Campaign for the Peaceful Development of the Biological Sciences

Australia State Library Reading Room, Melbourne, 2005, Photo: Daderot

We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned by the current expansion of United States research on biological weapons agents. With the stated aim of developing vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostic tools to defend civilian populations against bioterrorism, the United States has entered uncharted territory. We believe that the current biodefense expansion has the potential to seriously threaten public safety, international security, and the vitality of open biomedical research, and to drain scarce resources from key public health programs. The purpose of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is to "exclude completely the possibility of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins being used as weapons" by prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, and retention of such weapons. However, a substantial area of "defensive" research involves activities that are indistinguishable from those conducted for offensive purposes. For example, efforts to diagnose and treat exposure to biological weapons necessarily involve their production and dispersal. Therefore, states must provide concrete transparency measures to verify their defensive intent. The United States has undermined such efforts, by rejecting an inspection and verification protocol to the BWC, and has since embarked on a sweeping expansion in its biological defense research. This research includes efforts to explore the properties of novel biological agents with enhanced offensive characteristics in the name of "threat assessment." We believe that the present construction of over a dozen new high-containment laboratories across the country that will handle potential biological warfare agents will further undermine the United States' commitment to biological disarmament. The proliferation of these laboratories greatly increases the likelihood of accidental and intentional releases that could threaten public safety and security. Technological improvements in the design of these facilities may reduce, but cannot hope to eliminate, the consequences of human error and wrongdoing. Bhopal and Three Mile Island are only a few of the many disastrous incidents that experts never anticipated. The knowledge and access to resources these facilities create can also be dangerously misused. As the 2001 anthrax mailings showed, biodefense laboratories have become a source of home grown terrorism. Infectious diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria, SARS, and HIV/AIDS represent a global public health crisis of the highest order, to which the United States must urgently respond. In such a climate, the growing diversion of needed public health resources toward speculative threats should be approached with the greatest skepticism. We believe that inflated and poorly substantiated claims of catastrophic bioterrorism have been marshaled to justify this diversion. At the same time, we are deeply troubled by the specter of secrecy and security restrictions in biomedical research. Open disclosure is critical to maintaining public confidence in the integrity of scientific work. Censorship and classification of research, not seen at this scale since the Cold War era in physics, strike at the core of fundamental values such as academic freedom, the advancement of knowledge, and the use of public funds for public benefits. These new policies have not been backed by clear and specific threats associated with the dissemination of scientific findings. We therefore call for the following:

• A moratorium on the current proliferation of new biological defense laboratories, whose missions do not serve a compelling public health purpose;
• A rejection of the proposed multi-billion dollar biodefense spending initiative for the development of drugs and vaccines to defend against potential biological weapons, and a redirection of such spending toward pressing public health needs;
• A prohibition against the development of novel biological and toxic agents, or the modification of biological agents, to enhance virulence, pathogenicity, or transmission characteristics, for any purposes, including biological defense;
• A reversal of efforts to classify basic research in biology, whether that research is conducted by government, university, or private actors;
• The creation of mandatory public reporting requirements for all accidents, including laboratory infections, environmental releases and breaches of security, at Biosafety Level 2, 3, and 4 facilities across the country;
• The full disclosure of minutes from all institutional biosafety committees in universities and other institutions involved in biological defense research;
• A reaffirmation of commitment to the Biological Weapons Convention and to the Nuremberg Principles, according to which acting under the direction of a government does not relieve people of their responsibilities under international law.