Former Soviet Biological Warfare Plants Still Pose Threat
Source: Cornell University February 16, 2001
Contact: David Brand Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander, Jr. 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."
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb01/Vogel.AAAS.deb.html
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