http://popularmechanics.com/popmech/sci/0102STMIWFBP.html
Scientists are warned of the dark side
of genomic research.
BY JIM WILSON
A former official in the Clinton administration says the South African
military attempted to develop biological weapons that targeted victims based
on their genetic makeup.
Jonathan Moreno, a biomedical ethicist at the University of Virginia (UV) in
Charlottesville, revealed the project in a presentation at the annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which met
the week of Feb. 19, 2001 in San Francisco. AAAS is the umbrella organization
for the nation’s leading scientific organizations.
“Under the old apartheid government, the South African Defense Force
conducted research for the possible development of biological agents that
could be used against the black population,” Moreno tells POPULAR MECHANICS.
“They were particularly interested in seeking ways to sterilize women of
color.”
Rumors of the existence of weapons that could distinguish among individuals
based on their DNA have circulated since the late 1970s, and had been
repeatedly denied by the South African government. Moreno’s remarks have
reopened the issue because of his reputation for uncovering secret government
experiments. Prior to becoming director of the UV Center for Biomedical
Ethics, he served on the senior staff for two Clinton administration advisory
commissions that investigated the use of unwitting human subjects in
radiation experiments financed by the U.S. government.
“It was during my commission work on human radiation experiments that I
became aware of the potential threat from ethically targeted biological
weapons,” he says. Unlike conventional biological weapons that kill by
disabling the nervous system, Moreno believes that the genetic weapons would
work subtly, and for this reason could strike undetected. “Genetically,
target agents could affect the birthrates of a population, infant mortality
rates, disease proclivity or even crop production,” he explains. “It might
take decades to realize an attack has even occurred. By that point, a
population of people might be seriously diminished.”
Moreno says that although the United States has signed a treaty prohibiting
biological weapons research, it extended only to offensive weapons. He says
that experiments that advance genetic weapons could be easily disguised as
attempts to create defensive measures against bioweapons, or as basic medical
research.
Moreno suggests the imposition of criminal sentences as the best way to
prevent scientists from working on gene-targeting weapons.
