Malcolm Dando

Genomics and future biological weapons: the need for preventive action by the biomedical community

There is an increasing concern within both the scientific and security communities that the ongoing revolution in biology has great potential to be misused in offensive biological weapons programs. In light of the 11 September tragedy, we can no longer afford to be complacent about the possibility of biological terrorism. Here we review the major relevant trends in genomics research and development, and discuss how these capabilities might be misused in the design of new bioweapons. We also discuss how the breakthroughs that have come from the genomics revolution may be used to enhance detection, protection and treatment so that biological warfare agents are never used.

Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945.

Preface Abbreviations 1. Historical Context and Overview Mark Wheelis, Lajos Rozsa, and Malcolm Dando 2. The US Biological Weapons Program John Ellis van Courtland Moon 3. The UK Biological Weapons Program Brian Balmer 4. The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alliance Donald Avery 5. The French Biological Weapons Program Olivier Lepick 6. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program John Hart 7. Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact Countries Lajos Rozsa and Kathryn Nixdorff 8. The Iraqi Biological Weapons Program Graham Pearson 9. The South African Biological Weapons Program ChandrE Gould and Alastair Hay 10. Anticrop Biological Weapons Programs Simon Whitby 11. Antianimal Biological Weapons Programs Piers Millet 12. Midspectrum Incapacitant Programs Malcolm Dando and Martin Furmanski 13. Allegations of Biological Weapons Use Martin Furmanski and Mark Wheelis 14. Terrorist Use of Biological Weapons Mark Wheelis and Masaaki Sugishima 15. The Politics of Biological Disarmament Marie Chevrier 16. Legal Constraints on Biological Weapons Nicholas Sims 17. Analysis and Implications Malcolm Dando, Graham Pearson, Lajos Rozsa, Julian Perry Robinson, and Mark Wheelis Appendix. The Biological Weapons Convention Notes Contributors Index

Neurobiology: A case study of the imminent militarization of biology

The revolution in biology, including advances in genomics, will lead to rapid progress in the treatment of mental illness by advancing the discovery of highly specific ligands that affect specific neurological pathways. The status of brain science and its potential for military application to enhance soldier performance, to develop new weapons and to facilitate interrogation are discussed. If such applications are pursued, they will also expand the options available to torturers, dictators and terrorists. Several generic approaches to containing the malign applications of biology are shown, and it is concluded that success or failure in doing so will be significantly dependent on the active involvement of the scientific and medical communities.

Biologists napping while work militarized

As researchers discover more agents that alter mental states, the Chemical Weapons Convention needs modification to help ensure that the life sciences are not used for hostile purposes, says Malcolm Dando.

The Fourth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Issues, Outcomes, and Unfinished Business

The Fourth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was held November 25 to December 6, 1996. It successfully re-emphasized the norm against biological warfare, usefully broadening this to include molecular biology and applications resulting from genome studies. It also emphasized that use in any way and under any circumstances would be a violation of Article I. Disappointingly, compliance concerns regarding Iraq and the former Soviet Union were less strongly addressed. Article IV and the importance of national legislation as a potential counter to possible terrorist use was underlined. The importance of the existing confidence-building measures (CBMs) was confirmed and the work of the Ad Hoc Group was strongly endorsed, with a change to a negotiating format being explicitly stated, although without setting the target date of 1998 for completion. Article X was re-emphasized, with special note made of the advances made at the Rio Summit, Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and of the initiatives being taken by the World Health Organization to counter new, emerging, and re-emerging infectious diseases. This article addresses the issues, outcomes, and unfinished business of the Fourth Review Conference.

Preventing a biochemical arms race

Preventing a Biochemical Arms Race responds to a growing concern that changes in the life sciences and the nature of warfare could lead to a resurgent interest in chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities. By bringing together a wide range of historical material and current literature in the field of CBW arms control, the book reveals how these two disparate fields might be integrated to precipitate a biochemical arms race among major powers, rogue states, or even non-state actors. It seeks to raise awareness among policy practitioners, the academic community, and the media that such an arms race may be looming if developments are left unattended, and to provide policy options on how it-and its devastating consequences-could be avoided. After identifying weaknesses in the international regime structures revolving around the Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons Conventions, it provides policy proposals to deal with gaps and shortcomings in each prohibition regime individually, and then addresses the widening gap between them.

Advances in neuroscience and the biological and toxin weapons convention

This paper investigates the potential threat to the prohibition of the hostile misuse of the life sciences embodied in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention from the rapid advances in the field of neuroscience. The paper describes how the implications of advances in science and technology are considered at the Five Year Review Conferences of the Convention and how State Parties have developed their appreciations since the First Review Conference in 1980. The ongoing advances in neurosciences are then assessed and their implications for the Convention examined. It is concluded that State Parties should consider a much more regular and systematic review system for such relevant advances in science and technology when they meet at the Seventh Review Conference in late 2011, and that neuroscientists should be much more informed and engaged in these processes of protecting their work from malign misuse.

The Rise of Biosecurity in International Arms Control

Multilateral arms control and partial disarmament treaties — such as the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC or BTWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) — are a product of their geostrategic context. They are constructed and reconstructed by the evolving interests and understandings of the States Parties. Thus, such treaties do not operate in a vacuum, rather they are sculpted by shifting perceptions of, inter alia, security and science. In the BWC and elsewhere, this has resulted in a degree of convergence in states’ treatment of biosecurity.

The Bioterrorist Cookbook

The chances of a massive bioterrorism attack remain low. Its the small-scale attacks that warrant real concern.

Biotechnology in a Peaceful World Economy

At the Fourth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, in late 1996, the head of the US delegation noted that “twice as many countries now have or are actively pursuing offensive biological weapons capabilities as when the Convention went into force”.1 It has always been difficult to be sure which countries are involved. In 1993 the US Office of Technology Assessment, for example, had to list “Countries Generally Reported as Having Undeclared Offensive Biological Warfare Programs” and then named Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya and Syria in the Middle East and China, North Korea and Taiwan in East Asia.2 Whilst information on some countries has become more specific in recent official statements3 the scale of the problem in most countries is still a mystery to the general public.