Happy New Year! This week covers reports of over 450 chemical attacks by Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the fifth anniversary of DHS’ CWMD Office, and several recent publications.
Ukraine Reports Hundreds of Chemical Attacks by Russia Since Start of Invasion
In late December, the Kyiv Post published an article explaining a post from Ukraine’s Armed Forces Support Forces Command, which “claims that Russian troops have conducted 465 chemical attacks in Ukraine since the initiation of the full-scale invasion, with over 80 such attacks in December 2023, including one grenade containing a new, unknown chemical agent…The command notes an escalating trend in the use of such weapons by Russian forces, highlighting eight chemical attacks on Dec. 19 alone.”
The article continues, explaining “The commonly used weapons include grenades like K-51, RGR, and Drofa-PM gas hand grenades dropped from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Additionally, improvised explosive devices equipped with irritant substances and artillery shelling containing chemically dangerous substances are being employed.”
“The report mentions that 28 cases involving dangerous chemicals were documented and forwarded for investigative actions as part of criminal proceedings by groups of radiation, chemical, and biological intelligence from the military units of the Support Forces Command, working in collaboration with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).”
In case you missed it: Last summer, the Royal United Services Institute published an article on this topic, exploring the reported limited use of riot control agents and broader deployment of CW by Russia could mean in this war. The piece offers insight into Russia’s potential ogic in using these kinds of weapons in Ukraine, making it helpful in understanding this latest reporting.
DHS Celebrates Five Years of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office
In late December, the Department of Homeland Security celebrated the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Countering WMD Office. In an email update from the Department, Assistant Secretary for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, Mary Ellen Callahan, was quoted saying “The threat of weapons of mass destruction terrorism is real. Five years ago, in the face of a dynamic, evolving threat environment, legislators recognized that the U.S. needed a more holistic approach to countering chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats to the Homeland…By authorizing CWMD, the legislators enabled us to enhance and coordinate the chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear detection efforts of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to improve preparedness and response capabilities throughout the United States. We look forward to continuing this essential mission to protect the American people.”
The update further explained “Congress established the CWMD Office in 2018 to elevate, consolidate, and streamline DHS efforts to protect the Homeland from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats. CWMD serves as the DHS nexus for WMD and CBRN coordination, which includes providing direct financial and operational support nationwide to government and industry partners for full-time biological detection, illicit nuclear material detection, training, and exercises. Additionally, as part of the President’s Executive Order on AI signed in October 2023, President Biden tasked CWMD with helping to evaluate and mitigate the potential for AI to be used to develop WMDs, such as through AI-enabled misuse of synthetic nucleic acids to create biological weapons. The President directed the CWMD Office to evaluate the potential for AI to lower the barriers to entry for developing WMD and to develop a framework to evaluate and stress test synthetic-nucleic acid screening, creating a standardized set of expectations for third parties that audit AI systems to prevent the risk of abuse and proliferation by malicious actors.”
Defense Dossier Issue 38: “Pandemic Preparedness and Biodefense”
The American Foreign Policy Council’s December Defense Dossier is focused on biodefense and pandemic preparedness, featuring an article-“Parsing the Great Gain of Function Debate”-co-authored by Biodefense PhD Program alumni Yong-bee Lim and Saskia Popescu. It also includes other articles like “China’s Evolving Thinking About Biotechnology,” and “Understanding the Cyberbiosecurity Threat.” Read here.
“Virology-the Path Forward”
Rasmusen et al. recently published this commentary article in the Journal of Virology. They write in their abstract, “In the United States (US), biosafety and biosecurity oversight of research on viruses is being reappraised. Safety in virology research is paramount and oversight frameworks should be reviewed periodically. Changes should be made with care, however, to avoid impeding science that is essential for rapidly reducing and responding to pandemic threats as well as addressing more common challenges caused by infectious diseases. Decades of research uniquely positioned the US to be able to respond to the COVID-19 crisis with astounding speed, delivering life-saving vaccines within a year of identifying the virus. We should embolden and empower this strength, which is a vital part of protecting the health, economy, and security of US citizens. Herein, we offer our perspectives on priorities for revised rules governing virology research in the US.”
“Interpreting the Biological Weapons Convention – What Are “Necessary Measures” Under Article IV of the Convention?”
Sally Longworth recently published this report with the Swedish Defence Research Agency. She explains in her summary, “Article IV of the Biological Weapons Convention 1972 (BWC) requires States Parties to implement national implementation measures to prohibit and prevent the development, production, stockpiling, retention, acquisition, transfer, and use of biological agents, toxins and weapons in violation of the Convention. No definition of “national implementation measures” is included in the treaty, but there has been over 50 years of State practice in implementing this obligation, which can provide guidance on how States Parties interpret the obligations under Article IV. The Final Declarations agreed by consensus by States Parties at the Convention Review Conferences held every five years are particularly useful tools in understanding what measures are required and what, if any, development there has been in interpreting Article IV. Using legal methods to interpret international treaties, this memo first analyses the obligations set out in Article IV and then considers the interpretative value of the Final Declarations in relation to the BWC. It goes on to highlight a number of measures identified by the States Parties considered necessary in the implementation of the obligations contained in Article IV and important developments in what must be covered.”
“Vision, Needs, and Proposed Actions for Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative”
The National Science and Technology Council recently released this report from the Interagency Working Group on Data for the Bioeconomy. Its executive summary explains in part, “To realize a thriving bioeconomy, the Data Initiative identifies strategic investments and opportunities to leverage and build upon existing resources. The goal is to create an interwoven data fabric that connects data with the infrastructure and computational resources necessary to analyze, synthesize, and use those data for the widest audience. This vision depends on creation and adoption of community-driven standards, both for data and for repositories to enable interoperability and integration; training and education to build the bioeconomy data workforce of tomorrow; efforts to limit and mitigate security risks; and ongoing coordination to ensure efforts keep pace with transformations in data science, computing, biotechnology and biomanufacturing. While additional data are needed, government coordination and investment in infrastructure are also needed to make best use of the existing and anticipated data.”
Furthermore, in identifies seven Core Action areas the Data Initiative indicates requires “consistent whole-of-government coordination and investments”:
Dedicated long-term funding mechanisms for data and computational resources and infrastructure;
Standards to establish common best practices that foster and strengthen a shared U.S. bioeconomy data ecosystem;
Biodata Catalog to identify extant data and metadata;
Security practices and policies that secure the data landscape while supporting innovation;
Workforce to drive U.S. leadership in the bioeconomy of the future;
Strategically Targeted Areas for Rapid Transformation (START) to determine viability and impact and chart a course for larger investments; and
Coordination of intergovernmental investments, efforts, and resources.
“FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Releases Global Health Security Partnerships Annual Progress Report Demonstrating Results from United States Investments”
The White House recently released this fact sheet along with the release of its Global Health Security Partnerships Annual Progress Report. The fact sheet explains in its introduction, “The Biden-Harris Administration continues to prioritize global health security as a critical component of national biodefense. The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, mpox and other outbreaks in recent years, has demonstrated the catastrophic impacts infectious diseases can have on health, economies, and societies, regardless of where they start. The United States partners with countries around the world to build stronger global health security capacity – the ability to prevent, detect, rapidly respond to, and recover from new and emerging public health threats and prevent their spread across borders. Partnering with countries to stop infectious disease threats at their source, including by strengthening equitable health systems in their own countries and across regions, effectively protects the health of Americans and people across the world.”
“Exploring Actions for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness”
The National Academies recently released this Proceedings of a Symposium-in Brief: “Investing in pandemic preparedness ahead of disease outbreaks can greatly reduce the toll of epidemics and pandemics when they occur. Although several tools exist for assessing pandemic preparedness at an epidemiological and operational level, less information and fewer approaches are available to guide the prioritization of preparedness investments at the country level. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held an international, virtual symposium series in May and June 2023 to explore possible strategies for evidence-based prioritization of global health capabilities to prepare for future epidemics and pandemics. Speakers and participants discussed assessment tools for national action planning; country and organizational decision-making about funding priorities; effective approaches for disease surveillance and risk communication; governance structures that support robust and reliable systems for global health investments; and specific actions for tools and resource prioritization for preventing and preparing for future epidemics and pandemics. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussions of the symposium.”
“America Should Be More Like Operation Warp Speed”
Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini recently published this Ideas piece in The Atlantic focused on how OWS offers lessons for the rest of the government in achieving goals. They write in their introduction, “The U.S. government can achieve great things quickly when it has to. In November 2020, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19. Seven days later, a competing vaccine from Moderna was approved. The rollout to the public began a few weeks later. The desperate search for a vaccine had been orchestrated by Operation Warp Speed, an initiative announced by the Trump administration that May. Developing, testing, manufacturing, and deploying a new vaccine typically takes a decade or more. OWS, which accomplished the feat in months, belongs in the pantheon of U.S. innovation triumphs, along with the Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon-landing program. It’s a case study in how the U.S. government can solve complex, urgent problems, and it challenges the narrative that public institutions have lost their ability to dream big and move fast.”
“Why the World Needs Its Own Immune System”
Atul Gawande, USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Global Health, recently published this opinion piece in The New York Times. He writes in part, “This is now the pattern: one emergency after another, often overlapping, diverting focus away from longer-term public health goals. And there’s no sign of this letting up. Displacement and activities like deforestation have increased contact between humans and wildlife — and thus the incidence of animal diseases leaping to humans. (The Ebola virus, for example, has been linked to bats as a possible source of spread.) The risk of outbreak-causing laboratory accidents is a significant concern as labs proliferate and safety measures lag. On average, between 1979 and 2015, more than 80 laboratory-acquired infections were reported per year, several involving transmission beyond those initially infected, and underreporting is rife. The growing field of synthetic virology has simultaneously generated lifesaving new treatments (mRNA vaccines, for example) and made it easier for bad actors to turn infectious diseases into weapons of mass destruction.”
“But we can break the pattern. Longer-range investment in local preparedness for such events — in building what I think of as a global immune system — could reduce the threat these crises pose and even reduce dependence on foreign aid to weather them. As dangers rise, so can our capacity to get ahead of them. With the right strategy, we could use the mishaps, malefactors and shocks we face to strengthen our capacity to adapt. This is not about developing resilience (the ability to recover from crisis) or robustness (the ability to resist crisis). It is about developing what the writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb has called antifragility — the ability to become stronger from crisis.”
“The OPCW and Civil Society: Considerations on Relevant Themes and Issues”
Alexander Ghionis recently published this working paper for CBWNet. He explains in its executive summary, “This paper explores some key elements of the relationship between the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and civil society, with the specific and limited aim of supporting ongoing discussions being held within the OPCW regarding options and mechanisms to enhance that relationship. The paper is designed to be practical, providing readers from State Parties, the Technical Secretariat, civil society, and other stakeholders, with some initial perspectives, ideas, and considerations that could inform discussions.”
The paper addresses “The composition and focus of accredited civil society organisations (CSOs); How CSOs have engaged with the OPCW so far and what alternative modes of engagement may be beneficial; and, What foundational aspects can strengthen the relationship between the OPCW and civil society moving forward.”
