Experts Urge Next President to Face BW Dangers

Scientific advances in biotechnology, the global proliferation of practitioners, and an increasing complacency about security risks, have combined to create major concerns that the next U.S. president will have to address, two experts said yesterday in Washington (see GSN, March 13).

Biological weapons are often considered to be the easiest WMD capability for terrorists to acquire, in part because potentially deadly toxins are used for legitimate purposes all over the world, said Brian Finlay of the Henry L. Stimson Center.

He noted the use of Botox, derived from botulinum toxin, for cosmetic uses, as well as similar interest in positive applications of ricin and tetradotoxin, or puffer fish venom.

Maintaining control of these materials as they are used across the globe is challenging, he told a meeting organized by the Center for National Policy.

“The bottom line is, this is a global regulatory nightmare,” Finlay said.

Margaret Hamburg, of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, warned that ongoing life sciences research could identify new lethal technologies to join already identified threats, such as anthrax and smallpox.

“It is a frightening set of scenarios,” she said. “How do we as a society and as a global community deal with these kinds of threats?”

The next U.S. president, the two said, will need to address these questions urgently by streamlining bureaucratic systems, improving cooperation between government and industry, and devoting more resources to prevention and response, they said (Matt Korade, Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security, Oct. 23).