr Jack Woodall, Director, Nucleus for the Investigation of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

What will happen to civilians caught in the 'fall-out' from a biological attack? In war, a biological agent could spread far from the battlefield, and in a terrorist attack, civilians are likely to be the main target. The military can be expected to take care of their own, but who will care for the civilians? Apart from Israel, which issues its population with gas masks, and some cities in the USA where the emergency services have had training in how to repond to chemical and biological attack, many countries will be expecting succor from international relief agencies such as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, the High Commission for Refugees, Doctors without Borders and similar groups. But those agencies will be faced with a dilemma; how will they know when it is safe to enter the affected area? They will not want to risk exposing their relief personnel to contamination and possible death.

In fact, a prototype 'SWAT' team once existed, whose mission was to arrive at the scene of a biological attack within 24 hours, identify the agent, measure the extent of the contamination, and tell relief agencies when it was safe to send in aid. Its name was Task Force Scorpio, and it was based in Switzerland. But in the face of the growing threat of biological attacks, clones of Scorpio are needed, based regionally to respond faster and in the local language. Article X of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) calls on States Parties to the Convention to facilitate and participate in the exchange of equipment, materials and information for the prevention of disease. Regional collaboration between countries to set up more Scorpios would be a tangible implementation of the treaty, and a big step towards mitigation of the effects of a biological attack on civilians of the countries concerned.

The need for a biological 'SWAT' team struck me at the time of the invasion of Kuwait, when I was working for the disease surveillance division of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. I retired from WHO in 1994 and now direct the Arbovirus Laboratory of the New York State Health Department, but during1998 I am on leave as Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I am setting up a center for the investigation of emerging diseases. My participation in biological defense matters is supported by the Federation of American Scientists.

The conversion of my idea into the reality of Task Force Scorpio was the work of Dr Robert Steffen of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Dr Steffen was also a member of the Swiss Disaster Relief Unit, and he convinced the Unit's leadership to expand it to include the expertise needed to handle biological and toxin agents. Scorpio members had to be immunized against biological threats, including anthrax, but all anthrax vaccine supplies had been pre-empted by the Coalition forces. Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, then Director-General of WHO, was instrumental in obtaining the release of a limited supply of the vaccine to protect Task Force members. Details of the preparation and equipping of Task Force Scorpio and a proposal to multiply it on a regional basis for faster, regionally appropriate response, as a means of implementing Article X of the BWC, were presented by me at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta on Tuesday 10 March 1998, in the Poster Session.

Switzerland has had, for many years, a Disaster Relief Unit that has taken aid to the sites of earthquakes and other natural disasters around the world. It includes physicians, veterinarians, and specialists in communications, logistics and flight control. To convert it into a team able to handle biological, toxin and mixed weapons detection, it was augmented with experts in nuclear and chemical defense, and international specialists in anthrax, botulinum toxin and viral hemorrhagic fevers. They trained together in protective suits. The volunteer members came from hospitals and institutions all over Switzerland, from where they could be fetched by helicopter at a moment's notice. Scorpio had its own jet transportation, and when in standby mode could leave within 24 hours of a call, traveling under the protection of neutral Swiss diplomatic passports. Task Force Scorpio was put at the disposal of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and was immunized, trained and ready to go when the ground war began on 28 February 1991. Fortunately, as we know, its services were not needed then. After the war it was disbanded, and was not available in the recent crisis with Iraq. It is to be hoped that Switzerland will be able to quickly find more willing volunteers to reconstitute Scorpio as a standby force.

In today's world of proliferating chemical and biological threats, there is a need for more Scorpios to be placed in readiness. More than one chembio emergency may arise at the same time, and Scorpio is not large enough to split. Regional task forces should be set up, with language skills appropriate to each area. Regionally based units should also be able to reach local trouble spots faster than a Switzerland-based unit, and their mix of nationalities might be more acceptable than a Swiss team. They should be set up as quickly as possible. A full series of immunizations against anthrax takes 18 months, and against botulinum toxin (botox) takes a year.

In the case of Scorpio, one Task Force member who was already immunized against botox donated his immune globulin to be stockpiled in vials in case of need by his colleagues. Anthrax and other vaccines need to be stockpiled before an emergency pre-empts all available supplies. Other essential supplies and equipment, such as protective suits, decontamination materials and portable laboratories, must be readied; Scorpio travels with a 12-hour supply of food and water.

One of the provisions of the BWC is the exchange of biodefense information and expertise between States Parties to the treaty. Once protective equipment and supplies become widely available, the biowar option will become less attractive to rogue states, since their intended victims will be prepared. An immediately useful way of implementing this provision would be for countries with biodefense know-how to offer assistance in setting up regional Scorpios, based on the WHO/Swiss experience. Countries could cooperate in building regional task forces in the same way as they have cooperated to build UNSCOM, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, with one country providing air transport, another vehicles, others experts, equipment and supplies. Training could be rotated through participating countries in the region concerned, so that all would have a chance to observe. Joint exercises of simulated biowar or bioterrorist attacks could be held. All of this would raise the level of preparedness of countries and lower the level of effectiveness that an aggressor could expect from a biowar attack.

Task Force Scorpio is a highly trained team of volunteers consisting of doctors, specialists in communications logistics, flight control and biological toxins, as well as experts in nuclear and chemical defense. The group, which has been immunized against Anthrax and other biological agents, arrives at the scene of a disaster within 24 hours.

Details on the development of Scorpio and plans for implementing similar regional task forces were presented at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases on Tuesday (3/10) in Atlanta, GA.

There is an immediate need to train individuals; stockpile vaccines, immunize team members and gather protective suits, decontamination materials and portable laboratories, he said. A full series of immunizations against Anthrax and Botulinum toxin takes a year, he said.

An immediate way to implement the BWC provision calling for the exchange of bio-defense information and expertise between parties to the treaty, says Woodall, is for countries with bio-defense know-how to offer assistance in setting up regional Scorpio teams. Training can be rotated through participating countries and joint exercises of simulated biological disasters or threats can be held. This type of regional cooperation is a way to raise the level of preparedness for the protection of the civilian population against biological warfare and terrorism threats.

Jack Woodall is Director of the Arbovirus Laboratory of the New York State Department of Health in Albany, NY. He is on leave and is currently a visiting professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Woodall is also ProMED List Moderator, a member of the steering committee of ProCEID, the Program for Countering Emerging Infectious Diseases, and the Chair of OUTBREAK's Scientific Review Team.

Source: Reuters and Associated Press, March 10, 1998.

Ken Alibek, alias Dr Kanatjan Alibekov, arrived in the United States, in 1992. He was the first deputy chief of research and production for the Soviet biological-weapons program. He was the top scientist in the Biopreparat, a mega germ weapons producer with thirty-two thousand scientists and staff, and facilities all across the Soviet Union.

Alibek defected and took his information to the CIA, Russia acknowledged that the biological weapons program had been a closely guarded Soviet secret but denied that germ weapons were being stockpiled.

Biopreparat was set up in 1973, just a year after the Soviet Union signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The treaty, now signed by140 nations, banned the development, use, and stockpiling of biological weapons.

However, Moscow continued to believe that the US had not ended its bioweapons program. "The notion that the Americans had given up their biological weapons was thought of as the great American lie," says a British intelligence officer. "In fact, most of the Biopreparat scientists had never even heard of the Biological Weapons Convention."

Germ Missiles

Soviet reseearchers has, according to Alibek, developed a specially sinister delivery system for bioweapons. Ten separate cone-shaped warheads, each targeted on a different location, sit atop a missile. Special cooling systems inside each warhead to keep the virus alive during the heat of reentry through the earth's atmosphere.

"If we can land a cosmonaut to earth alive, we can do the same with a virus," says Alibek. "We use parachutes."