“The Altered Nuclear Order in the Wake of the Russia-Ukraine War”
Rebecca Davis Gibbons, Stephen Herzog, Wilfred Wan, and Doreen Horschig recently published this research paper with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. They explain in their executive summary: “On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded nonnuclear-armed Ukraine and leveraged threats with its nuclear arsenal as a “shield” to deter third-party intervention. The well-publicized horrors on the ground in Ukraine are, unfortunately, not the only consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. The war is having unmistakable effects on how governments, scholars, and the public think about nuclear arms. Not only has Moscow reintroduced the world to the often-unsavory realities of nuclear deterrence, but its suspension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and deratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) have been setbacks for arms control and disarmament. Meanwhile, vulnerable states around the globe may be further incentivized to develop nuclear weapons or seek protection from nuclear-armed patrons to avoid being invaded like Ukraine.”
“Given these changing geopolitical circumstances, how might the Russian war on Ukraine affect the global nuclear order? The authors in this publication conclude that the United States and the broader international community must now more seriously engage with alternatives to traditional arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament endeavors. Specifically, the authors discuss the increasing prominence of approaches such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)—popularly known as the Nuclear Ban—and risk reduction measures. They assess whether these initiatives can have an impact in reducing nuclear dangers. Additionally, they examine temptations for states to pursue more forceful counterproliferation measures and describe the risks of doing so.”
NEW: “When Medicine Stops Saving Us: The Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis”
“Interim Dean Abel Valenzuela and the UCLA Division of Social Sciences present an exclusive screening of a new documentary from the team behind the award winning NETFLIX documentary, RESISTANCE. This genre-bending short film, HOLOBIOME, features the harrowing story of UCLA graduate Bradley Burnam’s personal encounter with a deadly superbug. Through a variety of creative elements, HOLOBIOME examines the need for innovation in AMR and questions the overall human relationship with infectious disease and the microbial world. The screening will be followed by an interdisciplinary panel discussing the looming AMR crisis through the lenses of sociology, public policy, industry, and public health.”
This event will be moderated by Biodefense PhD Program alumna Jomana Musmar. It will take place on January 22, at 5 pm PST. Learn more and register here.
NEW: AI Executive Order Report Card Reviewing the First 90 Days
“On October 30, 2023, the Biden Administration issued a call to action outlining a host of requirements and deliverables for U.S. government agencies on artificial intelligence. The executive order touched on a range of AI-relevant issues, including testing and evaluation of new AI systems, developing a healthy and capable U.S. AI workforce, and ensuring U.S. competitiveness in the years to come.”
“Join CSET researchers on January 31, 2024, for a discussion of what the U.S. Government has accomplished so far, what have we learned, and what’s left to do to complete the EO’s ambitious goals.”
This online event will begin at 12 pmEST. Learn more and register here.
International Conference, CBRNE Research & Innovation
“The last 40 years have demonstrated that both military and civilian populations could be exposed to highly hazardous CBRNE agents following conflicts, natural outbreaks and disasters, industrial incidents or terrorist attacks.”
“Worldwide, researchers, responders and industrial capacities have been commited to provide adapted response to these challenges.”
“Building on the success of the first 5 International Conferences « CBRNE Research and Innovation » which took place in Antibes (2015), Lyon (2017), Nantes (2019), on line (2021) and Lille (2022), we want to give you a new opportunity to build up or strengthen collaborative networks in Strabourg (March 19th – 21rst 2024).”
“The CBRNE R&I Conference is specifically devoted to scientific updates, responders’ feedbacks and expression of needs. It also includes workshops and demonstrations of innovative materials, technologies and procedures, according to the following themes: DETECTION – IDENTIFICATION, PROTECTION – DECONTAMINATION, MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES, RISKS & CRISIS MANAGEMENT.”
“Looking forward to your proposals for communication and to welcoming you at Strasbourg in March 2024!”
Registration is now open for the Global Health Security 2024 conference in Sydney, Australia. This iteration will take place 18-21 June, 2024. The call for abstracts is also still open. “The mission of the Global Health Security conference is to provide a forum where leaders, researchers, policy-makers, and representatives from government, international organisations, civil society, and private industry from around the world can engage with each other, review the latest research and policy innovations, and agree solutions for making the world safer and healthier. To that end, our mission is to help foster a genuinely multidisciplinary community of practice that is committed to working collaboratively to enhance global health security and eliminate disease, irrespective of its origin or source.”
Vote: 2023 Arms Control Person(s) of the Year Nominees
“Since 2007, the independent, nongovernmental Arms Control Association has nominated individuals and institutions that have, in the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of the threats posed by mass casualty weapons.”
“In a field that is often focused on grave threats and negative developments, the Arms Control Person(s) of the Year contest aims to highlight several positive initiatives—some at the grassroots level, some on the international scale—designed to advance disarmament, nuclear security, and international peace, security, and justice.”
“Voting will take place between Dec. 8, 2023, and Jan. 11, 2024. The results will be announced on Jan. 12, 2024. Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2023.”
This week covers the FDA’s ongoing investigation into contaminated applesauce, the passing of Gao Yaojie-an activist responsible for bringing to light the extent of China’s AIDS epidemic-, and more.
Biodefense MS Graduates Riley Flynn and Sophie Hirshfield at GMU’s 2023 Winter Commencement Ceremony
FDA Leadership Says Tainted Applesauce Pouches May Have Been Intentionally Contaminated
Cinnamon applesauce pouches available Weis, WanaBanana, and Schnucks have been pulled from shelves after they were found to be contaminated with lead. Dozens of children in the United States have been sickened by the tainted products. Now, the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, Jim Jones, says they may have been intentionally contaminated.
In an interview with Politico, Jones said “We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out.” All of the pouches in question were linked to a manufacturing facility in Ecuador that the FDA is currently inspecting.
‘“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.”’
Politico further explained that “The FDA continues to investigate a number of theories for how the pouches became contaminated, and has not drawn any conclusions about the way the lead was added, why or by whom. The FDA says it currently believes the adulteration is “economically motivated.” That generally refers to ingredients being altered in order to make products appear higher in value, often so companies can produce a cheaper item and sell it at an elevated price.”
“The agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have collaborated with state and local health authorities as well as Ecuadorian authorities to trace the origin of the cinnamon in the applesauce pouches, which is believed to be the source of the lead contamination. More than 60 U.S. children under the age of 6 have tested positive for lead poisoning after consuming the pouches — some at levels more than 500 times the acceptable threshold for lead, according to The Washington Post.”
Gao Yaojie, Chinese Physician and Self-Exiled AIDS Activist, Dead at 95
Gao Yaojie, a gynecologist and well-known AIDS activist, died on December 10 in New York City. Gao, formerly based in China’s Henan province, was famous for her work to expose the outbreak of HIV/AIDS in the country in the 1990s and 2000s. The outbreak was large in scale and primarily driven by the country’s Plasma Economy, which arose because of restrictions on foreign imports of blood products in the 1990s. This resulted in blood plasma donation becoming a way for rural populations to make money in government-supported plasma donation centers. However, unsafe practices like repeated use of unsterilized needles and pooling multiple donors’ blood during the plasmapheresis allowed HIV to spread widely.
Because of the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress reporting on this epidemic, poor rural populations were left largely unaware of the dangers of plasma donation and the public in general was unaware of the severity of the crisis. Gao was one of the first to speak publicly about the outbreak, helping draw the attention of media outlets. She later told documentary filmmakers about her motivations for doing this, saying, “My driving thought is: how can I save more people from dying of this disease? We each only live one life.”
It is estimated that at least one million Chinese were infected with HIV during this epidemic, highlighting the importance of Gao’s and others’ bravery. For this, she garnered praise from the United Nations, several Western organizations, and even Hillary Clinton. This rising fame led to her being placed under house arrest in 2007, with about 50 police preventing her from traveling to the United States to accept an award recognizing her work. In response to this, she told NPR “I think they feel I got in the way of their political achievements and their official careers…Otherwise, why would they put me under house arrest? What law did I break to warrant mobilizing all these police?”
NPR further explained her activities later in life in their article on her passing, writing: “Despite pressure from Henan provincial authorities to stop publicizing the AIDS crisis, she continued her work, using all the proceeds from her books and pamphlets to support AIDS families, especially children orphaned by the disease or the many suicides that it caused.”
“Restrictions on her movement began hindering in work in China, however, and in 2009, she abruptly fled to the US, after fearing she would be put under house arrest again. Many admirers continued to visit her apartment in West Harlem, including a group of young Chinese students who kept her company in the loneliness of exile.”
‘”Many Chinese regarded her as a hero, and when they came to New York, if they didn’t know how to contact her , [sic] they would ask me. I would ask them for an email written in Chinese and would forward it to her. So far as I know, she always wrote back to those people and welcomed them to come visit,” remembers Andrew Nathan, a political science professor at Columbia University who handled much of Gao’s affairs in New York.”
“The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 2023: Glimmers of Progress Set Against a Troubled Geopolitical Landscape”
Experts at CSR’s Nolan Center, including Biodefense PhD Program alumna and current faculty member Saskia Popescu, recently authored this blog post focused on the BWC’s potential for success in verification, universalization and effective implementation in Africa, and the creation of an International Agency for Biological Safety. They explain in their introduction: “For nearly two decades, efforts to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) were in stasis, with opportunities missed and States Parties unable to agree to definite action. States Parties arrived at the Review Conference last year facing a growing biological weapons threat—augmented by rapidly converging complimentary technologies—coupled with a status quo in the BWC that was insufficient for the task. Yet nations drove a breakthrough: the consensus achieved at last year’s Review Conference proved that action is still possible despite the challenging international security environment.”
“In a world in which biological threats and vulnerabilities are exceedingly complex, there is a critical need to reinforce relationships among global experts, national governments, and civil society. Over the past two weeks, these stakeholders have met to identify, examine, and develop specific and effective measures to strengthen the Convention. An unwavering theme throughout the Meeting of States Parties underscored that preparedness and resilience are investments, rather than costs, reinforcing the deterrence by denial efforts CSR continues to promote. Although the challenging international security environment continues to hinder progress there are glimmers of genuine progress across several fronts…”
“Biosecurity in the Americas: Regional Threat Assessment”
A new from UMD’s START, co-authored by Biodefense MS Program alumna Alexandra Williams: “This publication, currently available in Spanish, provides a breadth and depth of focuses as a high-level assessment of the Central and South America regions and introduction to key topics as:
The needed expansion of understanding of the differences and areas of collaboration between the concepts of biosafety and biosecurity,
Existing international obligations to biosecurity through the BWC and UNSC Resolution 1540,
How biosecurity applies to and may differ in application across a variety of facility types that engage in biological research or production, whether private or public laboratories, agricultural or university-based facilities,
Biosecurity risks that include proliferation, bioterrorism, agroterrorism, and biocrime,
The five pillars and mechanisms of biosecurity,
Lastly, the application of biosecurity in the Central and South American regions.”
