Tag: biological weapon

On Not Falling Prey to Biological Weapons Alarmism in Syria

by Siddha Hover, posted in News, Research Notes

by Dr. Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley

A September 5 Washington Post article raises concern that Syria might resort to biological weapons in retaliation for a Western military strike. The article states that intelligence reports indicate that Syria engaged in bioweapons development in the 1970s and 80s and since then has maintained a “dormant capability,” which some experts interviewed by the Post believe can easily be reactivated to produce biological weapons. it is important to inject a little bit of reality in regard to the question of whether or not  Syria might be able to successfully reactivate a “dormant program” and effectively develop and use biological weapons.

First, we need to define more clearly what capabilities are actually available to Syria. If a “dormant capability” means that Syria has maintained from its 1980s program only a handful of research activities, the country will face tremendous difficulties in launching a crash program capable of producing the quantities of agent required for use as a weapon. If we assume — and this is entirely speculation — that Syria already has stocks of pathogens, its first task will be to produce a sufficient amount of liquid agent for weaponization. Scaling-up, however, has been a stiff challenge for both past terrorist and state bioweapons programs. The passage from a laboratory sample to larger quantities of bioagent is not a straightforward linear process. Because microorganisms are sensitive to their environmental and processing conditions, scaling-up has to be incremental, and each stage requires a revision of the production parameters. For example, when the Soviets launched the large-scale production of their anthrax weapon at the Stepnogorsk production plant in Kazakhstan, their scientists could not maintain the lethal qualities of the agent throughout the production process. They were therefore compelled to review and test each parameter of the production protocol at each stage of the scale-up, a process that lasted about two years. Scale-up also exposes the agent to contamination, which further delays production, as was the case in both the U.S and Soviet programs.  Current biodefense and pharmaceutical companies also routinely face such contamination and scale-up challenges.

Second, it is important to determine what type of expertise is currently available to Syria. If Syria maintained minimal research activities over the past 20 years, it is likely that they will face a shortage of expertise at key points of a weapons development. This includes process development, pilot-scale production, large-scale production, testing, dissemination, and weaponization. For example, the Iraqi program had very few experts with knowledge directly applicable to the agents they selected for use as a weapon. They also had only one fermentation expert, and before his involvement in the program, the fermenters purchased for the program remained in their crates for lack of personnel with knowledge on how to use them. The Iraqis also did not have weaponization experts within the bioweapons program. Weaponization work was conducted by individuals involved in the chemical weapons program, and consisted of adapting existing chemical bombs and warheads for bioweapon use. This resulted in very inefficient weapons, designed to disseminate the agent upon impact, which would have destroyed most of the bioagent. It is worth reiterating also that the Iraqis were only able to produce liquid agents, even though they had access to drying equipment. If active bioweapons programs faced such challenges, one can only imagine what problems a “dormant program” might face.

Were the Syrians able to shepherd enough expertise from the civilian sector, it is not clear whether their skills could be directly relevant to support bioweapons work.  The Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo had among its members individuals with scientific education, but their lack of practical experience in bioweapons development imposed a steep learning curve, which after six years of effort and about $10 million dollars of investment, resulted in failures at every step of a bioweapon’s development.  The Iraqi program faced similar issues: most of its scientists had no prior bioweapons expertise and required several years of learning and exploratory work before they could start making some headway.

Access to expertise is not the only challenge facing Syria. Making sure that the teams of scientists, technicians, and engineers work together, coordinate their efforts, and work towards the same goal is as, if not more, important. The lack of coordination and cooperation was a major source of delay and failure in the Soviet program, which was arguably the most successful of all state programs. Yet, if creating the conditions required for such cooperation is difficult under normal conditions, it is even more complicated under the stress of maintaining covertness in times of war, particularly under an authoritarian regime.

In sum, it is important to avoid falling prey to alarmist claims similar to those that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The threat of Syrian bioweapons use merits a careful and systematic analysis of the capabilities currently available to Syria and a more nuanced and holistic  appreciation of the challenges they might face.

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Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and is primarily affiliated the GMU Biodefense graduate program. Professor Ben Ouagrham-Gormley has conducted research and written on such topics as biological weapons proliferation, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) trafficking in states of the former Soviet Union, biosecurity and bioterrorism, export controls, transfer mechanisms of WMD expertise, defense industry conversion, and redirection of WMD experts. She has received several grants from the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy, as well as from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Carnegie Corporation of New York to conduct research on WMD proliferation and contribute to remediation programs such as the DOD-funded Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

(image: CIAT International/Flickr)

The Pandora Report 8.23.13

by Siddha Hover, posted in Pandora Report

Highlights this week include MERS in tomb bats, H7N9 and its lurking cousins, Ebola of CCHF?, the history of CW and BW, and nanotech. Happy Friday!

Reservoir of MERS may be Egyptian Tomb Bat. Yes tomb bat, as in, mummies, curses, and tomb bats.

