Cornell University
Contact: David
Brand
E-Mail: deb27@cornell.edu
Contact: Blaine
P. Friedlander, Jr.
Office: 607-255-3290
E-Mail: bpf2@Cornell.edu
SAN FRANCISCO
-- Despite recent efforts by Washington to turn pathogens into
panaceas, Russia's once-immense biological weapons (BW) program
continues to be a cause for anxiety. That country's research institutes
and production facilities are poorly guarded and susceptible to
corruption and theft, all causes for concern about the proliferation
of lethal microbes and bioweapons expertise, says a Cornell University
researcher.
In addition,
Russia continues to deny access to four Ministry of Defense biological
weapons facilities. "We have no proof, but there are concerns
that Russia is restricting access to retain its biological weapons
capability. We hope there are other reasons," says Kathleen
Vogel, a postdoctoral associate at the Peace Studies Program at
Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y.
Vogel, a Ph.D.
chemist, will discuss "Proliferation Threats from Former
Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan" at the
annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) at the Hilton San Francisco today (Feb.16, 2:30
p.m.-5:30 p.m.).
Her talk stems
from a recent visit to three former BW facilities in the Republic
of Kazakhstan and is part of a AAAS panel on "Arms Control
and Proliferation Concerns from Former Soviet Weapons Facilities."
Vogel says she organized the seminar to "raise awareness
of these issues in the scientific community" because she
believes that scientists can help redirect weapons research laboratories
in the former Soviet Union to peaceful purposes, such as developing
remedies for human, animal and agricultural diseases.
Despite Washington's
efforts to effect change, says Vogel, "proliferation of bioweapons
technology from these facilities is still a concern." In
1991, the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act (the so-called Nunn-Lugar
legislation) was passed by the U.S. Congress, resulting in the
allocation of nearly $1 billion a year for nonproliferation assistance
and the dismantling of weapons in the former Soviet Union. As
a result, former biological weapons specialists in Russia and
the New Independent States have received funding, to redirect
their research for peaceful purposes, through several U.S. agencies,
including
the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services
and State. However, notes Vogel, this funding "is a mere
two-tenths of 1 percent of the total U.S. defense budget."
A continuing
worry, she says, is that of theft of dangerous pathogens from
laboratories. "Because of unstable economic conditions in
Russia, you can't rule out people engaging in proliferation through
temptation or corruption," she says. At the top of the anxiety
list is the possible theft of smallpox virus cultures. Although
there are only two official repositories for the virus worldwide,
at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at the State
Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia,
it is possible that other facilities in Russia also harbor the
virus. Smallpox was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization
in 1980.
Possible repositories
of smallpox virus, says Vogel, are four former Soviet biological
weapons research facilities that remain closed to the international
community. These plants are located in Kirov, Yekaterinburg, Sergiev
Posad and St. Petersburg. Although the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention, which entered into force in 1975, prohibits the development,
production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons, the
treaty has lacked inspection protocols. As a result, says Vogel,
the four restricted Russian plants remain a question mark on international
efforts to eliminate the threat of biological weapons.
Other pathogens
causing concern, she says, are genetically engineered strains
of anthrax and plague bacteria developed by Soviet researchers
that are resistant to Western antibiotics. Soviet researchers
also developed animal pathogens for use against agricultural targets.
The major
threats of proliferation of biological weapons technology, says
Vogel, come from countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea,
which are in the market for unique cultures of dangerous pathogens
and Russian expertise. In the early 1990s there were U.S. intelligence
reports, she notes, that some Russian biological weapons scientists
had been recruited as consultants to Iran.
Less of a
worry, she says, are pathogens reaching the hands of terrorist
organizations, "because turning a living organism into a
potent biological weapon is more technically challenging than
has been widely reported." For this reason, Russian expertise
would be highly desirable for states wishing to perfect their
existing BW capabilities. This makes the "brain drain"
of Russian bioweapons scientists perhaps the most serious proliferation
threat. Says Vogel: "U.S. nonproliferation programs are essential
because we must make it more difficult for states to recruit these
scientists and obtain their sophisticated bioweapons technologies
and know-how."
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