“NTI|Bio Convenes Workshop on Disincentivizing State Bioweapons Development and Use”
From NTI: “A week ahead of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Working Group meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, NTI | bio convened a workshop on “Disincentivizing State Bioweapons Development and Use.” This two-day workshop on November 29 and 30 brought together academics, diplomats, biosecurity experts, and government policy makers to begin developing a cross-disciplinary thought and practice community to explore and develop potential disincentivizing solutions. Current thinking and policy on disincentivizing bioweapons acquisition and use is underdeveloped—especially by comparison with the nuclear security field.”
‘“We launched this effort because we see the need for more rigorous thinking on effective approaches to making bioweapons unattractive to nation-states,” said NTI | bio Vice President Jaime Yassif. “NTI’s goal is to bridge theory and practical policy-relevant approaches to develop new ideas that can invigorate international efforts to reduce biological threats.”’
Biodefense Graduate Program Director Gregory Koblentz and Associate Professor Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley both participated in this workshop. Read more about it here.
“Great Powers and the Norms of the BW Prohibition Regime”
A new working paper from CBWNet: “The United States of America and the Soviet Union were instrumental in creating the biological weapons prohibition regime more than 50 years ago. This has left the regime with a big gap in its normative structure related to the verification of treaty compliance. The working paper by Alexander Kelle and Eva Siegmann analyses great power involvement in several areas of regime implementation and concludes that none of the great powers, including China, has supported the addition of declaration and inspection norms. While recent US and Chinese initiatives could still lead to a strengthening of the regime in different areas, Russian policies, most notably false accusations against the US and others, threaten to undermine the regime.”
“AI and Biorisk: An Explainer”
A new explainer from Georgetown’s CSET: “Recent government directives, international conferences, and media headlines reflect growing concern that artificial intelligence could exacerbate biological threats. When it comes to biorisk, AI tools are cited as enablers that lower information barriers, enhance novel biothreat design, or otherwise increase a malicious actor’s capabilities. In this explainer, CSET Biorisk Research Fellow Steph Batalis summarizes the state of the biorisk landscape with and without AI.”
“Bio X AI: Policy Recommendations For A New Frontier”
Jeffrey et al. discuss the work of the Federation of American Scientists’ Bio x AI Policy Development Sprint in this piece, explaining in their introduction: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to yield tremendous advances in our basic understanding of biological systems, as well as significant benefits for health, agriculture, and the broader bioeconomy. However, AI tools, if misused or developed irresponsibly, can also pose risks to biosecurity. The landscape of biosecurity risks related to AI is complex and rapidly changing, and understanding the range of issues requires diverse perspectives and expertise. To better understand and address these challenges, FAS initiated the Bio x AI Policy Development Sprint to solicit creative recommendations from subject matter experts in the life sciences, biosecurity, and governance of emerging technologies. Through a competitive selection process, FAS identified six promising ideas and, over the course of seven weeks, worked closely with the authors to develop them into the recommendations included here. These recommendations cover a diverse range of topics to match the diversity of challenges that AI poses in the life sciences. We believe that these will help inform policy development on these topics, including the work of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnologies.”
“Push to Improve Biosecurity in the Age of Genetic Engineering”
Wilmot James recently authored this opinion piece for Business Day, explaining in part “The possibility of using AI to develop bioweapons raises additional concerns, and remains uncharted territory. While the intersection of AI and biotechnology holds immense potential for positive applications in healthcare, research and diagnostics, it also poses risks if misused. AI algorithms could be employed to analyse vast genetic data sets and identify specific sequences for manipulation. This could accelerate the process of genetic engineering, allowing for the creation of more efficient and potentially harmful pathogens…To safeguard against such threats, multilateral and public-private sector agreements and regulations to govern the ethical use of AI in science, emphasising the prohibition of bioweapon development, should be established, with strong oversight committees responsible for assessing the ethical implications at the intersection of AI and biotechnology. These committees should include experts in AI, virology, bioethics and global health security.”
“Sounding the Alarm on Anti-Science”
Margaret Winchester provides background and overview of Peter Hotez’s latest book-The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science-in this piece for Health Affairs: “In his book, The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, paints a bleak picture of public science denial during the pandemic, embedded in historic context. He tells the story of systematic anti-science efforts from his view in the trenches—and as a personal target for anti-science activists. This book, and his commentary in our December issue of Health Affairs on global lessons from COVID-19, highlight the very real effects of this movement, including lives lost, undermined public health efforts, foregone vaccinations, social schisms, and more, that will be felt for generations to come. As he writes, “anti-science now kills more Americans than global terrorism, or other deadly societal forces and social determinants.” Drawing from multiple sources, he estimates that approximately 200,000 people needlessly died in the US after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available.”
EU vs Disinfo Disinformation Review
The most recent edition of EU vs Disinfo’s Disinformation Review is now available and features multiple sections focused on Russia’s continued use of alleged US biological weapons laboratories as a bogeyman. Be sure to check it out for fantastic lines such as “If the only tool that you have is a hammer, everything looks like a biolab,” and “At a staged event, Putin mumbled out an announcement to veterans and the wider public that his regime would continue to rule over Russia after an orchestrated ritual not to be confused with an event known as an ‘election’ in the free world.”
2023 State of the Bioeconomy
From BIOISAC: “We have a lot to celebrate as we close 2023 and just over 12 months since the Executive Order calling for a safe, secure bioeconomy. Join us as we recap the activity, publications, outcomes, and – we will of course share a glimpse of the “behind the scenes” conversations from our 3 regional events and our one-day “Closing the Knowledge Gaps” event, our two-day table top training and the resulting “Going Viral: Bioeconomy Defense TTX” report, and, of course, the industry-demanded outputs from our hardware/software device security workgroup report and supplements, “Fortifying the Bioeconomy” as well as the Bioeconomy Security Questionnaire and Instrument Disposal Guide. We also have a lot left to do! We plan to share a few of our goals for 2024 and our upcoming regional events schedule.”
“Join us December 19th at 2pm Eastern-US for a live discussion.” Register here.
Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) Virtual Meeting
“The Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) provides advice, information, and recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS Secretary). The council supports and evaluates U.S. government activities focused on fighting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in human health, animal health, and environmental health. Using this One Health approach, members of the PACCARB have expertise from a range of backgrounds, including academia, industry, public health, advocacy, veterinary, and agricultural production.”
“As a federal advisory committee, the PACCARB looks to engage with the public and all AMR stakeholders. The council holds several public meetings every year both in-person and live streamed on the HHS.gov website. These meetings are open to anyone with an interest in combating AMR. See how to get involved!”
This virtual meeting will take place on December 20 from 9-4 EST. Learn more here.
61st ISODARCO Course: Nuclear Order and International Security after Ukraine
“The war in Ukraine has had an enormous impact on global security, reviving nuclear fears, undermining the prospects for arms control, and shattering many of the norms and constraints that were the foundation of European security. ISODARCO 2024 will examine the global nuclear order in light of the Ukraine war, focusing on the states, the policies and the technologies that will shape the future in a much more difficult environment. How will we cope with this more dangerous world?”
This course will take place January 7-14, 2024, at the University of Trento. Learn more and register here.
International Conference, CBRNE Research & Innovation
“The last 40 years have demonstrated that both military and civilian populations could be exposed to highly hazardous CBRNE agents following conflicts, natural outbreaks and disasters, industrial incidents or terrorist attacks.”
“Worldwide, researchers, responders and industrial capacities have been commited to provide adapted response to these challenges.”
“Building on the success of the first 5 International Conferences « CBRNE Research and Innovation » which took place in Antibes (2015), Lyon (2017), Nantes (2019), on line (2021) and Lille (2022), we want to give you a new opportunity to build up or strengthen collaborative networks in Strabourg (March 19th – 21rst 2024).”
“The CBRNE R&I Conference is specifically devoted to scientific updates, responders’ feedbacks and expression of needs. It also includes workshops and demonstrations of innovative materials, technologies and procedures, according to the following themes: DETECTION – IDENTIFICATION, PROTECTION – DECONTAMINATION, MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES, RISKS & CRISIS MANAGEMENT.”
“Looking forward to your proposals for communication and to welcoming you at Strasbourg in March 2024!”
Registration is now open for the Global Health Security 2024 conference in Sydney, Australia. This iteration will take place 18-21 June, 2024. The call for abstracts is also still open. “The mission of the Global Health Security conference is to provide a forum where leaders, researchers, policy-makers, and representatives from government, international organisations, civil society, and private industry from around the world can engage with each other, review the latest research and policy innovations, and agree solutions for making the world safer and healthier. To that end, our mission is to help foster a genuinely multidisciplinary community of practice that is committed to working collaboratively to enhance global health security and eliminate disease, irrespective of its origin or source.”
WHO Announces Proposed Members of Technical Advisory Group on Response Use of the Life Sciences and Dual-Use Research
The WHO recently announced its proposed membership of its Technical Advisory Group on Responsible use of the life sciences and dual-use research (TAG-RULS DUR). According to WHO, “As per WHO processes, there will be now a two-week public consultation period for WHO to receive feedback on the proposed TAG-RULS DUR members and set in place the modalities for the TAG-RULS DUR’s first meeting, which is planned to take place following this consultation period…The final membership to the TAG-RULS DUR is subject to the above-mentioned public consultation period and relevant WHO practices and procedures.”
The proposed membership and instructions for providing commentary on the individuals included are both available here.
Vote: 2023 Arms Control Person(s) of the Year Nominees
“Since 2007, the independent, nongovernmental Arms Control Association has nominated individuals and institutions that have, in the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of the threats posed by mass casualty weapons.”
“In a field that is often focused on grave threats and negative developments, the Arms Control Person(s) of the Year contest aims to highlight several positive initiatives—some at the grassroots level, some on the international scale—designed to advance disarmament, nuclear security, and international peace, security, and justice.”
“Voting will take place between Dec. 8, 2023, and Jan. 11, 2024. The results will be announced on Jan. 12, 2024. Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2023.”
This week includes coverage of updates to Japan’s End User List, the Taliban’s newly declared war on polio, Biomemory’s $1k DNA storage cards, new publications, upcoming events, and more.
Japan Revises End User List, Includes 101 Chinese Organizations and Institutions
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry has revised the country’s End User List, which provides “…exporters with information on foreign entities for which concern cannot be eliminated regarding involvement in activities such as the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and other items, for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of the catch-all control on cargos and other loads relating to WMDs and other items.”
The updated list, which takes effect on Monday, now includes 706 organizations in 15 countries and regions, according to Nikkei. This is an increase of 36 over last year’s list and, notably, it includes the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP)-the main center for Chinese research on and manufacturing of nuclear weapons. Seven total Chinese entities were added to the list, about 90% of which are thought to be involved in missile development. Nikkei notes that “Many universities, academies and research institutes are also listed, which reveals the extent of Xi Jinping’s Military-Civilian Fusion policy. Machine tools produced by Japanese companies and others are suspected of being used by the CAEP, according to a Nikkei investigation.”
223 Iranian organizations and institutions are on the list, in addition to 153 North Korean ones, and 101 each from China and Pakistan. Nikkei further explains that “Japan aims to prevent the outflow of civilian technology that could be diverted to military use. Exporters are required to get approval from the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry to export products to the listed organizations unless it is clear that the materials will not be used to develop WMDs such as nuclear weapons or missiles.”
