Summary of the Presentation on….
Bioterrorism:
How the Revolution in Biotechnology
Has Changed the Threat
Colonel Randall Larsen, USAF (Ret)
During the cold war the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and several other nations had large-scale offensive bioweapons programs. By the late 1960s these programs were producing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), with capabilities that were only surpassed by thermonuclear devices. In November, 1969, President Nixon unilaterally terminated the U.S. program, and the U.S. led the international effort to eliminate all bioweapons through the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972. (However, after signing the BWC, the Soviets greatly expanded their offensive bioweapons research, development and production programs.)
In 1979, the Soviets had an accidental release (less than a gram) of dry powdered anthrax from a production facility that killed cattle 40 kilometers downwind. Moscow claimed that this was a natural outbreak of anthrax, but the deaths of people and animals were caused by inhalation anthrax—not the more naturally occurring cutaneous or intestinal forms. There is considerable evidence that a program under Dr. Serguei Popov was dedicated to developing genetically enhanced bioweapons (smallpox resistant to our vaccine and anthrax resistant to our antibiotics), and unconventional bioweapons including HIV, Legionella, and various neuromuscular diseases.
Today, the five countries most likely to have offensive biotech labs are Russia, China, Iran, Syria and North Korea. The U.S. intelligence community and INTERPOL are also concerned about the recent recruitment of chemists and biologists by ISIL. One of the most likely attacks today would be anthrax released in a subway system—an attack that would not only kill thousands of people in the initial attack, but also contaminate the system in a manner that could take months if not years to clean. Anthrax is the only bioweapon that is persistent. It took the British 40 years to clean up the island of Gruinard where they tested anthrax weapons in 1943. However, Larsen said scientists are less worried about bio agents being put into the water supply due to dilution and water treatment systems. (As the environmentalist say, “The solution to pollution is dilution.”)
In addition to the persistence of anthrax, another scary aspect of bioweapons is that one may not be aware that an attack has occurred, since symptoms may not appear for days or weeks. Larsen added, “There could have been an attack here in Reno two days ago and you would not have noticed it.”
During the latter half of the 20th century, it required enormous capital investment–financial, engineering and scientific–to develop and produce sophisticated biological weapons. However, in June, 2001, a report by the Defense Science Board (DSB) highlighted a major change in the bioweapons threat.
“…major impediments to the development of biological weapons – strain availability, weaponization technology, and delivery technology – have been largely eliminated in the last decade by the rapid global spread of biotechnology.”
This rapid global spread of biotechnology has continued during the past 15 years at an even more accelerated pace than predicted by the DSB in 2001, and the major impediments have now been virtually eliminated. Today, small nation-states, and some non-state actors, can develop, weaponize and deliver sophisticated bioweapons capable of killing tens of thousands of people if released in a major metropolitan area.
One additional area of concern with these terror weapons is what Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy, refers to as “the reload effect”. Any terrorist organization capable of producing enough dry powdered anthrax to attack a city (one pound would be sufficient), would have no difficulty producing several pounds to attack several cities. The ubiquity of pathogens existing in nature, along with the readily available equipment and skill sets required to isolate, weaponize and deliver bioweapons make multiple and repeated attacks highly likely. The difference between having one bioweapon and ten is only a matter of production time—months instead of weeks.
Unfortunately, many national security leaders do not understand that the appropriate biodefense strategy is far different from the highly successful strategy the US has and continues to use to prevent a mushroom cloud over an American city—locate, lockdown, and eliminate loose nuclear materials. Terrorist organizations do not have the capability to produce plutonium or enrich uranium—they can only buy it or steal it. Prevention is, and must remain, America’s primary focus for preventing nuclear terrorism.
However, the revolution in biotechnology makes prevention virtually impossible for biodefense. The genie is out of the bottle. America’s biodefense strategy must be focused on response. As stated by the co-chairs of the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapon of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (WMD Commission), former U.S. Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jim Talent (R-MO), “A rapid and effective response capability can remove bioterrorism from the category of WMD, and even serve as a deterrent.”
An effective response requires:
- major improvements in rapid disease detection and diagnosis
- ability to produce vaccines and therapeutics faster and less expensively
- significant increases in surge capacity in our hospitals.
The good news about these requirements is that these capabilities will be of great benefit to our children and grandchildren whether or not we have bioterrorist attacks. We know Mother Nature will continue to threaten us with newly emerging diseases (HIV, SARS, Ebola, MEERS, Zika, etc.) and other high consequence infectious diseases that are returning in more virulent form–multi-drug resistant TB, and the greatest killer of all-time, influenza.
The good news amidst this depressing assessment–America has the capability to remove bioterrorism from the category of WMD. It only requires the proper national security priority, and the dual-benefit will be of great service not only to all Americans, but all peoples in all nations.
