Offensive US Biowarfare Research Violates US Law Spending Endangers Basic Biological Research
Rebecca Recant is an intern with Peacework and a student at Tufts. This article was excerpted from Sherwood Ross' description of Francis Boyle's new book, Biowarfare and Terrorism, from Ross' article on www.infowars.com, and from information provided by biologist Richard Ebright.
Full Article:
US biowarfare research violates US law and the Constitution, argues Francis Boyle, a professor of international law who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.
Biological warfare involves the use of living organisms for military purposes. Such weapons can be viral, bacterial, and fungal, among other forms, and can be spread over a large geographic terrain by wind, water, insect, animal, or human transmission, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century.
Contrary to previous claims, Boyle says the Pentagon plans "to fight and 'win' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted "without public knowledge and review" in 2002.
The Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program was revised in 2003 to implement those directives, endorsing "first-use" strike of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in war, says Boyle.
Terming the directives "the proverbial smoking gun," Boyle says the mission of the CBW program "has been altered to permit development of offensive capability in chemical and biological weapons!"
The same directives, Boyle charges in his book, Biowarfare and Terrorism (Clarity Press, 2005), "usurp and nullify the right and the power of the United States Congress to declare war in blatant violation of the United States Constitution."
Since September 2001, the Bush administration has allocated a stunning $43 billion to biowarfare research. By pouring huge sums into university and private sector laboratories, federal spending has co-opted and diverted the US biotech industry to biowarfare, Boyle charges.
According to Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, over 300 scientific institutions and 12,000 individuals have access to pathogens suitable for biowarfare and terrorism. Ebright found the number of National Institute of Health grants to research infectious diseases with biowarfare potential (including anthrax, plague, and tularemia) shot up 1400% (from 32 in 1996-2000 to 465 in 2001-2005).
Correspondingly, there has been a massive outflow of funding and investigators from work on non-bioweapons-oriented basic bacteriology. Ebright documents a 41% decrease in the number of grant awards for basic biological laboratory research (from 490 in 1996-2000 to 289 in 2001-2005). There has also been a 27% decrease in the number of grant awards for laboratory research on the non-bioweapon microorganisms which cause disease (from 627 in 1996-2000 to 457 in 2001-2005).
Jackie Cabasso, of the Western States Legal Foundation of Oakland, Calif., noted, "The US is now massively expanding its biodefense program, mostly in secretive facilities. Other countries are going to be suspicious. This bodes badly for the future of biological weapons control."