“The economy ministry makes the list to enhance the effectiveness of its “catch-all” control system, which obliges exporters to apply for an export license for goods that may be used for the development of WMDs even if the goods are not subject to export restrictions under international agreements. The list has been issued since catch-all controls were introduced in April 2002 and is revised about once a year. It is not an embargo list.”
Taliban Announces Polio Eradication Campaign
Naturally acquired polio remains endemic in just two countries today- Afghanistan and Pakistan- in part because, as Radio Azadi explains, “Islamic militants often target polio-vaccination teams, falsely claiming the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.” During its 20-year struggle to regain power, the Taliban often banned door-to-door vaccination efforts. In 2021, nationwide door-to-door polio vaccinations were allowed to resume after the Taliban and the United Nations/World Health Organization reached an agreement.
Now, as explained by a recent article in The Washington Post, the Taliban is “declaring war” on polio in an apparent complete reversal of its previous stance. The article explains “Vaccinators in the country’s northeast, the center of the poliovirus outbreak, search cars for unvaccinated children at roadside checkpoints manned by Taliban soldiers. With no deadly attacks on public health campaigners reported in Afghanistan this year, they also feel increasingly comfortable venturing into remote virus hot spots that were previously far beyond their reach.”
The country’s health ministry announced the continuation of its annual polio vaccination campaign in March of this year, marking the second year the program has continued to operate under the Taliban’s rule. The ministry indicated it aimed to reach approximately 9 million children with the campaign, as Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan continue to struggle with endemic polio due in large part to accessibility difficulties, displacement, regional instability, and concerns about external interference. Pakistan suspended its anti-polio drive in multiple districts this year after police escorting vaccination teams were repeatedly attacked.
French Start-Up Announces Sales of DNA Storage Cards,BIO-ISAC Joins DNA Data Storage Alliance Amid Growing Interest, Concerns
Multiple news outlets have covered the French start-up Biomemory‘s release of $1,000 pairs of DNA cards that promise a “minimum” 150-year lifespan of data storage. The Verge’s Emma Roth explains “DNA has emerged as a theoretical alternative to hard drives, SSDs, and other forms of digital data storage, namely because of its impressive lifespan. Science estimates the technology could potentially last hundreds of thousands of years if stored in a cool, dry environment. That’s a heck of a lot longer than the lifespan of your average hard drive, which typically tops out at around five years.”
However, Biomemory’s cards currently offer just one kilobyte of storage, or about one email according to Wired. The data stored on the card is retrieved by mailing the cards to Eurofins Genomics, who then return the stored information using strings of DNA’s nucleotide bases-adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). Users can then use Biomemory’s DNA translation feature to decode the stored information. The card is not returned afterward. The company expects to begin shipping orders from its waitlist in January.
‘”The launch of our DNA Cards represents a significant milestone in the evolution of data storage technology,” Erfane Arwani, CEO of Biomemory, said about the pioneering development. “After years of talk about the potential of molecular computing, we are incredibly proud to bring the first DNA data storage product to market, that not only pushes the boundaries of innovation but also aligns with our commitment to environmental sustainability and efficiency.”‘
This news has coincided with the announcement that the Bioeconomy Information Sharing and Analysis Center, an international organization that aims to address threats unique to the bioeconomy, has joined the DNA Data Storage Alliance. The organization explained in a statement: “This year BIO-ISAC created the Genomic Data Workgroup, informing the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at National Institute of Standards and Technology efforts to launch the Cybersecurity Framework Profile for Genomic Data and the forthcoming text on the Privacy Framework Profile for Genomic Data. Prioritizing workgroup efforts to apply and implement this work, BIO-ISAC pursued membership and presentation opportunities with aligned organizations and audiences.”
“Founded in 2020, the DNA Data Storage Alliance was built to create and promote an interoperable storage ecosystem based on DNA as a data storage medium. The organization seeks to educate the public and raise awareness about this emerging technology and its vast power to preserve our digital legacy. As the methods of commercially viable DNA storage become better understood, the Alliance will consider recommending the creation of specifications and standards (e.g., encoding, reliability, retention, file systems) which enable end-users to add interoperable DNA-based storage solutions to their existing storage hierarchies.”
On a more fun note, Biomemory’s homepage does include a DNA Translate feature at the bottom which shows users how lines of text may be converted to strings of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, so we tested it out: AGAGAGACAGTCTCACAGTCAGAGACTCACACAGAGACACAGTCACAGAGTCTGTCAGTCAGACAGTCTGTGAGTGACTCAGTCACAGACTCACACAGAGACTCAGTCAGAGAGTGACACAGTCTGTGAGTGACTCAGTGAGACACTCACACAGTCTCAGAGTGACTGACTCACACAGTGAGACAGTCTCACAGTCAGAGACTCACACAGTCACTCAGTCAGAGAGTGACTGAGTGAGACACTCACACAGTCTGTCAGTCAGAGAGTGCCGAAGTGACTGAGTCTGACAGTCAGAGAGTGAGACAGTGAGACAGTCAGAGAGTGACTCCCGAACAG
The page lacks a feature allowing users to translate their string of nucleotide bases back to regular text, so take our word for it: The Pandora Report is the best newsletter!
WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record One Health-Focused Issue
“The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) serves as an essential instrument for the rapid and accurate dissemination of epidemiological information on cases and outbreaks of diseases under the International Health Regulations and on other communicable diseases of public health importance, including emerging or re-emerging infections.”
“Henry Kissinger Supported Wars and Coups. He Also Played a Little-Known Role in Eliminating Bioweapons”
Matt Field recently authored this piece about the late Henry Kissinger in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, writing in part: “By the late 1960s, incidents with chemical weapons—including an accident with VX nerve agent in Utah that killed some 6,000 sheep—had focused Congress’s attention on the US chemical and biological warfare operation. Internationally, there were efforts to begin arms control negotiations around these weapons of mass destruction. And Kissinger led internal government deliberations over what to do with the US program. At one point, according to Tucker and Mahan, Kissinger, unhappy with a policy paper that contained both arguments in favor and against retaining biological weapons, produced his own paper that cut the points in favor of the offensive program. He included his personal recommendation to restrict the US program to biological defense, which involves the development of countermeasures such as vaccines.”
“Insights from BARDA Industry Day 2023”
Tanima Sinha, Director of Life Science Product Development and Government Contracts at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), recently authored this post covering BARDA Industry Day 2023 and upcoming insights from the conference that will be made available. She explains in part, “Here we will take a quick glimpse at ASPR (Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response) and BARDA’s programs to enhance the nation’s biomedical industrial base and supply chain capacity. The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the inadequate availability of essential medical needs. In response to these deficiencies, the USG/ HHS (Health and Human Services) (Health and Human Services) is expanding the public health industrial base through innovative solutions.”
Fortifying the Bioeconomy
From BIO-ISAC: “Standardizing tools for assessing, remediating, and disposing of hardware and software instruments has been a recurring problem in our sector, reducing our ability to operate in a safe, secure way. Earlier this year, BIO-ISAC took action to address this need.” “Fortifying the Bioeconomy, an in-depth resource about shared responsibility in hardware and software lifecycle management, is now available. This resource includes additional materials including a standardized vendor questionnaire and an instrument disposal guide.”
“We hope these materials guide industry and offer us a safe, secure path forward for our nation’s labs, biomanufacturers, growers, and innovators.”
“Country Reports on Terrorism 2022 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.”
This report includes “Chapter 3 — The Global Challenge of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear Terrorism,” explaining the status of CBRN materials and expertise as terrorist threats and the United States’ efforts to counter them in 2022.
“New Information Tool on Nuclear Weapons Seeks to Identify the Next Arms Control Strategies”
Andrew Facini recently authored this piece for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists discussing the Council on Strategic Risks’ recently-launched Nuclear Weapons System Project. He explains, “For those of us seeking to cultivate nuclear policies geared toward enhancing strategic stability, the current trend reflects a worrying loss of perspective—a forgetting of the hard-earned lessons of the Cold War. To help put today’s trends in their historical context, a team of the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) developed a new visualization tool and information system that maps every type of nuclear weapon fielded by the five nuclear weapons states (P5) under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—from their inception to present day.”
What We’re Listening To 🎧
Technologically Speaking Podcast Ep. 6, Science is Messy
New from the Department of Homeland Security: “Host John Verrico sits down with Dr. Nick Bergman, director of S&T’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC). Dr. Bergman is a bit of a germaphobe, but it’s hard not to be when you run a Biosecurity Level 4 lab that studies pathogens for which no vaccine or treatment exists. Hear an insider’s perspective of the COVID pandemic, find out how NBACC regularly helps the FBI, and meet a guy living a “pretty typical life” of helping save us all from superbugs.”
New from the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport: “This film provides an introduction into eight pillars of good practice for biosecurity, that are important when implementing biosecurity control measures.”
“These control measures are necessary to protect high-risk biological materials against theft or misuse by malicious parties.”
“The biosecurity aspects in these eight pillars of good practice are explained, which can help you to implement biosecurity within your organisation. This film is focussed on organisations that work with high risk biological materials.”
Mitigating Arboviral Threats and Strengthening Public Health Preparedness
“Arboviruses are a broad group of viruses that are spread by arthropods, such as ticks and mosquitoes. Diseases caused by arboviruses, like dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever, present a significant public health burden and threaten billions of people worldwide. Despite the global recognition of the devastating health and economic impacts of these diseases, the need persists for improved integration of mitigation efforts into public health systems and environmental and urban planning.”
“The National Academies Forum on Microbial Threats will conduct a two-day workshop that will identify lessons learned from previous outbreaks, outline current arbovirus surveillance capacities, and describe novel approaches to arbovirus mitigation. The workshop will include perspectives from researchers, public health practitioners, and environmental management experts from across the globe.”
This event will take place on December 12 and 13. Learn more here.
Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) Virtual Meeting
“The Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) provides advice, information, and recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS Secretary). The council supports and evaluates U.S. government activities focused on fighting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in human health, animal health, and environmental health. Using this One Health approach, members of the PACCARB have expertise from a range of backgrounds, including academia, industry, public health, advocacy, veterinary, and agricultural production.”
“As a federal advisory committee, the PACCARB looks to engage with the public and all AMR stakeholders. The council holds several public meetings every year both in-person and live streamed on the HHS.gov website. These meetings are open to anyone with an interest in combating AMR. See how to get involved!”
This virtual meeting will take place on December 20 from 9-4 EST. Learn more here.
61st ISODARCO Course: Nuclear Order and International Security after Ukraine
“The war in Ukraine has had an enormous impact on global security, reviving nuclear fears, undermining the prospects for arms control, and shattering many of the norms and constraints that were the foundation of European security. ISODARCO 2024 will examine the global nuclear order in light of the Ukraine war, focusing on the states, the policies and the technologies that will shape the future in a much more difficult environment. How will we cope with this more dangerous world?”
This course will take place January 7-14, 2024, at the University of Trento. Learn more and register here.
International Conference, CBRNE Research & Innovation
“The last 40 years have demonstrated that both military and civilian populations could be exposed to highly hazardous CBRNE agents following conflicts, natural outbreaks and disasters, industrial incidents or terrorist attacks.”