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Col Larsen responded to several questions from the audience. We asked him to again provide his observations on these issues:
- Why has there not been a bioterrorism incident?
With the exception of the anthrax letters of October 2001, we have not seen a bioterrorism incident of significance in the 21st century. One can only speculate on why.
- Terrorists have not chosen to use bioweapons, and have instead focused on conventional weapons that provide stunning visuals for the 24/7 global news cycles—even though al Qaeda had two anthrax production facilities in 2001 (Afghanistan and Malaysia) but had not completed their production processes prior to 9/11. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former director of the CIA WMD Center, believes that al Qaeda wanted to launch anthrax attacks on the U.S. simultaneously with the airplane attacks. In Larsen’s book, OUR OWN WORST ENEMY (Grand Central, 2007), he mentions that one of the 9/11 hijackers was treated for cutaneous anthrax in a Florida hospital a week prior to 9/11.
- As noted in the 2001 DSB report, the capability for non-state actors to produce, weaponize and deliver sophisticated bioweapons is relatively new. Producing
3-5 micron-sized particles has only become a commercial, off-the-shelf process in the past few years. The process is still not easy, but certainly does not require the type of world-class scientists and engineers who worked in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. programs. All lab scientists who briefed the WMD Commission stated that graduate-level microbiologists could weaponize pathogens such as anthrax, as could sharp lab technicians, and even some exceptionally talented high school students.
And one must not forget, if the FBI is right about the anthrax letters of 2001, then a single individual, with no background in bioweapons production (Dr. Bruce Ivins was a vaccine expert), used equipment that can be purchased on the internet to produce dry powdered anthrax of a quality nearly equal to the best produced in the former U.S. program.
- Since constructing and delivering a bio weapon is so easy and cheap, what can be done?
The cost of producing high-quality bioweapons would be less than a few thousand dollars (not counting the cost of labor), but I would not use the word “easy”–at least, not easy for me. However, it would not be a major challenge for graduate-level microbiologists. Therefore, the best strategy for biodefense is building and maintaining a rapid, effective response capability with a focus on detection/diagnosis, medical countermeasures, and hospital surge capacity.
- Do we have ways to detect a bio attack? (Or just wait weeks for symptoms?) How would we know we were attacked?
With current technology, the most likely form of detection will be by physicians in hospital emergency rooms (ERs). Since 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed BioWatch environmental sampling sensors in major metropolitan areas, but due to major technical and operational problems, funding has been significantly reduced. Our best investment for timely detection will be to focus on rapid point-of-care diagnostics in ERs rather than environmental sampling,
- If you were the Bio Czar, and had relatively unlimited funding to prevent or mitigate a bio attack, what would you do?
My recommendation is exactly the same as that provided in numerous commissions and studies, including the bipartisan WMD Commission, and last year’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Biodefense co-chaired by former Secretary Tom Ridge and former Senator Joe Lieberman—put someone in charge of biodefense.
This does not mean appoint a czar. Czars have little to no authority. They have no direct control over funding and cannot fire people. According to the JUMP START study published in July 2015, more than 50 Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed leaders have some responsibility for biodefense, but not one has it for a fulltime job, and no one is in charge. (Actually, the number of federal leaders with biodefense duties is far greater than 50. The study only counted Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed leaders. Key biodefense leaders who are not Senate-confirmed include: the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (HHS), Assistant Commissioner for Counterterrorism Policy (FDA), Chief Scientist (FDA), Director of the Office of Biodefense Research Affairs and Associate Director for Biodefense Product Development (NIH), National Security Staff (NSC) personnel, Assistant Director of Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (FBI), and many others.)
Without a single leader to control federal biodefense efforts and coordinate state and local efforts, there is little chance for a successful national biodefense program. Both the Clinton and Bush (43) Administrations had a Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense, but the Obama Administration eliminated the position and has refused to reinstate it, despite numerous bipartisan recommendations. The current U.S. leadership structure for biodefense is like an NFL team with dozens of assistant coaches, but no head coach. Do you think such a team would get to the Superbowl?
America’s biodefense team needs to be ready for the big game. Today it is leaderless and poorly prepared. Hopefully, the next administration will remedy this critical deficiency. A strong biodefense, based on rapid detection/diagnosis, effective medical countermeasures, and increased hospital surge capacity, is possible, but not probable without a national leader.
Here is the link to the WMD Center’s BioResponse Report Card coauthored by Larsen and Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jim Talent (R-MO). The report details the threat, deficiencies in response capabilities, and recommendations for improvements. http://www.wmdcenter.org
Randall Larsen serves as the national security advisor at the UPMC Center for Health Security, and formerly served as the executive director of the WMD Commission, founder and director of the Institute for Homeland Security, and chairman, Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College.
The link to Colonel Larsen’s PowerPoint is below: