-Caveat Lector-
From
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/bioterror_prevention_01102
6.html
}}}>Begin
Access to Anthrax
Legitimate Research Stockpiles Worldwide Need Tighter Restrictions
from Terrorists, Experts say
By David Ruppe
Oct. 26 � Sweeping anti-terror legislation signed into law by
President Bush today may help curb the spread of biological weapons
to potential terrorists in the United States, but experts fear the
availability of materials like anthrax elsewhere in the world pose
serious risks.
They say the new laws will do little to prevent potential terrorists
from obtaining microbiological materials like anthrax and plague �
collected and traded by germ banks for legitimate research purposes �
in many other countries around the globe where there aren't such
stringent laws.
The bill raises penalties to up to 10 years in prison for the
unregulated transfers of deadly biological agents, and criminalizes
the possession of such substances by persons not registered with the
government.
The New York Post reported this week 1999 court testimony from an
Osama bin Laden associate that bin Laden elements purchased anthrax
through the mail from a lab in Eastern Europe.
"This is not the sort of thing that you can close off in the United
States and allow to happen in other countries," says Jason Pate is a
senior research associate with the Center for Nonproliferation
Studies in Monterey.
Prevalent Research
In more than two-dozen countries, public and private "culture
collection" sites or "germ banks" store and distribute various
anthrax strains to scientists, researchers and other organizations.
The sites, in countries as diverse as Brazil, Iran and the United
Kingdom, sell, trade or give away the anthrax strains to other
entities based upon their particular national laws.
The U.S. government for years has considered such sites � which are
beneficial for scientific and medical research � a potential source
of material for would-be terrorists.
Biological agents, like anthrax, "are readily available in the
natural environment and from culture collections in the
industrialized and in some developing nations," said a 1999 Defense
Department report.
"Many collections of organisms recognized as potential biological
agents � exist throughout the world and are made available with
minimal monitoring of use or transport."
No New Action?
A major international union of culture collections, the World
Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC), last week, announced
taking down some information from its Web site listing member germ
banks � though that information remains accessible in a less
consolidated form elsewhere on the site.
WFCC membership reportedly accounts for less than a third of total
microorganism banks worldwide.
Contrary to reports earlier this week, WFCC as an organization has
not implemented tighter controls over the transfer of deadly
microbes. Rather, it issued a statement Wednesday, citing guidelines
and recommendations it made in previous years.
"WFCC is not a legal entity but a scientific federation, it does not
have power to punish culture collections of poor quality," says WFCC
ex-officio board member Hideaki Sugawara, of the Center for
Information Biology and DNA Data Bank of Japan.
The countries in yellow and dark greenhave been identified by the
World Federation for Culture Collection as having germ banks holding
anthrax strains. Banks that aren't members of the WFCC, in these and
other countries, may also have anthrax strains. (ABCNEWS.com;
Sources: Department of Defense; World Federation for Culture
Collections)
"Basically, they're a yellow pages. They have no regulatory
authority, or budget control, or oversight, or anything," says board
member Raymond Cypess, president of the American Type Culture
Collection (ATCC), which has the largest collection in the world.
"The responsibility for these collections, many of them, which are
national collections, rests with the resident government of the
country they reside in," he says.
In the 1980s, Cypess's company, after obtaining approval from the
Commerce Department, exported anthrax strains to Iraq. And in 1995,
an Ohio State University student, and one-time member of a white
supremacist group, obtained vials of plague from ATCC using a letter
claiming to represent a phony laboratory.
The 1995 incident in part prompted Congress in 1997 to pass tighter
laws restricting transfers of hazardous biological material. Cypess
says ATCC hasn't transferred organisms that could be used for
bioterrorism since 1997.
International Regimes Needed
Cypess and others say international regimes need to be negotiated
between host governments to tighten and coordinate restrictions on
deadly microbes, and key technologies for making effective weapons
out of them, bringing foreign restrictions on par with U.S.
standards.
The 1997 law required that anyone who buys, sells, ships or receives
anthrax or 35 other infectious substances must first be approved by
and registered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).
Cypess in 1996 urged the WFCC to pursue similar measures, but he says
they didn't act.
Pate of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies says some scholars
are pressing for an international agreement to criminalize the
possession of potentially deadly biological agents by people not
authorized to have them, as the new U.S. anti-terrorism act does.
The agreement could be appended to the Biological Weapons Convention,
for which signators are considering possible amendments and will be
meeting to discuss them in November.
But he adds, "the problems with the convention is that the states
that you are most concerned about are outside the treaty. You're
going to expect Iraq to implement legislation? Even if they do it's a
joke."
Prevent Weaponization
Germ banks aren't the only places anthrax and other deadly microbes
can be found, says Barbara Rosenberg, who heads the Federation of
American Scientists Chemical and Biological Arms Control Program.
"Anthrax strains are distributed so widely, not just in germ banks,
but in laboratories and clinics, animal hospitals, all over the
place," she says.
Rosenberg says diagnostic clinics or hospitals that find a strain
should be required by law to destroy it. "The fewer places that hold
this type of thing, the less likely they are to be leaked out."
Since anthrax can be found in nature, and could be so easily traded
acquired or stolen from so many places, she says the U.S. and foreign
governments also need to tighten export restrictions on key pieces of
equipment for producing and effectively using a bioweapon, such as
fermenters and milling machines for production and extra-fine
spraying nozzles.
"Trying stop the transfer of pathogen strains is worth doing what you
can, but it's never going to be complete, says Rosenberg. "It's much
easier to stop the transfer of equipment, bigger stuff, though even
that's hard."
PRINT THIS PAGE |
SEND THIS TO A FRIEND |
VIEW MOST EMAILED
US HEADLINES
� War on Terrorism: Complete Coverage
� Experts Weigh In On Bioterrorism Risk
� Ground Zero Neighbors Seek Normalcy
� Wolf Files: A Call to the Ghost of Houdini
� N.Y. Among Olympic Bid Cities for 2012
Search
Now:
Copyright � 2001 ABCNEWS Internet Ventures.
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