“Worldwide, researchers, responders and industrial capacities have been commited to provide adapted response to these challenges.”
“Building on the success of the first 5 International Conferences « CBRNE Research and Innovation » which took place in Antibes (2015), Lyon (2017), Nantes (2019), on line (2021) and Lille (2022), we want to give you a new opportunity to build up or strengthen collaborative networks in Strabourg (March 19th – 21rst 2024).”
“The CBRNE R&I Conference is specifically devoted to scientific updates, responders’ feedbacks and expression of needs. It also includes workshops and demonstrations of innovative materials, technologies and procedures, according to the following themes: DETECTION – IDENTIFICATION, PROTECTION – DECONTAMINATION, MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES, RISKS & CRISIS MANAGEMENT.”
“Looking forward to your proposals for communication and to welcoming you at Strasbourg in March 2024!”
Registration is now open for the Global Health Security 2024 conference in Sydney, Australia. This iteration will take place 18-21 June, 2024. The call for abstracts is also still open. “The mission of the Global Health Security conference is to provide a forum where leaders, researchers, policy-makers, and representatives from government, international organisations, civil society, and private industry from around the world can engage with each other, review the latest research and policy innovations, and agree solutions for making the world safer and healthier. To that end, our mission is to help foster a genuinely multidisciplinary community of practice that is committed to working collaboratively to enhance global health security and eliminate disease, irrespective of its origin or source.”
“Biodefense Budget Breakdown: Data Visualization of U.S. Biodefense Investments”
New from Council on Strategic Risks: “In recent years, U.S. strategies and policies have advanced greatly in addressing biological risks from all sources. We at CSR have marked several areas of progress through writings and analysis: the beginning of a pivot toward pathogen-agnostic approaches, requiring annual exercises on biological risks, and the creation of the Biodefense Council within the Department of Defense, and more…In September, CSR launched a scorecardprocess to track signs of implementation of stronger U.S. biodefense and biosecurity policies. CSR’s Biodefense Budget Breakdown will accompany the scorecard, tracking trends in resources and investments.”
“Before the launch of this tool, no publicly-accessible resource provided a detailed analysis of the total budget across the federal biodefense enterprise. By creating the Biodefense Budget Breakdown, we hope to provide a robust and user-friendly resource for the government, key stakeholders, and the general public.”
“This tool is intended to provide focused analyses of the biodefense budget, with multiple interfaces to understand and analyze the federal biodefense portfolio. This tool starts with the cumulative U.S. biodefense totals for each fiscal year dating back to 2019, progresses to agency-specific drill-downs, and culminates with a detailed line item index for biodefense budgets across key agencies. This tool reports biodefense investments across three steps in the budget cycle: requested (R), enacted (E), and actual (A) levels of funding.”
Call for Applications: Ecological Security Fellowship
“The Council on Strategic Risks is pleased to announce a call for applications for its Ecological Security Fellowship, a key part of its broader Ecological Security Program.”
“Tackling complex, converging risks arising from ecological degradation requires the development of resilient leaders spanning international, national, state, and local levels. This program will familiarize participants with novel ways of conceptualizing the security risks posed by ecological disruption driven by human activities, climate change, and other stressors. Participants will acquire expertise and build professional development through networking with experts and practitioners in different areas of ecological security.”
This week covers a wide range of topics, including chemical weapons, indictments for those involved in running the illegal laboratory in Reedley, CA, and more. Several new publications follow, as well new upcoming events and newly-available resources in the announcement section.
George Mason University’s Biomedical Laboratory Receives $12 Million in Funding from NIH
From GMU: “Farhang Alem, Interim Director of the Biomedical Research Laboratory, Institute for Biohealth Innovation, and Aarthi Narayanan, Professor, Biology, will receive more than $12 million from the National Institute for Health to support development of Mason’s Biomedical Research Laboratory, advancing the university’s research capabilities for infectious diseases.”
“George Mason University’s Biomedical Laboratory (BRL) is one of 12 Regional Biocontainment Laboratories (RBLs) established through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The BRL offers Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facilities that conduct cutting edge pathogen research and serve as resources to rapidly address emerging infectious disease outbreaks.”
“Funding will support a number of facility improvements including the implementation of a comprehensive BSL-3 facilities preventative maintenance and upgrade plan to ensure continuity of operations, compliance with federal regulations, and a safe and secure facility. Funding will also enhance safety and quality of BSL-3 laboratory practices and create two new research cores in high containment.”
DOD Chemical and Biological Defense Program Celebrates 30th Anniversary
The Department of Defense recently reached the 30-year anniversary of the formation of its Chemical and Biological Defense Program. “Congress created the DOD wide chemical and biological defense program in November 1993, after a government report noted U.S. forces were not sufficiently prepared to address Iraq’s chemical and biological warfare capabilities…Prior to the creation of the program under the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military services were each responsible for developing their own chemical and biological defense capabilities.”
“The Conference decided that the continued possession and use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Republic, and its failures to submit an accurate and complete declaration and to destroy all its undeclared chemical weapons and production facilities, have caused serious damage to the object and purpose of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
“In adopting the decision, States Parties condemned “in the strongest possible terms the use of chemical weapons by anyone, under any circumstances, emphasising that any use of chemical weapons anywhere, at any time, by anyone, and under any circumstances is unacceptable and contravenes international norms and standards”. States Parties reaffirmed their determination to continue to take action to address threats related to chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere.”
“Today’s decision seeks to implement for the first time Paragraph 3 of Article XII of the Convention, which refers to measures States Parties can take in order to ensure compliance.”
Syrian Network for Human Rights Statement On the Day of Remembrance For All Victims of Chemical Warfare
The Syrian Network for Human Rights released its statement yesterday on the Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare, highlighting CW attacks perpetrated by the Assad regime and the ongoing struggle for victims to hold the regime accountable. The statement is available below.
OPCW Director-General Amb. Fernando Arias and the Mayor of the Municipality of The Hague, Mr. Jan van Zanen, announced last week the three recipients of the 2023 OPCW-The Hague Award. These recipients are the Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland, Dr. Syeda Sultana Razia at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and Mr. Hubert K. Foy at the African Centre for Science and International Security in Ghana.
‘“All three of these recipients have demonstrated that everyone has a role to play in ridding the world of chemical weapons and preventing their re-emergence,” said OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Fernando Arias. “We must together strive to continue to ensure that toxic chemicals are never used as instruments of harm and that our populations are protected.”’
Read more about the recipients and their work here.
NTI, NextGen, iGEM, SynBio Africa, GHSN, and 80,000 Hours Announce Winners of 7th Annual Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition
The winners of the Seventh Annual Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition were recently announced. They are Gupreet Dhaliwal, Ph.D. candidate in Synthetic Biology and Immunology at the University of Cambridge, Askar Kleefeldt, Ph.D. candidate in Synthetic Biology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the University of Cambridge, and Alexandra Klein, Ph.D. candidate in Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at the University College London and research assistant at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge.
“In their winning paper, Biosecurity-By-Design to Safeguard Emerging Bioeconomies: Integrating Biosecurity Considerations into the Full Biotechnology Innovation and Development Pipeline, the team proposes a ‘biosecurity-by-design’ approach to ensure that biosecurity is integrated into every stage of the life science research and development pipeline, especially project conceptualization. The three authors outline a set of recommendations to achieve this goal, including fostering a culture of responsibility among scientific communities through the adoption of the Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines for Codes of Conduct for Scientists as a global standard in emerging bioeconomies. The authors emphasize the importance of engaging with the private sector and encourage governments to incentivize biosecurity in product design by using levers such as market access regulations or reputational rewards through seals of approval. The authors also propose that States Parties at the Biological Weapons Convention adopt a systematic review mechanism for science and technology to raise awareness of emerging biotechnology risks. Overall, these recommendations aim to make biosecurity an integral part of biotechnology innovation while allowing the bioeconomy to flourish.”
No Cost COVID-19 Tests Available in United States Again
The US Government is once more offering four at-home viral tests delivered via the US Postal Service. Those who did not order any in September can order up to eight of them during this round. Order tests at COVIDtests.gov.
ICYMI: Select Committee on the CCP Releases Report on Reedley Lab, DOJ Announces Indictment of Operator
Last month “Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party unveiled a report on its investigation into the illegal People’s Republic of China-tied biolab discovered in Reedley, CA. The members were joined by Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA), whose district includes Reedley, CA, Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), and Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL).”
According to the report, the Committee’s main findings were:
“The illegal biolab was run by a PRC citizen who is a wanted fugitive from Canada with a $330 million Canadian dollar judgment against him for stealing American intellectual property.
This PRC citizen was a top official at a PRC-state-controlled company and had links to military-civil fusion entities.
The illegal biolab received millions of dollars in unexplained payments from PRC banks while running the illegal biolab.
The illegal biolab contained thousands of samples of labeled, unlabeled, and encoded potential pathogens, including HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and Covid.
The illegal biolab also contained a freezer labeled “Ebola,” which contained unlabeled, sealed silver bags consistent with how the lab stored high risk biological materials. Ebola is a Select Agent with a lethality rate between 25-90%.
The biolab contained nearly a thousand transgenic mice, genetically engineered to mimic the human immune system. Lab workers said that the mice were designed “to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.”
After local officials who discovered the lab sought help from the CDC and others, the CDC refused to test any of the samples.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice announced a three-count indictment against operators of the lab, saying in a press statement “A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment today against Jia Bei Zhu, aka Jesse Zhu, Qiang He, and David He, 62, a citizen of China who formerly resided in Clovis, charging him with distributing adulterated and misbranded medical devices in violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and for making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.”
“According to court documents, between January 2020 and March 2023, through the companies Universal Meditech Incorporated (UMI) and Prestige Biotech Incorporated (PBI), Zhu sold hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 test kits to companies throughout the United States. UMI and PBI were based in Fresno and Reedley and did not obtain pre-market approval, pre-market clearance, emergency use authorization, or other applicable exemption from the FDA as was required. UMI and PBI received millions of dollars for the sales of the test kits.”
“When questioned by FDA officials, Zhu made several false statements to them, including that (1) his name was Qiang “David” He, (2) he was hired by UMI as a COVID-19 consultant in 2021, (3) he was hired by PBI just a couple of weeks prior to meeting with the FDA to communicate with government agencies on PBI’s behalf, and (4) he did not know anything about the manufacturing or distribution histories for UMI or PBI.”
“This case is the product of an investigation by the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the California Department of Public Health – Food and Drug Branch. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph D. Barton, Arelis M. Clemente, and Henry Z. Carbajal III are prosecuting this case.”
“Why AI-Assisted Bioterrorism Became a Top Concern for Open AI and Anthropic”
Louise Matsakis covers the now constant concern about the potential for AI to aid in bioterrorism, explaining in her introduction “In the spring of 1995, U.S. lawmakers were becoming concerned that material uploaded to the nascent internet might pose a threat to national security. The Oklahoma City bombing had happened several weeks earlier, drawing attention to publications circulating online like The Big Book of Mischief, which included instructions on how to build homemade explosives.”