The biowarheads are loaded with several different biological agents, often a cocktail of Smallpox, Plague and Anthrax. It's parachuted over a city, and at a certain altitude they break apart. Out of each warhead bursts a spray of more than a hundred oval bomblets the size of small cantaloupes. The cantaloupes fly out a distance and then split in overlapping patterns, releasing a haze of bioparticles that quickly becomes invisible.

Super-Anthrax And Multi-Drug-Resistant Plague

Alibek has a Doctor of Sciences degree in Anthrax. He directed the research team that developed what's known as the most powerful weapons-grade Anthrax. It's four times more efficient than the standard product, and it was fully operational as a bioweapon in 1989.

The Alibekov Anthrax has been described by Richard Preston as "an amber-gray powder, finer than bath talc, with smooth, creamy particles that tend to fly apart and vanish in the air, becoming invisible and drifting for miles. It's

When Vladimir Pasechnik, another top Biopreparat scientist, defected to the UK in 1989, British and US intelligence learned that USSR scientists had developed a genetically engineered multi-drug-resistant strain of Pneumonic Plague.

Airborne Marburg Virus

In the late 1980s Russian scientists experimented with Marburg virus as a potential germ weapon, when Dr Nikolai Ustinov, 44, pricked himself in a finger with a needle while injecting guinea pigs with Marburg virus. The researcher died.

An autopsy was performed and liver, spleen and virus loaded blood was frozen. The Ustinov strain was kept alive and mass produced in flasks. Dried Marburg Variant U was processed into an inhalable dust, and the particles were coated for protection.

Biopreparat scientists tested the airborne Marburg on monkeys and other small animals and found it to be extremely potent in its airborne form. One to five microscopic particles of Marburg Variant U lodged in the lungs of a monkey were almost guaranteed to kill the animal. It takes about eight thousand weapons-grade Anthrax spores to get the same result.

By the fall of 1991, just before Boris Yeltsin came to power, Variant U was on the verge of becoming a strategic/operational biological weapon, ready to be manufactured in large quantities and loaded into warheads.

Marburg never became a part of the Soviets' strategic arsenal, according to Alibek and a US expert, stocked with "hundreds of tons" of Plague, Anthrax and Smallpox.

Genetically Engineered Smallpox

"Russia has researched the genetic alteration of Smallpox," said Alibek. "In 1990 and 1991, we engineered a Smallpox at Vector. It was found that several areas of the Smallpox genome" - the DNA -"can be used for the introduction of some foreign genetic material. The first development was Smallpox and VEE. VEE, or Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, is a brain virus. It causes a severe headache and near-coma, but it is generally not lethal.

The researchers spliced VEE into Smallpox. "It is called Smallpox-VEE chimera," he said. "It could also be called Veepox. Under a microscope the Veepox looks like Smallpox, but it isn't.

Alibek says that the Russians tested Veepox in monkeys, but he says that he doesn't know the results.

Ebolapox?

Ken Alibek claims that Russian bioweapons researchers may have created a recombinant Ebola-Smallpox chimera. He believes that the scientists made a DNA copy of the disease-causing parts of Ebola, then grafted them into smallpox. Alibek said he thinks that the Ebolapox virus is stable, and will replicate successfully in a test tube or in animals.

"The Ebolapox could produce the form of smallpox called blackpox," says Alibek. "As a weapon, the Ebolapox would give the hemorrhages and high mortality rate of Ebola virus, which would give you a blackpox, plus the very high contagiousness of smallpox," said Alibek.

"I suspect that this research has been done," he said.

Dr. Peter Jahrling, chief scientist at USAMRIID, doesn't believe Alibek about the Ebola-Smallpox mix.

"His talk about chimeras of Ebola is sheer fantasy, in my opinion,"said Jahrling. "This would be technically formidable. We have seen zero evidence of the Vector scientists doing that. But a smallpox chimera -- is it plausible? Yes, it is, and I think that's scary. The truth is, I'm not so worried about governments anymore. I think genetic engineering has been reduced to simple enough principles so that any reasonably equipped group of reasonably good scientists would be able to construct a credible threat using genetic engineering. I don't think anyone could knock out New York City with a genetically engineered bug, but someone might be able to knock out a few people and thereby make an incredible panic."

Russia Today

In 1992, Yeltsin's Russia agreed to terminate all offensive biological weapons research, dismantle pilot production lines, close testing facilities, cut personnel involved in military biological programs by 50 percent and reduce funding by 30 percent.

Biopreparat is today a much smaller organization than it was during the Soviet years, and it's dedicated entirely to peaceful research and production, of products such as face cream and vodka.

But, Ken Alibek says Russia continues to study offensive biological weapons agents under the guise of defensive research.

"They continue to do research to develop new biological agents," said Alibek. "They conduct research and explain it as being for defensive purposes."

"We can say Russia continues research in this area to maintain its military biological potential. They keep safe their personnel, their scientific knowledge. And they still have a production capability."

Alibek used to be the head of the Stepnagorsk bioweapons facility, in the late 80s the largest biowarfare production facility in the world. The plant, in what is now Kazakhstan, was built for dual use - designed to produce, process, handle and store biological agents as well as turn them into weapons. The complex could, according to a US expert, produce a little more than 96 pounds of freeze-dried Plague bacteria per week, if ordered to do so.

"Stepnogorsk had enormous production capacity," said Jonathan B. Tucker, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Center For Non-Proliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. "It was not engaged in large-scale production. It was a mothballed facility that would be up and running in wartime in six months. The part I think is most credible is they did have substantial production capacity. It is unclear if they had large stockpiles."

Alibek also fear that many bioweapons researchers may have left Russia."No one knows where they are," he says. Maybe in Iraq, Syria or Libya? Nobody knows for sure. Some of these scientists may have carried germ weapon formulas in their heads, or possibly even germ strains and ready-to-use weapons.

Sources: The New Yorker, March 9, 1998. "The Bioweaponeers", by Richard Preston. The Washington Post, New York Times and "Prime Time Live"/ABC News, February 26, 1998.

"They remain very active and this calls for due vigilance," says a new Japanese police report. "They're talking about arming themselves again. Members are hearing sermons telling them Armageddon is coming in 1998 and to prepare themselves for the return of the guru in 2008."

The cult is once again recruiting members, building facilities, and amassing large sums of money from cult-owned computer shops, according to the report.

However, a senior member of the National Police is not worried: "There's no reason to worry now because we have our eye on them. The Aum people do not pose a danger to society any more."

Source: NandoTimes/Reuters, March 2, 1998.

"In fact, there were reports the sect's members in New York City had Botulism toxin," he said.

In "The Cobra Event" a terrorist sets up a lab in his appartment and plots to release a deadly germ cocktail in the NYC subway system.

"He imagined brainpox turning New York City into a hot bioreactor, a simmering cauldron of amplifying virus," the book says. "From there, brainpox would amplify itself outward along invisible lines, following airline routes, spanning the globe."

"The FBI is currently investigating 50 cases of this type of terrorism - people accumulating bioweapons or trying to use them," says Richard Preston.

"The Cobra Event" will become a major Hollowood movie.

Source: New York Post, February 20-25, 1998.

UK intelligence agencies, Scotland Yard and the Home Office are drawing up contingency plans in case Iraq attempts to use biological or chemical agents in terrorist attacks in Britain.

Stephen Boys Smith, the director of the Home Office's police policy directorate, is in charge of co-ordinating plans. British experts on b/c warfare have advised the Home Office but there has been "no crisis meetings".

The emergency plans are expected to include a repeat of an exercise carried out in 1991 before the start of the Gulf War. Then officials held a secret exercise in London to rehearse the steps to be taken in the event of an Iraqi terrorist attack using Anthrax or nerve gas.

Saddam Hussein then said that he would launch terrorist missions against western capitals, but no such attack took place.

In response to growing concerns about Iraq's biological arsenal, Porton Down is also developing a "new generation" of anti-biological agent vaccines.

