BWC:  Survey Finds Many Nations Lacking Required Treaty Legislation

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Many countries worldwide appear to lack laws to fully implement the 31-year-old multinational treaty banning biological weapons, according to a nongovernmental organization that has published the first comprehensive accounting of such activity.

The London-based group, the Verification Research, Training and Information Center (VERTIC), this week released a database of national implementation legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.  The group will also release the information to a gathering of official technical experts meeting next week in Geneva to discuss the treaty.

The compilation shows that 31 of the 150 treaty parties, only 21 percent, responded to a VERTIC survey started one year ago.  The questionnaire asked for information about the enforcement measures each nation has adopted to ensure its compliance with the treaty that bans biological weapons development, production or possession.

The number and content of the responses suggest that many countries, mainly those that are less developed, have not passed legislation to ensure that the treaty is fully enforced on their territories, VERTIC Legal Researcher Angela Woodward said.

The nonresponse level was “very high in Africa, quite high in the Americas, and Asia, so our fairly educated guess from similar efforts under other treaties is that a lot of states just won’t have appropriate measures in place, unfortunately,” she said.

Woodward said, though, that many countries may have some laws in place but failed to respond to the survey because of translation issues, neglect or a lack of an office to handle such requests.  Copies of the VERTIC questionnaire were provided in English, Spanish and French, and a new Arabic version has been produced, she said.

The survey uses data from open sources as well, to provide information on implementing legislation for more than 90 countries, she said.

The United States, in particular, has urged other governments to pass such legislation, and an official last year cited comparable statistics for the Chemical Weapons Convention to urge nations to pass implementing legislation for that treaty.

“It’s certainly a very useful thing for them to be doing … because there has not been a comprehensive compilation of the implementing measures,” said a U.S. official praising VERTIC’s effort.

Respondents

Woodward said the majority of states that responded to the survey were Western  industrialized nations, but not exclusively.  Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States have responded, while France and New Zealand have not.

Responses also were received from Belize, Colombia, Lithuania, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Kitts and Nevis.  She singled out Saint Kitts and Nevis for producing short, but excellent legislation containing strong law enforcement powers that smaller states might model and for adopting the legislation within three months of the treaty entering into force.

“They were really on the ball,” she said.

Woodward said some countries lacking implementing measures might have concluded that they are not needed because the countries lack a pharmaceutical sector or have never had a biological weapons program.

“That argument isn’t sufficient,” she said, adding that terrorists could choose countries without treaty enforcement powers as safe havens for illicit activities. She noted that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, passed in late September 2001, requires U.N. member states to take measures to prevent terrorists and their supporters from acting on their territories.

Woodward said she hopes the VERTIC database will help motivate countries to act.

“The main purpose of our project was to try to raise awareness of the obligation to adopt legislation,” she said.

“We’re hoping at [next week’s] meeting states will consider making their legislation more transparent, increase a willingness to cooperate and share experience … and actually provide assistance to states that request it,” she said.

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Smallpox:  Panel Says Prepare Smallpox Response, Shun Vaccinations

In a report issued yesterday, a top U.S. scientific panel reiterated its long-standing opposition to widespread, pre-emptive smallpox immunizations (see GSN, July 25).

The Institute of Medicine committee said the vaccine is too dangerous to use before an outbreak, and recommended that U.S. officials instead prepare an efficient and quick response to a biological terrorist attack.

“It does not make sense to give a vaccine with substantial risks against a disease that does not exist — in fact, that could be considered unethical,” said committee Chairman Brian Strom, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania (Elizabeth Olson, New York Times, Aug. 13).

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Anthrax:  Company Receives Contract to Clean Florida Anthrax Site

A private company has been awarded a contract to decontaminate the former American Media Inc. headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. — the site of the initial anthrax infections during the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today (see GSN, Sept. 16, 2002).

