Bioterror - Good for Business

One of the side effects of the Graham-Talent WMD Commission's bioterror screech is that people will latch onto the study as an excuse to propose the most ridiculous schemes. These are ideas that shouldn't ever see the light of day, and to see them in print is just an indication of the poor understanding that editors and journalists have about the issue. Take, for instance, former Bush administration official Tevi Troy discussing the need for "home medkits" for every US household - handy for when that predicted bioterrorist incident arrives within the next few years, as predicted in the G-T report.

"As the Obama administration looks at options for improving its recent failing grade on rapid response to biological attacks, they should make sure to consider home medkits as part of their countermeasure distribution tool kit," Mr. Troy tells the Beltway.

"Medkits let individuals prepare themselves and their families for possible biological incidents - be they naturally occurring or man-made - and they reduce the burden on federal officials who have to distribute desperately needed medications to thousands if not millions of people in a very short time frame," he continues.

"Unfortunately, some public health experts and federal officials don't like medkits because they fear that people can't be trusted to use the materials only when necessary. This short-sighted mentality will make it much harder to get crucial countermeasures distributed appropriately when needed."

What a really bad idea. Let's get past the insanity of having the federal government purchase antibiotics and vaccine shots for the entire population of the United States - medical countermeasures that would need to be repurchased and redistributed every few years. There are a lot of different biological agents out there. Not all respond to post-treatment pharmaceuticals. And what exactly do we do when the "American Idol"-loving population decides to take the meds for influenza? or maybe they think that the pills will help with the screaming baby's high fever? No, Mr. Troy, there is no reason to trust Joe Public when it comes to medical countermeasures.

And then there's Brian Finlay from the Stimson Center who wants to place US biotech companies on the "most wanted" list as potential breeding grounds for the next bioterrorist incident. In his report, titled "Pharmaceutical Terror," he puts a picture of Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the second page - because, you know, Iran's all about getting biological agents and giving them to terrorists. This is a Serious Report. There's no way that Iran could be building a pharmaceutical industry to develop medical countermeasures for its public.

Finlay is concerned that foreign companies who work in the biotech industry might deal with a state sponsor of terrorism. Well of course they do. It's profitable. That's all that counts. What happens with the technology and material after it gets to Iran is not their concern, only that they follow the letter of the law. You know what might change that behavior? If some nation pushed hard for the development of a verification regime for the Biological Weapons Convention, there might be some regulation in biosecurity and international commerce. But neither the former administration - or shockingly, this administration - seems to care much about that.  

Says Finlay, "In short, the public health agencies of the United States must be given an express role in the national security of our country, particularly as the line between peaceful biotechnological research and offensive biological weapons intent becomes increasingly blurred." This is a dangerous sentiment. Although the public health sector would love the added attention (and money), the security measures might hamper research and unnecessarily increase surveillance measures in the public sector. There are a lot more diseases that are not on the Select Agent and Toxins list that cause sickness and death in the United States than BW agents of which we have a valid concern. There's a real possibility that the added focus on the Select Agent list could divert resources from the real public health challenges. Conversely, addressing the entire range of public health concerns relating to biological organisms could divert resources from bioterrorism.

In short, we need less hype and more honest assessments of the bioterrorism threat. Balanced approaches and risk management are key factors. There is more that could be done, but these two gentlemen are steering us toward the wrong conclusions.

Comments

[Cheryl Rofer]

Atropine self-injectors for everyone!

Oh...sorry...that's chem, not bio.

[Ray]

J.
" If some nation pushed hard for the development of a verification regime for the Biological Weapons Convention, there might be some regulation in biosecurity and international commerce." Wouldn't this infringe on a nations secrets; sharing information on their respective developments in Biological Weapons; showing weaknesses, as well as strengths.

[J.]

Cheryl - we don't care about chem... and oh my god can you imagine giving atropine injectors to everyone... we had to control access to those in the military, let alone the public.

Ray, what we're looking for is a mirror of the Chemical Weapons Convention, where nations could agree that certain biological agents (and perhaps technologies) were subject to challenge inspections, and that there would be routine inspections of specific military/civilian sites that were declared as places where BW work was done. There was a time where the chemical industries argued about proprietary information, but they got over it. The biotech industry is even more close-hold, but there are ways to improve transparency and still protect company secrets.

The nonproliferation side would tell you that understanding everyone's strengths and weaknesses is part of the step of recovering from adversarial on-the-edge confrontations between states. If everyone is open about their work, then you only have a few troublemakers to focus on. Makes it easier if you can tell who's wearing the white hats. The Obama administration's rejection of a verification regime for BWC really caught us all by surprise, they're supposed to be for better arms control.

[Sock Puppet of the Great Satan]

F**k me that Stimson paper is awful.

[Ray]

Thanks, J.
I don't have the technical knowledge, as you know, but as a guess, it seems to me to be a more complicated thing to organise for international supervision, with certainty. Much more so than international nuclear research and development inspections.

[Mule Breath]

We already have something to fall back on in the rather unlikely scenario of a BT event. It is called the Strategic National Stockpile, and even that is an extravagance. These medkits are beyond ridiculous.

The amount of money we have needlessly spent on preparedness since 9/11 and the anthrax scare is nothing less than astounding.

[Ray]

Mule Breath.
From the UK perspective also, this is extraordinary (taken from the reference you gave)
"•The medicine in the SNS is FREE for everyone.
•The SNS has stockpiled enough medicine to protect people in several large cities at the same time.
•Federal, state and local community planners are working together to ensure that the SNS medicines will be delivered to the affected area to protect you and your family if there is a terrorist attack."
We have no programme (or if we have it isn't publicised)no stockpiles of specific (and possibly inappropriate?) medicines for an Event. All we have at home are the usual aspirins and standard stuff. Yet, there are people who'd like to make a lot of money in the UK in this field as some in the US are doing, but such a venture wouldn't get off the ground. Even if the threat is/was real, we don't do anything here until we've "...had a cup of tea" (Lauren Bacall in the movie "North West Frontier") Also, the idea here seems to be that medicines can't be comprehensively matched to an unpredictable consquence.