Four Americans have now died as a result of inhaling anthrax spores, and a dozen or so others have been treated for getting anthrax on their skin. Who did it? Where did that anthrax come from? Director Jeffrey Koplan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reportedly told the gasping media, “Your guesses are as good as mine.”
Now, the war hawks have never needed to guess. They know that Saddam Hussein is responsible, so they are loudly demanding that President Bush go kill Saddam, using nukes if necessary.
But, before nuking Iraq – just because the bio-warfare amateurs at the CDC declare anyone’s guess to be as good as theirs – maybe we ought to hear what the real professionals on biological warfare at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick have to say.
The Army has long had the responsibility for developing vaccines and antidotes to protect all our armed forces from viruses, bacteria and other naturally occurring disease-causing agents. In fact, the anthrax vaccine you’ve been hearing about was developed by the Army.
And even though President Nixon ended all U.S. offensive bio-warfare research and development, the Army retained the vital mission of biological warfare medical defense. The Army develops vaccines, drugs, diagnostic equipment and techniques, as well as strategies and procedures for countering biological threats of all kinds.
They conduct in-house research involving dangerous infectious-disease agents that require special containment, such as anthrax aerosols. Army scientists have made significant contributions to the biotech scientific knowledge base and collaborate with the CDC, the World Health Organization and academic centers of excellence worldwide. The Army also maintains a world-renowned reference laboratory for definitive identification of biological threat agents and for the diagnosis of the diseases produced. If you want to know whether the anthrax we are now finding was developed by a nation-state for use on the battlefield, Fort Detrick is the place to go.
But doesn’t the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction” now “prohibit the development, production, stockpiling or acquisition by other means, or retention of microbial or other biological agents or toxins, as well as of weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict”?
Yes, but the convention prohibitions apply only to activities that have no justification for “prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.” So, any lab – including the weapons labs of nation-states – can not only produce or purchase small quantities of biological agents and toxins, but can then bio-engineer or modify them – just so long as they can credibly claim to be engaged in such medical activities as disease diagnosis, therapy and immunization.
Where can a peace-loving person acquire such agents or toxins? Well, for example, there is the American Type Culture Collection, located near Dulles International Airport. The ATTC is a world supplier of nasty germs and biological agents, and if you promise on a stack of bibles not to use it on humans, they will not only mail anthrax to you – freeze dried – but tell you how to prepare and use it in your research.
Between 1985-89, ATCC reportedly supplied the University of Baghdad and other labs in Iraq 21 different strains of anthrax. Of course, ATTC also supplied those strains to many private-sector and academic institutions around the world – so if the anthrax now being analyzed at Fort Detrick turns out to be one of those strains, that will hardly be enough evidence to go nuking Saddam.
But, it turns out, the Army knows exactly what anthrax strain Iraq did use and knows how they modified it for use as a weapon. The Army has now done their tests, so what does Gen. Parker have to say? Is Iraq the perp?
As of this writing, he says he’s not ready to draw any conclusions. Moreover, he says that although the anthrax found in Florida, in the nation’s capital and in New York City was the same strain, the preparation methods were different. In particular, the capital anthrax contained silica – commonly used as a drying agent by pharmaceutical companies to prevent clumping of powdered materials. None of the samples contained bentonite – reportedly used by some weapons labs to aerosolize anthrax spores.
So unload – for now – the nukes from the B-2 bombers, guys. Maybe we can kill Saddam next week.