The firm, Consultants in Disease and Injury Control, plans to decontaminate the building using a fumigation process and high-powered vacuums to clean surfaces, according to the Journal-Constitution.  The company has also developed its own method of cleaning hard-to-reach areas, such as plumbing fixtures, to make sure all lingering anthrax spores are destroyed.

Real estate developer David Rustine, who purchased the building for only $40,000, said that, once the decontamination is completed, he plans to be one of the first people to walk through the building — unprotected.

“It will hopefully be the cleanest building in Florida, one of the cleanest in the nation,” Rustine said (Greg Bluestein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 13).

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Polish Response:  National Biological Terrorism Exercise Delayed

Poland has twice delayed “Bacterium 2003,” an exercise to test the country’s ability to respond to a biological terrorist attack, Warsaw Rzeczpospolita reported Friday (see GSN, April 29, 2002).

The exercise was originally scheduled for June but was pushed back to July.  Polish officials now plan to coordinate the exercise with a different national defense simulation in October or November.

The first phase of Bacterium 2003 will involve medical specialists and lawmakers responding to a simulated biological outbreak.  The second phase will measure the preparedness of Polish police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel.

“This will be the first-ever exercise carried out on such a large scale and involving all the services responsible for dealing with biological attacks in Poland,” said Marek Siwiec, head of the National Security Office (Warsaw Rzeczpospolita, Aug. 8 in FBIS-EEU, Aug. 8).

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Iraq:  DIA Experts Believe Trailers Were for Hydrogen Production

U.S. officials have said engineering experts from the U.S Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency believe that two trailers recovered in Iraq were intended to produce hydrogen, and not biological weapons agents, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, June 27).

A team of DIA engineering experts has determined that the trailers were probably intended to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, as Iraqi scientists had previously claimed, according to the Times.  The views of the DIA experts has caused the DIA to “pursue additional information” to determine the validity of the Iraqi scientists’ claims, a Pentagon official said. 

In May, the CIA and the DIA released a public report saying the trailers were intended for use as mobile biological facilities.  The DIA experts had not completed their work by the time that report was prepared, so their views were not included, U.S. officials said.

Both the CIA and DIA continue to stand by their report that the trailers were intended to produce biological agents, Pentagon and CIA officials said Friday.

“We stand by the white paper,” a Pentagon official said.  “But based on the assessment of the engineering team, it has caused us to pursue additional information about possible alternative uses for the trailers,” the official said (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, Aug. 9).

In late May, U.S. President George W. Bush cited the trailers as direct evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them,” Bush said during an interview with Polish TV, referring to the two recovered trailers (The State, May 31).

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Anthrax:  FBI Continues to Withhold Letter Accusing Scientist of Planning Biological Attack

The FBI will not release to Ayaad Assaad — an Egyptian-born scientist who formerly worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases — a letter sent shortly before the 2001 anthrax attacks that accused Assaad of having the ability to conduct a biological attack, the Washington Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 1).

Shortly before the anthrax attacks became known, the FBI received an anonymous letter that described Assaad as an anti-U.S. fanatic with the knowledge to conduct a biological attack, according to the Times (see GSN, Feb. 27, 2002).  Assaad has been attempting to obtain a copy of the letter since the FBI questioned him about it in October 2001.

Assaad said he believes the letter is connected to anthrax attacks culprit.

“They know damn well that this letter is connected to the anthrax sender,” Assaad said.

The FBI, however, has continued to refuse to provide Assaad with a copy of the letter, the Times reported.  In a note sent to Assaad July 7, the bureau said releasing the letter “could reasonably be expected to disclose the identities of confidential sources and information by such sources.”

An FBI spokeswoman Friday said the letter is “unrelated to the anthrax mailings” (Guy Taylor, Washington Times, Aug. 10).

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United States:  Many Hospitals Not Prepared for Bioterror Attack, GAO Says

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Most urban hospitals in the United States lack adequate equipment for dealing with the large influx of patients that would result from a bioterrorist attack, the U.S. General Accounting Office said yesterday in a new report.