Its unclear what stage the vaccines' development has reached, but at least one, an anti-Plague vaccine, is in or close to production. The vaccine is being developed jointly with a biotechnology company, Cortecs International.

The director of Porton Down, Paul Taylor, said in his first interview since the Iraqi crisis began, work was "proceeding apace" on the new vaccines. They were designed to be "easily-administered, often orally, have a rapid onset, fewer side-effects, and protect against more than one challenge".

Mr Taylor refused to confirm the emergency meetings, but The Telegraph has established that they have recently taken place, along with briefings to Home Office ministers. "We are working extremely long hours. Activity has been considerably stepped up. We have given advice and support to lots of people," he said.

Asked if the "user-friendliness" of the vaccines implied preparations for mass civilian use in Britain, Mr Taylor said: "You might be right to say that they could be used by civilians, but we cannot decide that. We produce for the Armed Forces and it is up to ministers to decide whether to use them for civilians. They are not specifically designed for civilians but they could be applicable to them."

Mr Taylor, who is Britain's Director of Biological and Chemical Defence, issued a warning about potential danger in the Middle East and generally, saying: "The threat is real. It is not hype. Saddam may well use weapons of mass destruction again."

An Iraqi biological warfare attack on Britain is considered unlikely. However, a biological terrorist attack on a Western country could be relatively easy to arrange, while difficult to conclusively trace to Iraq.

Source: Electronic Telegraph, February 15, and The Times, February 16, 1998.

"Ever since the dawn of the age of genetic engineering, there's always been a speculation that somebody could always make designer bugs," said Col. Gerald Parker, commander of the USAMRIID.

The new altered form of Anthrax has been developed at the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology in Obolensk, Russia. The research paper was published in December 1997, in the British scientific journal Vaccine.

"The evidence that they presented suggested that it could be resistant to our vaccine," said Col. Arthur Friedlander, chief of USAMRIID's bacteriology division. "We need to get hold of this strain to test it against our vaccine. We need to understand how this new organism causes disease and we need to test it in animals other than hamsters that the Russians used."

The report gives details for making the new organism using standard methods of molecular biology, according to Paul Jackson, a molecular biologist who has done research on the genetics of Anthrax at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"The Russians have demonstrated that they can do it," said Jackson. "Clearly, any competent laboratory in the world could do this too."

Col. Friedlander says it appears the researchers had some scientific rationale for developing the new organism to improve the Russian vaccine, which is different than the US vaccine. "But in the course of doing the study, they genetically engineered a strain that's resistant to their own vaccine and one has to question why that was done. That's the disturbing feature here," said Friedlander.

He said the US DoD is working through diplomatic and other channels to get the Russians to share their genetically engineered organism and other naturally occurring strains of Anthrax with US Anthrax experts.

USAMRIID's biological warfare experts are confident that the US vaccine, based on a protein called protective antigen, gives protection against any Anthrax strain that relies on this protein to facilitate damage to white blood cells.

They are more uneasy about the Russian organism, which contains two non-Anthrax genes that change the organism and may alter the way in which it causes disease.

"This is a Trojan horse," said Col. Arthur Friedlander, chief of the Bacteriology Division at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md. "This is coming in as anthrax, but it's got other bullets in it - different bullets."

Matthew Meselson, a professor in Harvard University's Molecular and Cellular Biology Department, is hopeful that the Russian scientists will share the new organism with US researchers.

"If you wanted to keep it secret, you certainly would not have published it," said Meselson, a member of a National Academy of Sciences committee working to foster cooperation between American and Russian scientists who work on infectious diseases, including ones that could be used in biological weapons. "When scientists work together, they share things. It depends, of course, on us being equally forthcoming."

Source: NandoTimes and Associated Press, February 13, 1998.

"Our goal is to vaccinate everybody in the force so they will be ready to deploy anywhere, anytime," said Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre.

About 150,000 of more than 500,000 U.S. troops in the Gulf War in 1990-91 were given Anthrax vaccinations. But, no link has been established with Gulf War illnesses. The vaccine is licensed by the Food and Drug Administration and has been in use since 1970.