“Worried the information could be used to orchestrate another attack, then-Senator Dianne Feinstein pushed to make publishing bomb recipes on the internet illegal. The effort sparked a national debate about “Open Access vs. Censorship,” as one newspaper headline put it at the time.”
“Nearly 30 years later, a similar debate is now unfolding about artificial intelligence. Rather than DIY explosives, some U.S. officials and leading AI companies say they are increasingly worried that large language models could be used to develop biological weapons. The possibility has been repeatedly cited as one reason to be cautious about making AI systems open source.”
Matsakis interviewed George Mason’s Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley as well in writing this piece, writing ‘“With new technologies, we tend to project in the future as though their development was linear and straightforward, and we never take into consideration the challenges and the contingencies of the people using them,” said Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, an associate professor at George Mason University who has interviewed former scientists in both the U.S. and Soviet Union’s now-defunct biological weapons programs.”
And later: “Ben Ouagrham-Gormley said her research has shown that achieving each of these steps requires employing different, highly-trained experts, including people who specialize in the exact type of pathogen being used. An AI model might be able to replace some of their work in the future, but she argued it can’t replicate the hands-on wisdom that comes from working in a laboratory.”
‘“This kind of tacit knowledge exists everywhere, but in the bio field, it’s really important because of the fragility of the raw material,” Ben Ouagrham-Gormley said.”
“Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Biology Are Not Harbingers of Doom”
David Bray provides an optimistic outlook on the potential of AI and synthetic biology in this policy memo for the Stimson Center. Bray writes, “Contrary to many people’s fears, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a positive force in advancing biological research and biotechnology. The assumption that AI will super-empower the risks that already exist for the misuse of biotech to develop and spread pathogens and fuel bioterrorism misses three key points. First, the data must be out there for either an AI or a human to use it. Second, governments stop bad actors from using bio for nefarious purposes by focusing on the actors’ precursor behaviors. Third, given how wrong large language models (LLMs) often are and their risk of hallucinations, any would-be AI intended to provide advice on biotech will have to be checked by a human expert. In contrast, AI can be a positive force in advancing biological research and biotechnology — and insights from biology can power the next wave of AI for the benefit of humankind. Private and public-sector leaders need to make near-term decisions and actions to lay the foundation for maximizing the benefits of AI and biotech. National and international attention should focus on both new, collective approaches to data curation and ensuring the right training approaches for AI models of biological systems.”
“Going Viral: Bioeconomy Defense”
This report from Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Lab summarizes the findings of a May tabletop exercise:
“The May tabletop exercise at APL revealed four key areas of action to ensure a safe and secure bioeconomy.
Trust in lab equipment performance and data is foundational to the bioeconomy. Recommendations include developing digital security standards for lab equipment, hardening waypoints at each step in the data life cycle, and introducing a system of tiered levels of compliance.
Awareness of vulnerabilities, cyber and physical, and the steps for prevention and intervention are needed. Recommendations include additional exercises to strengthen intra-agency coordination and training and extending this activity to private sector companies.
Responsibility for responding to threats in the bioeconomy, and the roles for each team member, need to be defined with a process workflow, using a shared responsibility model, and teams need regular training opportunities to practice.
Preparedness is lacking, and threat-mitigation strategies specific to the bioeconomy need to be identified, tested and distributed. The exercise pushed the limits of participants’ traditional threat-mitigation strategies and identified the need for assessments of critical infrastructure and functions, cross-domain training, and the establishment of policies and procedures for an inter-agency group to rapidly respond to threats.”
“Security Considerations At the Intersection of Engineering Biology and Artificial Intelligence”
New from the Engineering Biology Research Consortium: “This white paper describes three areas at the intersection of engineering biology and artificial intelligence that may yield significant security concerns: de novo biological design, closed-loop autonomous laboratories, and natural language Large Language Models. It describes each area, identifies potential security concerns, and offers ideas for the potential mitigation of those concerns, ultimately calling for an international forum to continually address this evolving issue.”
“Pascale Ferrier and the Threat of Bioterror”
Markus K. Binder recently published this piece in NCT’s CBNW: “Drawing upon the START CBRN Data Suite and other research, Markus Binder considers the five ricin bio-attacks directed at the U.S. President and other officials that have taken place since 2013 to assess what, if anything, they can tell us about bioterrorism.”
“Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline”
New work from the Pew Research Center has found that “…the share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect on society has fallen and there’s been a continued decline in public trust in scientists.”
“Overall, 57% of Americans say science has had a mostly positive effect on society. This share is down 8 percentage points since November 2021 and down 16 points since before the start of the coronavirus outbreak.”
“About a third (34%) now say the impact of science on society has been equally positive as negative. A small share (8%) think science has had a mostly negative impact on society.”
“A Systematic Review Of COVID-19 Misinformation Interventions: Lessons Learned”
Smith et al. recently published this article with Health Affairs: “Governments, public health authorities, and social media platforms have employed various measures to counter misinformation that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effectiveness of those misinformation interventions is poorly understood. We analyzed fifty papers published between January 1, 2020, and February 24, 2023, to understand which interventions, if any, were helpful in mitigating COVID-19 misinformation. We found evidence supporting accuracy prompts, debunks, media literacy tips, warning labels, and overlays in mitigating either the spread of or belief in COVID-19 misinformation. However, by mapping the different characteristics of each study, we found levels of variation that weaken the current evidence base. For example, only 18 percent of studies included public health–related measures, such as intent to vaccinate, and the misinformation that interventions were tested against ranged considerably from conspiracy theories (vaccines include microchips) to unproven claims (gargling with saltwater prevents COVID-19). To more clearly discern the impact of various interventions and make evidence actionable for public health, the field urgently needs to include more public health experts in intervention design and to develop a health misinformation typology; agreed-upon outcome measures; and more global, more longitudinal, more video-based, and more platform-diverse studies.”
“Coffee As a Dietary Strategy to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection”
Wu et al.‘s recent article in Cell & Bioscience offers further validation for coffee drinkers (as if we needed it): “Background: To date, most countries lifted the restriction requirement and coexisted with SARS-CoV-2. Thus, dietary behavior for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection becomes an interesting issue on a daily basis. Coffee consumption is connected with reduced COVID-19 risk and correlated to COVID-19 severity. However, the mechanisms of coffee for the reduction of COVID-19 risk are still unclear.”
“Results: Here, we identified that coffee can inhibit multiple variants of the SARS-CoV-2 infection by restraining the binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), and reducing transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) and cathepsin L (CTSL) activity. Then, we used the method of “Here” (HRMS-exploring-recombination-examining) and found that isochlorogenic acid A, B, and C of coffee ingredients showed their potential to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection (inhibitory efficiency 43–54%). In addition, decaffeinated coffee still preserves inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2. Finally, in a human trial of 64 subjects, we identified that coffee consumption (approximately 1–2 cups/day) is sufficient to inhibit infection of multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 entry, suggesting coffee could be a dietary strategy to prevent SARS-CoV2 infection.”
“Conclusions: This study verified moderate coffee consumption, including decaffeination, can provide a new guideline for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2. Based on the results, we also suggest a coffee-drinking plan for people to prevent infection in the post-COVID-19 era.”
“WHO: ‘Collective Action’ Needed to Effectively Reduce Antimicrobial Resistance”
CIDRAP’s Chris Dall covers WHO officials’ answers to questions about AMR in this piece written in recognition of World AMR Awareness Week. Dall explains “Encouraging the medical community, world leaders, and other stakeholders to do their part in staving off that grim future is one of the goals of World AMR Awareness Week, a global campaign of the World Health Organization (WHO) this week aimed at raising public awareness and promoting practices that help mitigate the threat posed by drug-resistant infections…CIDRAP News recently submitted a series of questions to WHO officials about the themes of this year’s World AMR Awareness Week, their assessment of the progress that countries have made in addressing AMR, and the challenges that lay ahead. Responses were provided by Sarah Sheppard, the WHO’s communications lead for Medicines, Health Products & AMR.”
“The World’s Chemical-Weapons Stockpiles Are Gone – But a New Challenge Looms”
Peter J. Hotchkiss, science policy adviser to the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board, recently published this World View piece with Nature. He explains in part, “In 2019, the OPCW’s 193 member states decided unanimously, for the first time in history, to add compounds to the schedules, the lists of chemicals that are regulated under the convention. The four entries comprise toxic nerve agents with no known civilian use: three cover phosphorus-based agents (in the ‘novichok family’), and the fourth is a family of carbamates, another kind of nerve agent. The convention already prohibited using these (or any chemical) to intentionally kill or harm people through toxicity. Now, their production, transfer and storage are subject to stringent verification by the OPCW, through declarations and on-site inspections.”
“Yet some states have been reticent to share data on these chemicals with the OPCW. The lack of information on the newly scheduled chemicals is in jarring contrast to what we have on other weapons listed in the convention and on their precursors. To ensure the health and safety of staff members during inspections, the OPCW needs the best understanding of these chemicals’ properties, the types of personal protective equipment and medical countermeasures that are effective against them and the analytical methods for detecting them. These data would also help us to provide the best information and training to all member states, ensuring that they are prepared in the event that any of these chemicals are used as a weapon.”
“29 Morally Bankrupt Governments, Headed by Russia, Voted Against the OPCW’s Resolutions”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights recently released this report “…emphasizing that many states worldwide must bring cases against the Syrian regime before the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the regime’s repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).”
“In the 15-page report, SNHR notes that the Syrian regime has carried out 184 chemical attacks since ratifying the Convention in September 2013. The report outlines the decisions adopted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), identifying the states that voted against those decisions, or in other words the states that support the continuation of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program. Through this action, it notes, these states are, in effect, encouraging the regime to use weapons of mass destruction – chemical weapons – and emboldening it to carry out more chemical weapons attacks against the Syrian people.”
“Scientific Experts Provide Key Recommendations on Biotoxin Analysis to the OPCW”
“The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) endorsed a report outlining key recommendations on biotoxin analysis and investigations of their alleged use as weapons submitted by a SAB Temporary Working Group (TWG) earlier this year.”
“Biotoxins are toxic chemicals produced by living organisms, which vary widely in properties such as structure, size, and mechanisms of toxicity. Some biotoxins can be more toxic than traditional nerve agents. There are two biotoxins subject to stringent verification measures under the Chemical Weapons Convention – ricin and saxitoxin – with many others also posing safety and security concerns.”
“The risk of misuse of biotoxins as weapons requires the OPCW to be prepared to conduct various investigations and missions related to their alleged use. To ensure the Organisation’s readiness to do so, the TWG’s report makes critical recommendations to the OPCW…”
“2023 Catalogue of Civil Society Activities Supporting the Chemical Weapons Convention”
The Stimson Center recently released its 2023 Catalogue of Civil Society Activities Supporting the Chemical Weapons Convention, “a catalogue of civil society capacity-building, assistance, and/or research programs supporting the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The catalogue highlights all interested parties, including the CWC States Parties, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, international organizations, and industry stakeholders, civil society’s contributions to strengthen reducing the threat of chemical weapons and promoting the peaceful use of chemistry. By providing a uniform product, interested parties will be able to easily identify programs, experts, and organizations that support the CWC and related chemical weapons nonproliferation instruments.”