The report indicated most U.S. hospitals take part in basic planning and coordination but that there are important deficiencies in training and equipment.

American Hospital Association Senior Associate Director for Policy Development Roslyne Schulman told Global Security Newswire that U.S. hospitals’ preparedness for bioterrorism has improved in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but that much work lies ahead.  The GAO solicited comments on the report from the association, which generally agreed with its findings.

“The hospitals have made a lot of progress since Sept. 11.  They’ve made a lot of important steps, but there is a great deal that needs to be done,” Schulman said.

Responding to a GAO survey, most hospitals reported participation in basic planning and coordination for a biological attack; 80 percent reported having written emergency response plans that address bioterrorism; nearly all said they participate in interagency disaster planning committees; and most indicated they train personnel in identification and diagnosis of diseases, such as anthrax and botulism, caused by likely agents of biological warfare.

However, the hospitals said their equipment is insufficient for responding to a large-scale attack.  Half the hospitals have fewer than six ventilators per 100 beds, meaning they could find themselves seriously underequipped for a concentrated anthrax or botulism outbreak ― a finding, the GAO noted, that comes three years after the May 2000 TOPOFF terrorism exercise, in which ventilators and other equipment were found insufficient within three days of a simulated pneumonic plague outbreak.

In addition, hospitals’ written response plans often lacked key contacts, the GAO said, and most hospitals have not conducted bioterrorism simulation drills.

In its report, the GAO took note of new federal funding vehicles that could help improve bioterrorism preparedness in hospitals, including the Health and Human Services Department’s Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program, which the department said in March will provide $500 million in fiscal 2003 to states and municipalities (see GSN, March 21).

Schulman said hospitals are “appreciative” of the federal funds but that the money is “just a drop in the bucket” and “a first step.”

“We’re pleased that they’re continuing that funding stream. … We do support a continued increasing investment in readiness,” Schulman said.  “The funding’s been very slow to get out, and … not very much of it has yet gotten to hospitals,” she added.

Schulman’s group reported to Congress after the September 2001 attacks that an estimated $11 billion would be needed to get U.S. hospitals ready for one potential bioterrorism scenario.

Besides distributing funds to state and local health officials, Washington has also created a stockpile of drugs and supplies in case of a biological attack.  Health and Human Services has announced plans to buy 2,700 ventilators by next month to bolster the stockpile, parts of which could be deployed within 12 to 36 hours of a declared emergency, according to the GAO.

Required under public health legislation passed in 2000, the GAO report was based on part of a survey conducted between May and September of last year.  Of 2,041 hospitals surveyed, 1,482 responded, a rate of 73 percent.  The other part of the survey formed the basis for a GAO report issued in March on general emergency room performance.

Yesterday’s report follows an April 7 GAO report indicating state and local officials around the United States display varying levels of preparedness for a bioterrorism attack, with significant deficiencies in capacity, communications and coordination (see GSN, April 8).  That report included references to a lack of guidance for hospitals about preparing for a biological attack.

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Ebola:  Researchers Develop Ebola Vaccine

U.S. scientists have developed a vaccine that protects monkeys from Ebola with a single shot and could be eventually used to defend humans against biological terrorism, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 17).

“In terms of what we need for countermeasures against terrorism, it’s highly significant,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  “This could be a real advance in our ability to contain Ebola,” he added (Justin Gillis, Washington Post, Aug. 7).

Scientists at the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases collaborated to conduct the research over the past three years, the BBC reported yesterday.

The scientists gave eight monkeys a booster shot, then injected them with the Ebola virus. The single injection protected all eight monkeys against Ebola — even those who received high doses of the virus.

If the vaccine proves to be effective in humans, it could be used to stop the spread of Ebola through a strategy known as ring vaccination — vaccinating everyone who has been in contact with an infected person — the same technique that was successfully used to eradicate smallpox worldwide (BBC Online, Aug. 6).

Since the 1970s, Ebola has killed hundreds of people in Africa and possibly tens of thousands of endangered apes (James Janega, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 7).

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