The first shots will be given this coming summer to about 100,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines deployed to "high threat" areas in the Persian Gulf region and around the Korean peninsula.

An Iraqi government statement said a U.S. program to innoculate its troops against the deadly biological agent Anthrax is part of a campaign to breed hostility against the Baghdad government. It's part of a "misleading campaign" by Washington aimed at "winning American and world sympathy for its aggressive position and threats of attack on Iraq."

A statement from the Information Ministry said Iraq "has affirmed previously and still affirms that it does not possess a gram (ounce) of any weapons of mass destruction."

Iraq, Russia and 10 other nations are believed to have the capability to use Anthrax in weapons.

Source: NandoTimes, The Associated Press and Reuters, December 15, 1997.

"We still have increasing intelligence reports that countries, including Iraq, are still manufacturing biological weapons. After the bombing in Oklahoma City and the Tokyo subway attack, there's a lot more civilian interest in this program."

This is the first in a planned series of high-tech conferences to better prepare military and civilian health specialists for nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. "We have always invited civilians, we just haven't always had the capability to reach out to them as we are now," said Lt. Col. Carl Curling of the U.S. Army Office of the Surgeon General in Washington.

More than 5,000 people participated in the interactive program, broadcast live from a Gaithersburg studio and linked to 300 U.S. sites and Israel. The program included three battlefield scenes and one civilian scene of mock biological weapon casualties, which participants were asked to diagnose, said Ms. Pavlin.

About a third of the participants were civilians from public health agencies, Veterans' Administration medical centers and emergency management agencies. The rest were military medical workers from all branches of the armed services.

Future programs will include managing chemical-weapon casualties and medical response to nuclear attack.

Source: The Associated Press, September 16, 1997.

The idea might sound like the fanciful musings of science fiction buffs. But scientists from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's biological warfare programm recently unveiled the neuron-based biosensor research at a microbiology meeting in Miami Beach.

The "canary on a chip" device can detect many toxic chemicals or biological toxins that affect the central nervous system, according to Lawrence DuBois, director of DARPA's Defense Science Office.

Unlike previous devices used for detecting poisonous gases and biological warfare agents, the biosensor works in real time. It can be used in enclosed spaces or on the battlefield, and it can even detect dangerous substances that are currently unknown.

"The biosensor contains an immortalised nerve cell, living and growing on an electrically conducting silicon chip," said Mildred Donlon, who heads the sensor device project. The nerve cell continuously fires nerve impulses. "When a toxic substance is present, the interruption of that electrical signal then triggers an alarm."

In the past 18 months, the detector has been miniaturized and tested worldwide. It has been tested against 18 toxic substances, and successfully detected all but Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B, a food-poisoning agent.

Another current research project is developing an injectable bloodscrubber to destroy micro-organisms in the bloodstream.

Researchers at the University of Virginia has developed special heteropolymers which attach to Velcro-like hooks on red blood cells on one end and bind to the targeted viruses with the other. The virus is rendered harmless and removed from the bloodstream after passing through the liver and spleen. The polymers do not affect the normal functioning of the blood cells.

Although the bloodscrubber is not ready for widespread use, the day could come when soldiers are injected with the heteropolymer so they can operate without having to put on a protective suit, according to Dr. Shaun Jones, one of the scientists.

Source: The Electronic Telegraph, May 13, 1997.

Research at the MoD's high-security Porton Down laboratories concerns "new-generation" methods of protecting against biological warfare agents. The scientists are also investigating new ways of delivering Anti-Plague vaccines, including by mouth, which would assist in widespread civilian vaccination.

A 1993 study for the US Congress's Office of Technology Assessment found that a Scud missile loaded with Anthrax could kill 10,000 people in an urban area.

Porton's research covers Bubonic and Pneumonic Plague and Anthrax - all toxins held by Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

Source: Electronic Telegraph, August 31, 1997.

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