“Emerging and Re-Emerging Chemical Threats (Part 2)”
MRIGlobal continues their discussion of CW threats with “Chemical Threats on the Battlefield and Home Front” in this blog post, explaining in part “Today’s conflicts around the world highlight the current and pressing need for continued research to help ensure the safety of anyone in danger. And though we touched on “Emerging and Re-emerging Chemical Threats” earlier in the year, because emerging and re-emerging chemical threats pose an ever-present challenge to both warfighters and civilians, we are revisiting the topic to share additional expertise. To learn more, we visited with Cristina Youngren and Evan Durnal, subject matter experts in MRIGlobal’s Integrated Defense Solutions division.”
“What Does a French Arrest Warrant Mean for Normalization With Assad?”
Julia Neumann discusses what France’s arrest warrants for Bashar al-Assad and several associates mean in practice and for regional normalization in this piece for Syria Direct.
“Why Cheap Drones Pose a Significant Chemical Terrorism Threat”
Zachary Kallenborn recently published this piece with The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, writing in part “Relatively cheap drones are becoming a mainstay of conflicts, from the war in Ukraine to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. Though drones were once the purview of rich and powerful militaries, it’s now possible to use cheap consumer drones in battle. With a few tweaks, they can whistle past even sophisticated air defenses. As Al-Bared’s case highlights, they may also present a significant chemical terrorism threat. Drones can be equipped with sprayers to deliver chemical weapons, or they could be used in an attack on a chemical plant. They could also provide critical attack support, helping with reconnaissance to plan out and conduct an attack, monitor law enforcement response, and create propaganda to highlight terrorist activities.”
“Stanford Emerging Technology Review: Reporting on Key Technology Areas and Their Policy Implications”
“Emerging technologies are transforming societies, economies, and geopolitics. This moment brings unparalleled promise and novel risks. In every era, technological advances buoy nations that develop and scale them—helping to save lives, win wars, foster greater prosperity, and advance the human condition. At the same time, history is filled with examples where slow-moving governments stifled innovation in ways policymakers never intended, and nefarious actors used technological advances in ways that inventors never imagined. Technology is a tool. It is not inherently good or bad. But its use can amplify human talent or degrade it, uplift societies or repress them, solve vexing challenges or exacerbate them. These effects are sometimes deliberate but often accidental.”
“The stakes of technological developments today are especially high. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already revolutionizing industries, from music to medicine to the military, and its impact has been likened to the invention of electricity. Yet AI is just one among many technologies that are ushering in profound change. Fields like synthetic biology, materials science, and neuroscience hold potential to vastly improve health care, environmental sustainability, economic growth, and more. We have experienced moments of major technological change before. But we have never experienced the convergence of so many technologies with the potential to change so much, so fast.”
“The Stanford Emerging Technology Review(SETR) is the first product of a major new Stanford technology education initiative for policymakers. Our goal is to help both the public and private sectors better understand the technologies poised to transform our world so that the United States can seize opportunities, mitigate risks, and ensure that the American innovation ecosystem continues to thrive.”
ICYMI: FBI Director Statement Before the House Committee on Homeland Security
FBI Director Christopher Wray delivered this statement to the House Committee on Homeland Security last month, highlighting the work of his agency across several mission areas, including emerging technologies and counter WMD. Wray explained in part of this statement that, “In addition to fighting terrorism, countering the proliferation of weapons-of-mass-destruction materials, technologies, and expertise, preventing their use by any actor, and securing nuclear and radioactive materials of concern are also top national security priority missions for the FBI. The FBI considers preventing, mitigating, investigating, and responding to weapons of mass destruction (“WMD”) terrorism a “no-fail” mission because a WMD attack could result in substantial injuries, illness, or loss of lives, while yielding significant social, economic, political, and other national security consequences. In collaboration with federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and other partners, the FBI integrates complementary efforts to counter WMD terrorism. An example of this collaboration is the FBI-led Weapons of Mass Destruction Strategic Group. This interagency crisis action team spans more than 15 departments and agencies to coordinate the federal government’s response to WMD threats and incidents. Alongside the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security maintains the largest footprint on the strategic group.”
NEW: Looking Ahead in Ukraine: What Could Increase the Risk of Escalation?
“As U.S. lawmakers debate the question of continued defense and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the Ukrainian fight to expel Russian invaders continues with no end in sight. The stalemate on the front lines in Ukraine masks continued intense fighting and demands for resources on both sides that may drive longer-term changes—on the battlefield, inside Russia, and beyond. This could lead to further escalation, including the potential to turn the conflict into a wider war. Understanding which circumstances and policies may risk escalation in Ukraine is paramount: not only are decisions about supporting Ukraine critical to the long-term trajectory of the conflict but also the United States confronts a broad set of challenges across the globe.”
“Please join RAND’s National Security Research Division on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 9:30 – 11:00 am ET, for a moderated panel discussion about which circumstances or policies may risk escalation in Ukraine—either deliberate or inadvertent—and the potential triggers and restraining factors likely to shape Russian escalation decisions in particular.”
“Missy Ryan, a national security reporter at the Washington Post, will moderate the discussion.”
NEW: Threat Agnostic Biodefense Webinar: Assessing the Zoonotic Risk of Pre-Emergent Viruses
From PNNL: “Exploration of the “virosphere” is in its golden age. The sheer number of new viruses discovered daily, and the fact that most cannot be cultured, creates enormous uncertainty about where to allocate attention and resources. It is not an intractable problem, however, to distinguish those few viruses that are likely to emerge as zoonoses from the many others that are not. This talk describes two diametric approaches to addressing this problem. The first approach involves a field-to-lab investigative methodology that, when combine with biologically informed predictive computational models, can assess the zoonotic risk of viruses that have not yet been identified in humans. The second approach relies on the power of modern methods in anthropology and ethnography to identify zoonotic transmission pathways, even before the identification of any pathogens that might traverse those pathways. A unifying example is simian hemorrhagic fever virus and its relatives in the family Arteriviridae, which cause important animal diseases but have never been documented to infect humans. Both approaches identify these viruses as high-risk pre-emergent zoonoses.”
Learn more and register for this December 6 event here.
NEW: Bio & Beer
“As a rising global leader in the bioeconomy, investments in the future STEM workforce are critical in order to secure the U.S.’s position as a world resource for biohealth technology and innovations. Join us and our three guest speakers as we discuss the importance of a diverse, skilled STEM workforce to address rapidly increasing industry demand. We will also talk about training and other opportunities designed to prepare individuals for STEM careers. Enjoy an evening of networking, drinks, and fun!”
Meeting the Moment: Biodefense Policy, Procurement, and Public Health
From the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense: “As the Nation continues to endure the consequences of recent pandemics, and with continued interest in biological weapons by nation states and other enemies, the federal government has an opportunity to address vulnerabilities in the biodefense enterprise. At this meeting, titled Meeting the Moment: Biodefense Policy, Procurement, and Public Health, the Commission intends to further explore : (1) biodefense policies and activities at the Department of Defense; (2) federal stockpile evaluation and decision-making for smallpox medical countermeasures; (3) needed authorities of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and (4) biodefense leadership.”
This meeting will take place on December 5, from 10:30 am until 4 pm ET. Register here.
2023 EPA International Decontamination Research and Development Conference-“Advancing Preparedness through Science and Collaboration”
“The clean-up of chemical, biological, or radiological (CBR) contamination incidents and natural disasters is a critical challenge for the United States. Understanding how to characterize and remediate affected areas of environmental contamination and waste is necessary for daily life to return.”
“The Decon Conference is designed to facilitate presentation, discussion, and further collaboration of research and development topics focused on an all-hazards approach to remediate contaminated indoor and outdoor areas, critical infrastructure, water distribution systems, and other environmental areas/materials.”
“This conference is free and open to the public. Content and presentations are geared towards the emergency response community, including local and state emergency managers, homeland security officials, first responder coordinators, private sector industry, risk managers, educators in the field of emergency management, and others.”
This event will take place December 5-7 in Charleston, SC. Learn more and register here.
Mitigating Arboviral Threats and Strengthening Public Health Preparedness
“Arboviruses are a broad group of viruses that are spread by arthropods, such as ticks and mosquitoes. Diseases caused by arboviruses, like dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever, present a significant public health burden and threaten billions of people worldwide. Despite the global recognition of the devastating health and economic impacts of these diseases, the need persists for improved integration of mitigation efforts into public health systems and environmental and urban planning.”
“The National Academies Forum on Microbial Threats will conduct a two-day workshop that will identify lessons learned from previous outbreaks, outline current arbovirus surveillance capacities, and describe novel approaches to arbovirus mitigation. The workshop will include perspectives from researchers, public health practitioners, and environmental management experts from across the globe.”
This event will take place on December 12 and 13. Learn more here.
Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) Virtual Meeting
“The Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) provides advice, information, and recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS Secretary). The council supports and evaluates U.S. government activities focused on fighting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in human health, animal health, and environmental health. Using this One Health approach, members of the PACCARB have expertise from a range of backgrounds, including academia, industry, public health, advocacy, veterinary, and agricultural production.”
“As a federal advisory committee, the PACCARB looks to engage with the public and all AMR stakeholders. The council holds several public meetings every year both in-person and live streamed on the HHS.gov website. These meetings are open to anyone with an interest in combating AMR. See how to get involved!”
This virtual meeting will take place on December 20 from 9-4 EST. Learn more here.
61st ISODARCO Course: Nuclear Order and International Security after Ukraine
“The war in Ukraine has had an enormous impact on global security, reviving nuclear fears, undermining the prospects for arms control, and shattering many of the norms and constraints that were the foundation of European security. ISODARCO 2024 will examine the global nuclear order in light of the Ukraine war, focusing on the states, the policies and the technologies that will shape the future in a much more difficult environment. How will we cope with this more dangerous world?”
This course will take place January 7-14, 2024, at the University of Trento. Learn more and register here.
International Conference, CBRNE Research & Innovation
“The last 40 years have demonstrated that both military and civilian populations could be exposed to highly hazardous CBRNE agents following conflicts, natural outbreaks and disasters, industrial incidents or terrorist attacks.”
“Worldwide, researchers, responders and industrial capacities have been commited to provide adapted response to these challenges.”
“Building on the success of the first 5 International Conferences « CBRNE Research and Innovation » which took place in Antibes (2015), Lyon (2017), Nantes (2019), on line (2021) and Lille (2022), we want to give you a new opportunity to build up or strengthen collaborative networks in Strabourg (March 19th – 21rst 2024).”
“The CBRNE R&I Conference is specifically devoted to scientific updates, responders’ feedbacks and expression of needs. It also includes workshops and demonstrations of innovative materials, technologies and procedures, according to the following themes: DETECTION – IDENTIFICATION, PROTECTION – DECONTAMINATION, MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES, RISKS & CRISIS MANAGEMENT.”
“Looking forward to your proposals for communication and to welcoming you at Strasbourg in March 2024!”
