Fort Detrick Poses a Threat to Frederick, Md.--and to Humanity

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http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2006/092806KISSIN-OCHS.shtml

by BARRY KISSIN and RICHARD OCHS

A huge expansion of bioweapons research at Fort Detrick in Frederick,

land, is being planned as part of President Bush's $8 billion annual budget

for bioweapons research (www.usamriid.army.mil/eis). This expansion is ill

advised for the following reasons:

1. NO LOCAL SECURITY: “You could walk out with anything,’ researcher says,”

“Scientist faults lab’s security;” (Frederick Post, 1/21/02): “Interviews with

more than a dozen current and former Fort Detrick scientists provided a rare

account of what they described as a lax security system, that could have done

little to prevent an employee from smuggling the ingredients for biological

terrorism out.” Also, see “Detrick lost pathogens: Army audit,” (front page,

Frederick Post, 1/21/02): “Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and

other pathogens disappeared during a turbulent period of labor complaints and

recriminations among rival scientists...” Also, see “Beyond the breach,” (front

page, Frederick Post, 5/13/06): “During a two-week period in April four years

ago, officials at the Army’s lead biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick

discovered anthrax spores had escaped carefully guarded suites into the

building’s unprotected areas.” Also, see “Risky Business,”

(Frederick Post, front page, 5/14/06): “Employees at USAMRIID, the Army’s

leading biodefense laboratory, filed 161 biological defense mishap reports

between April 1, 2002 and Dec. 1, 2005.” Dangerous pathogens, some with no cure,

could escape in the event of accident, terror attack or an inside job like the

October 9, 2001 anthrax attack on Democratic Senators. The latter intimidation

helped stampede the Patriot Act passage and terrorized Congress into authorizing

war (www.freefromterror.net).

2. NO MEDICAL PRIORITY: In March, 2005, 750 US biologists signed a letter

protesting what they see as the excessive study of bioterror threats. " The

diversion of research funds represents a crisis for NIH-supported

microbiological research, " the letter states. Signers include two Nobel

laureates and seven past presidents of the American Society for Microbiology.

Real medical threats are going unfunded, such as staphylococcus, which is now

largely unaffected by penicillin and other antibiotics (“Superbugs,” USA Today,

5/11/06). The NIH budget for medical research priorities has been slashed to

help pay for bioweapons research--yet any bioterror threat pales in significance

compared with diseases which already kill tens of thousands: (“Rising Diabetes

Threat Meets a Falling Budget, " NYT,5/16/06). Dr. Muin Khoury, Director of

Disease Prevention at the CDC, stated in February 2003, ”Public health is in

disarray, and this emphasis on terrorism is eroding the public health

infrastructure even more.”

3. NO CREDIBLE BIOTERROR THREAT: Milton Leitenberg, a veteran arms control

advocate and senior scholar at the University of land’s Center for

International and Security Studies, shows in his recently published Assessing

the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat that billions of federal

expenditures have been appropriated in the absence of virtually any threat

analysis, and that the risk and imminence of the use of biological agents by

nonstate actors/terrorist organizations “has been systematically and

deliberately exaggerated.” It is critical to recognize that the only bioattack

in American history, namely the anthrax letters of October 2001, almost

certainly was generated by our own bioweapons establishment. Dr. Franz,

former director of the Army's bioweapons facility at Detrick (USAMRIID): “People

don’t understand how difficult it is to pull off a biological attack.” Dr. C.J.

s, formerly a senior virologist at USAMRIID: For a chemical or biological

attack with mass casualties, “You have to have a state or the equivalent.”

4. NO MONEY: Federal deficit spending is pushing the national debt to beyond

bankrupting levels. Military bases and weapons systems are being cut as branches

vie for funding. So, cut Ft. Detrick!

5. NO WATER: Frederick has just contracted to help pay for an expensive

pipeline 30 miles to the Potomac River (containing dioxin, PCBs, mercury and

fecal bacteria). During droughts, D.C. can bar others from drawing from the

Potomac, leaving Frederick to compete with Fort Detrick for Monocacy River

water, also inadequate during droughts. Larger water bills are on their way, not

to speak of higher taxes for more schools, roads and waste treatment. Already,

many residents can no longer afford to live here.

6. NO LEGALITY: The former chief American negotiator of the Biological Weapons

Convention, Leonard, has warned that the administration’s initiative could

be interpreted as “development” of biological weapons in violation of the

Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This explains the Bush administration’s

rejection of the International Protocol on Inspection and Verification of

biological weapons activity, supported by practically all of the other 130

nations that are party to the BWC.

7. NO INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: Testing clouds of genetically modified pathogens

on animals is worrisome because if we found these things elsewhere in countries

we were suspicious of, we would not say they had a necessary biodefense program.

One might conclude that the US bioweapons program could ignite similar efforts

in other countries, fueling a biological arms race and the proliferation of

genetically modified pathogens. If diseases with no vaccines or cures escape

anywhere in the world, national boundaries would not mean much, as the HIV/AIDS

epidemic shows. The US bioweapons program therefore threatens our global and

national security.

8. NO LIMIT: Germ warfare agents can be genetically modified and each

modification may require a different vaccine or countermeasure. Since Fort

Detrick's stated mission is to anticipate biological threats, Fort Detrick plans

to genetically modify diseases on which to test vaccines. This is a slippery

slope to a bottomless pit of unlimited new diseases with no known cures, which

could plague the earth till the end of time, if they escaped containment by

accident, smuggling or terror attack. These technologies may very well end up

under the control of the “enemy,” technologies that the “enemy” would never be

able to develop on its own.

9. NO INTEGRITY: The situation is ripe for biotech corporate profiteering, and

political bribery, to further warp the democratic process with pork and even

germ scares for profit. The rampant corruption associated with the failures of

reconstruction in Iraq and post-Katrina portends the development of a disease

protection racket.

10. NO CREDIBILITY: The difference between defensive and offensive R & D is

defined by intention. There is little reason to believe that the Bush

administration's intentions with respect to expansion of bioweapons facilities

are purely defensive. The Army has had to admit that it has been using chemical

weapons in the current war in Iraq. Such use of white phosphorus and napalm is

in clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the U.S. is a

party. Some history: In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Commerce licensed 70

biological exports to Iraq. Saddam was our ally then, warring against our enemy

Iran. Licensed exports included approved shipments to Iraq of weapons grade

botulin poison and at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax.

(www.democracyrising.us/content/view/30/74/)

11. NO TRUST: The Administration lied this nation into the war on Iraq,

mismanaged the Katrina disaster, rejects World Court decisions, ignores the

Convention Against Torture, opposes the Koyoto treaty on greenhouse gases,

boycotted the South African Conference on Racism, defends and finances Israel's

UN violations, rejects the Land Mines Treaty, violates the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Treaty

Against Militarization of Space. This Administration has violated the UN Charter

by aggression and occupation of a country which posed no threat to the US. The

United Nations Chairman Kofi n has called this US war " illegal. " After all

this, why should anyone trust their germ warfare intentions in Frederick?

Barry Kissin is an attorney practicing in Frederick, Md. Ochs, a

retired printer, is a longtime Baltimore peace and environmental activist.