AFF/BIOLOGICAL

GENERIC INHERENCY EVIDENCE

THOUSANDS OF RUSSIAN BIOWEAPONS SCIENTISTS ARE LOOKING FOR WORK

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, School of Public Health, Univ. of Minnesota, 2000; LIVING TERRORS: What America needs to know to survive the coming bioterrorist catastrophe //VT2002acs p. 109

The virus, the knowledge of how to cultivate and use it, and the people who developed the technologies could all be up for grabs. Tens of thousands of scientists working in the Biopreparat system are now cut off from the profession they trained for, and many are victims of the rollercoaster vicissitudes of the Russian economy.

B�I�O�L�O�G�I�C�A�L� �W�E�A�P�O�N�S� �A�N�D� �T�O�X�I�N�S� �C�O�N�V�E�N�T�I�O�N� �H�A�S� �F�A�I�L�E�D

High hopes were once vested in the Biological Weapons and Toxins Con-vention, which prohibited offensive bio-logical weapons research or production and was signed by most countries. How-ever, Iraq and the former Soviet Union, both signatories of the convention, have subsequently acknowledged having of-fensive biowarfare programs; a number of other countries are believed to have such programs, as have some autono-mous terrorist groups.

IT WOULD TAKE A LONG TIME TO DETERMINE A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK HAD EVEN TAKEN PLACE

Sadly enough, in an unannounced attack, says Peter Jahrling of U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAM RIID), no one will know anything has happened until "patients start showing up at the hospital". Samples must be taken from the sick for identification and submitted for laboratory analysis. Only two labs in the United States - USAM RIID in Fort Detrick, Maryland and the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) in Atlanta are equipped to test for the full range of diseases such as anthrax and smallpox. Without special training and more equipment it will be hard to add to the list, says Dr. D.A. Henderson of Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health. The testing is "an art", Henderson explains.