By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department said last month it is preparing to invest billions of dollars in coming years to develop the first multi-layered, nationwide biological detection system to defend highly populated areas from germ warfare.

Through early detection of deadly toxins that might be unleashed against civilian or military targets by terrorists, and by linking those sensors to a network of human and animal health statistics, military officials are seeking to develop a single surveillance picture to quickly identify a biological-related incident.

In announcing the project — including nearly $300 million earmarked in the defense budget for fiscal 2003 — defense officials also acknowledged that the military already operates aerosol detection systems and other surveillance measures throughout the Washington metropolitan area to detect biological agents, according to experts.

Officials did not provide details of the sensors or other operational surveillance capabilities currently being utilized in the Washington area.  Nevertheless, the acknowledgement highlights the growing concern about a possible biological attack in the United States and indicates that detection efforts have been underway outside of public scrutiny.

A Significant Challenge

Despite having a framework, however rudimentary, already in place, developing a biological detection system to provide timely and accurate information could prove to be an extremely challenging proposition, experts said.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Michael Moodie, president of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, told Global Security Newswire.  “That is a significant challenge, collecting and putting into a usable form such information.  If they do what they suggest, they will have an awful lot of information from a variety of sources.”

Moodie, a proponent of strict control of chemical and biological weapons materials, said there are inherent challenges in detecting biological agents in the atmosphere as well as pulling together into an intelligent format vast amounts of epidemiological data.

“It is not clear that bio detectors are as advanced as we would like them to be in terms of their timeliness and accuracy in identifying specific agents,” he said.

Perhaps even more difficult to perfect will be gathering all the epidemiological information to help make rapid decisions on whether an outbreak is occurring, how unusual it is, and whether it is deliberate, according to Moodie. “The integration may be the hardest nut to crack,” he said.

Multi-Layered Approach

The Biological Defense Homeland Security Support Program, as the project is called, will get underway in October, combining traditional detection techniques such as environmental sensors with medical data from hospitals and health care providers in an overarching, computerized surveillance system.

“The program provides an integrated homeland security capability to detect, mitigate and respond to biological-related incidents through enhanced biological detection capabilities and a fusion of medical surveillance systems, wide-area environmental sensors and communications systems integration,” the Pentagon announced Aug. 27.

“The purpose of this program is to achieve early detection and characterization of a biological-related incident in an urban area in order to reduce casualties, minimize disruption to infrastructures and support consequence management efforts,” the Pentagon announcement added.

The Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency will oversee the Biological Defense Initiative, or BDI, portion of the project, which will develop and deploy two prototype environmental monitoring systems by June 2004 and demonstrate a potential model for a nationwide system.

“The BDI program will demonstrate the feasibility of integrating disparate information sources to enhance the capability to detect and characterize a biological-related incident,” the Pentagon said.  The effort will take up $211 million the first year, the bulk of the seed money.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s Program Executive Office for Chemical/Biological Defense will be responsible for conducting a demonstration in the Washington area of current and expanded aerosol monitoring systems in the vicinity of the nation’s capital and integrate the sensor data and medical information into an overarching biological surveillance network called ESSENCE II.

“This expanded capability integrates both military and civilian health care and other nontraditional medical indicators to allow for early warning of acts of bioterrorism,” the Pentagon told Global Security Newswire in written answers to questions.

For example, health maintenance organizations, pharmaceutical providers, hospitals, wildlife and animal care providers and educational institutions will all be included and tied into the Essence II network.  In the first year the capital area demonstration will cost $85 million, officials said.

Pentagon Says Biological Detectors Already in Place

The program, however, will not have to start from scratch.  Officials revealed that a modest biological detection capability, including the deployment of aerosol sensors, is already in place in Washington. Defense officials previously announced the placement of military battlefield bio detector units around the Pentagon building itself.

“The [Defense Department] currently conducts monitoring activities in the [national capital region] including government and military locations,” the Pentagon said.  “The NCR urban pilot demonstration is an extension of, and enhancement to and an improvement over the ongoing aerosol monitoring activities.  First, the NCR pilot system will conduct biological detection and surveillance for military and civilian populations.  Additional aerosol monitoring locations will be added.”

Moodie says chemical detectors deployed near civilian and military locations in Washington have been previously discussed publicly, but government officials have said little about biological detection technologies or surveillance networks (see GSN, Aug. 20).

“We know they have deployed pilot detectors in the subway system,” he said, “but don’t know they went full-blown … to add biodetection capability.  I’ve never seen a description, probably with good reason.  That’s not something you want to provide.”

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP

Back to top