Researchers may have uncovered the reservoir of the recently emerged Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome virus (MERS). Scientists took DNA samples from 96 bats living at an abandoned site just 12 kilometers from the MERS index case. Once the DNA samples were sequenced, the scientists involved discovered that the fecal pellet of one bat species, the Egyptian tomb bat, shared a 182-nucleotide snippet of DNA with MERS. It’s possible that more of viral genome was present; however, when the frozen bat samples were clearing US customs, the customs officers opened and left the samples out, at room temperature, for two days (don’t even get us started on all the things wrong with that situation). Still, this latest development brings us a step closer to understanding the virus and its mechanism of action.

Science Magazine – “Sequencing the nucleic acids isolated from the samples yielded a clue: The fecal pellet of the insect-eating Egyptian tomb bat (Taphozous perforatus) contained a piece of viral RNA identical to that of the virus isolated from the patient in Bisha, the scientists reported online in Emerging Infectious Diseases yesterday…Still, the finding is another interesting piece in the MERS puzzle, says Marion Koopmans, an infectious diseases researcher at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the work. She points out that the fragment is not only short but also comes from one of the least variable parts of the viral genome, so the full genomes of bat and human virus could still differ significantly. Nonetheless, the finding ‘points at bats as a reservoir for this virus,’ Koopmans writes in an e-mail.”

China bird flu analysis finds more virus threats lurking

Scientists in China have analyzed other strains of H7 flu, and have determined that several of the strains are capable of jumping to humans. A couple strains have already been shown to successfully infect ferrets. It’s thought that H7N9, like other pandemic strains of avian influenza, began in water fowl, was transmitted to domestic poultry,  reassorted with H9N2, and then infected people. The moral of the story? Other avian pandemics may be waiting in the wings (pun only slightly intended).

Reuters – “To trace the evolution of H7N9 and its path into humans, researchers led by Maria Huachen Zhu and Yi Guan of the University of Hong Kong conducted field surveillance around the main H7N9 outbreak region and mapped out, or sequenced, genetic codes of a large number of bird flu viruses they found…They also found another previously unrecognized H7N7 virus strain had emerged and is circulating in poultry in China. In experiments testing this strain, they discovered it has the ability to infect ferrets – an animal model often used by scientists to find out more about what flu might do in humans – suggesting it could jump into people in future.”

Deadly Hemorrhagic Fever Appears in Uganda

Local health officials are scrambling to identify a small outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in Uganda, with conflicting reports seperately identifying the causative virus as Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) and Ebola. Four patients have been hospitalized, with a fifth already dead from the virus. In a disturbing complication, one patient has apparently “escaped from the hospital” following collection of blood samples, prompting understandable fears of exacerbation of the virus’ spread. Both CCHF and Ebola are highly pathogenic, causing body pain, severe hemorrhaging, and death.

Daily Monitor – “Efforts to verify with the Health ministry whether the disease is Ebola or the Crimean- Congo haemorrhagic fever were futile as the officials did not answer our telephone calls. ‘The four patients have been put in isolation for close monitoring,’ Dr Otto said. The district health officer said the first patient at the hospital presented symptoms similar to that of Ebola which prompted him to take blood samples to Entebbe. Dr Otto urged the public to remain calm, saying a medical team was on the ground to handle the situation.

Scientific American In-Depth Report: The Specter of Chemical and Biological Weapons

Scientific American just put up a good overview of both recent developments in and the broad history of chemical and biological warfare. The pieces included are more chem-heavy (unsurprisingly), but it’s still a good refresher, especially with Syria apparently escalating again. Take a moment to check it out.

Nano Breakthrough For Navy Lab; Tiny Sensors To Detect Explosives, Bio Weapons, Rotten Food

Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory want to use nanowires to detect everything from biological weapons to spoilt food. For the first time, researchers were able to overcome the difficulty associated with creating the wires. Until now, nanowires have had to be grown, making mass production extremely difficult. However, researchers have found a way to etch the wires, rather than grow them, making embedding them in uniforms or refrigerators possible.

Breaking Defense – “‘The big thing with getting to this point is finding a way to produce this in a scaleable and reproducible fashion,’ principal investigator Christopher Field told me… Basically, the Navy scientists etch a cluster of nanowires and put a small amount of power pulsing through them. When a molecule from an explosive’s gas or a chemical weapon brushes against the nanowires this disrupts the charge. Then scientists analyze the disruption to discover what caused it.”

(image courtesy of Marie and Alistair Knock/Taraji Blue/Flickr)

Forbes Piece: “Bioterrorism: A Dirty Little Threat With Huge Potential Consequences”

by Siddha Hover, posted in News

For those of you who wonder why we do what we do (and think us arguing our own merits may seem a bit biased), check out this excellent Forbes Opinion piece on the potential threat of bioterrorism.

Excerpt:

“Although federal efforts involving numerous agencies to combat the threat of bioterrorism expanded rapidly following the 2011 anthrax letter attacks, which killed five people and infected 17 others, various congressional commissions, nongovernmental organizations, industry representatives and other experts have highlighted flaws in these activities. A 2008 report published by the congressionally-mandated Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism concluded that ‘…unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack in the world by the end of 2013.’ It went on to say ‘The Commission further believes that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon.’ Making matters worse, unlike most other terrorist attacks, a biological attack could infect victims without their knowledge, and days could pass before victims develop deadly symptoms. To address this problem, the U.S. has been forced to implement air quality monitors throughout the country and stockpile antibiotics for emergency use.”