Registration is now open for the Global Health Security 2024 conference in Sydney, Australia. This iteration will take place 18-21 June, 2024. The call for abstracts is also still open. “The mission of the Global Health Security conference is to provide a forum where leaders, researchers, policy-makers, and representatives from government, international organisations, civil society, and private industry from around the world can engage with each other, review the latest research and policy innovations, and agree solutions for making the world safer and healthier. To that end, our mission is to help foster a genuinely multidisciplinary community of practice that is committed to working collaboratively to enhance global health security and eliminate disease, irrespective of its origin or source.”
Council on Strategic Risks Launches the Nuclear Weapon Systems Project
“How states view the roles and relevance of nuclear weapons is changing. While these perspectives have been dynamic since the dawn of the atomic age, the changes occurring today and drivers of these changes are particularly worrisome—in particular given that they seem to be on the cusp of reversing a period heavily characterized by arms control agreements, reductions in global arsenals, and advances in international cooperation to reduce nuclear weapons risks.”
“CSR’s core nuclear policy work to address this challenging time has focused largely on qualitative approaches to reducing the risks of nuclear miscalculations, uses of these weapons, arms racing behavior, and other dangerous trends. Going beyond numbers of weapons—which has been a major policy focus given numerical limitations in past nuclear treaties—a qualitative view of the nuclear weapons landscape is done through the lens of the nuclear capabilities nations seek, and associated policies and postures. This can help to show where multiple nations might find areas for potential cooperation that would be mutually beneficial. It can also help to show where nations currently possess the capabilities they claim to need, and thereby in what ways cooperative or unilateral measures of restraint are the most appropriate.”
“In order to facilitate this work by CSR and by others, we are launching The Nuclear Weapon Systems Project to help visualize how the types of nuclear capabilities fielded in the world have evolved since the advent of these weapons.”
“This project seeks to document and characterize every deployed nuclear weapons system that NPT-recognized nuclear states have developed in history. More than just a list of bombs, missiles, and artillery shells, the resulting dataset illustrates a complex story of risks, strategies, and lessons learned—and lost. We consider this data to be a living resource, and encourage outside contributions and feedback.”
“Georgetown Global Health Center Launches First Open-Access Wildlife Disease Database”
Georgetown University Medical Center’s Center for Global Health Science and Security recently announced “the launch of a first-of-its-kind wildlife disease database — a system for collecting records of viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, etc. — designed to support an early warning system for potential viral emergence. The Pathogen Harmonized Observatory, or PHAROS, is open to the global community and free to access.”
“Scientists in GHSS’ Verena program, a collaborative institute comprising a global team of scientists, designed PHAROS to advance research and education around viral emergence — the process of viruses jumping from animals to humans. Verena co-founder and director Colin Carlson, PhD, says most platforms designed to track diseases in wild animals are very limited and are developed only in response to a major outbreak, such as birds dying off suddenly due to avian flu.”
‘“Our goal is to build a data sharing system that lets us eventually predict pandemics like the weather,” Carlson says. “When we collect data on wildlife viruses, it gets published in journals and then lost forever, because it isn’t ever standardized or compiled. After COVID, there’s no excuse to keep working that way.”’
Texas A&M Research Assistant Professor (Pandemic Preparedness/Biosecurity) Openings
Texas A&M University’s Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs is seeking up to two Research Assistant Professors with expertise in pandemic preparedness and/or biosecurity. The Research Assistant Professor will be in the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Bush School of Government & Public Service, and will work with the Pandemic Preparedness & Biosecurity Policy Program. Responsibilities include teaching graduate courses, conducting research, and writing policy-relevant publications on biosecurity, global health security, bio and agro-defense, federal life sciences policy, one health, biotechnology, or related policy topics.
This week is another mixed bag highlighting recent alumni achievements and program happenings, discussing the release of annual State Department reports on global compliance with the NPT, CWC, and BWC, and Senate Republicans’ latest report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Several new publications and upcoming events are included, as well as open calls for experts and fellowship opportunities.
Fairfax County Health Department Recognizes Mason for Pandemic Response
Recently, “George Mason University was recognized by the Fairfax County Health Department (FCHD) for being an outstanding system partner in managing and operationalizing the university’s pandemic planning, response, and recovery. The partnership, which began long before the COVID-19 pandemic, has been vital in enhancing the health and well-being of the shared communities.”
The same piece announcing this interviewed a Biodefense PhD alumna, Julie Zobel, who is currently associate vice president of Safety, Emergency, and Enterprise Risk Management and Mason’s COVID director-“Julie Zobel…expressed her gratitude for the partnership between Mason and FCHD. “We are honored to have worked alongside the Fairfax County Health Department to serve our community during these challenging times,” said Zobel. “The success of our pandemic response would not have been possible without this partnership. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and commitment to public health”’
Pathogens Project Convenes Meeting in Geneva
The initiative on “Creating the Framework for Tomorrow’s Pathogen Research” hosted a public meeting in Geneva, Switzerland this week. This conference included Pathogens Project taskforce members, policy leaders, journalists, scientists, and civic leaders, among others.
The conference featured both private and public (recorded) workshops. Furthermore, according to the Project’s site, “It will produce a final summary report with recommendations, along with individually prepared papers focused on risk assessment and mitigation of high-risk pathogen research. Conference papers will be published in a special edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and made available on the Bulletin’s website.”
Biodefense Graduate Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz was on a panel at the event, “Empirical studies tracking risks”, alongside Dr. Rocco Casagrande (Founder and Chair of the Board, Gryphon Scientific), Dr. Weiwen Zhang (Distinguished Professor of Synthetic Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Tianjin University of China), and Dr. Sandra López-Vergès (Senior Health Researcher and Chief, Gorgas Memorial Institute of Health Sciences). Koblentz discussed ongoing work from the Global BioLabs project, which he co-leads with Dr. Filippa Lentzos of King’s College London. Global BioLabs offers an interactive map of BSL-4 and BSL-3+ facilities globally and recently released Global BioLabs Report 2023.
Biodfense Graduate Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz on the “Empirical studies tracking risks” panelVisit https://www.globalbiolabs.org/ to access this interactive map feature
State Department Releases Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Compliance Reports
The report also notes concerns about lack of transparency in Myanmar’s nuclear work (though evidence does not indicate that the country violated the NPT). The appended report on CWC compliance discusses further concerns with Myanmar and other countries’ compliance with the treaty. The report explains that “Four States Parties – Burma, Iran, Russia, and Syria – are certified in non-compliance with the CWC. Russia and Syria were first certified in non-compliance in April 2018. Iran was first certified in non-compliance in November 2018. Burma was first certified in non-compliance in 2019. Additional information is available in the 2023 classified Condition (10)(C) Reports. The United States also cannot certify the People’s Republic of China’s compliance, which was first reported in 2021.”
Dr. Gregory Koblentz and Madeline Roty (Biodefense MS ’21) authored a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2020 discussing Myanmar’s past with CW and US efforts to get the country to reconcile and come into compliance with the CWC. Following the 2021 coup d’état and the ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar is unlikely to meet the requirements needed to be in compliance, despite the progress outlined by Koblentz and Roty.
Senate Republicans Release COVID Origins Report
Senate Republicans have released their reportexploring the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, building on the short interim report released in October 2022. Two documents titled “Muddy Waters: The Origins of COVID-19” were released; one by the Muddy Waters Group and another prepared by Senator Roger Marshall alongside Dr. Bob Kadlec, Bob Foster, and members of the 117th GOP Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee’s staff. The report was a product of the work of former Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who commissioned the report and oversaw the release of the October HELP committee interim report. Readers may recall the controversy that accompanied the release of that interim report, which coincided with the release of articles by Vanity Fair and ProPublica that were widely criticized for poor quality translations and other inaccuracies we discussed in November.
That troubled trend seems to continue in this new report, with admitted circumstantial evidence used to find that “The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research.”
Axios explains that the report “…argues that scientists haven’t found any naturally occurring viruses with the same composition of the coronavirus, and that there’s evidence the virus was circulating in Wuhan before the first known cases connected to the wet market were reported…It also argues that it appears Chinese researchers began development of at least two COVID vaccines in November 2019, including at the WIV, which “means SARS-CoV-2 would have been present at the WIV before the known outbreak of the pandemic,” and “It also documents numerous instances of lab safety concerns throughout 2019, including around the time when the virus may have first appeared.”
Much of this, however, relies on the same previously disputed points made in the interim report and the accompanying ProPublica and Vanity Fair pieces. Furthermore, as Caitlin Owens highlights in another piece for Axios, the reports rely on circumstantial evidence which means “The absence of evidence pointing, for example, to a precise transmission route from animals to humanswill lead to very different interpretations of the same information.”
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist who has worked on high-profile studies supporting the idea of a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 told Owens that the report “…demonstrates, in my view, a political agenda that’s meant to bolster the idea that the lab leak hypothesis is more supported than it is. But also it is so full of just factual errors.” Rasmussen also counters a number of key assertions made in the new report, including those such as the presence of a furin cleavage site on SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein is in itself suspicious and that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was dealing with substantial biosafety problems that Party leadership was concerned about.
All told, this report seems unlikely to change much or anything in this ongoing public debate.
Understanding Cyber-Warfare: Politics, Policy and Strategy
Chris Whyte and Brian Mazanec (a Biodefense PhD alumnus) are pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of their textbook Understanding Cyber-Warfare: Politics, Policy and Strategy (Routledge, 2023). This second edition of their popular textbook offers an accessible introduction to the historical, technical, and strategic context of global cyber conflict. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with three new chapters, to include coverage of the role of cyber in the war in Ukraine as well as a discussion of the role of emerging information technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing in shaping the dynamics of global cyber conflict. The second edition has recieved positive reviews. For example James R. Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, called it “an authoritative tutorial on the arcane complexities of cyber warfare” and said this edition “updates a previous version and makes the book more contemporary. It is a must-read for those who are serious about mastering this unique medium of combat, in all its dimensions.” More details can be found here.
“Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Bioenergy Research: Opportunities and Challenge”
New from the US Department of Energy’s Genomic Science Program: “The integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) with automated experimentation, genomics, biosystems design, and bioprocessing represents a new data-driven research paradigm poised to revolutionize scientific investigation and, particularly, bioenergy research. To identify the opportunities and challenges in this emerging research area, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research program (BER) and Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) held a joint virtual workshop on AI/ML for Bioenergy Research (AMBER) on August 23–25, 2022.”
“Approximately 50 scientists with various expertise from academia, industry, and DOE national laboratories met to assess the current and future potential for AI/ML and laboratory automation to advance biological understanding and engineering. They particularly examined how integrating AI/ML tools with laboratory automation could accelerate biosystems design and optimize biomanufacturing for a variety of DOE mission needs in energy and the environment.”
The report describing the workshop findings is now available here.
“The Making of a Biosafety Officer”
David Gillum discusses the roles of biosafety professionals in this piece for Issues in Science and Technology, writing in part “The question of how the biosafety community generates and transmits knowledge is interesting in itself, but it is also an urgent issue. The need for biosafety workers is growing just as current professionals are skewing older: an estimated 54% are over 50 and one of the few surveys of the field suggests there are six times as many biosafety officers over 70 as there are under 30. Preparing more of us—and keeping the public safe as the complexity of biological research, health, and manufacturing projects burgeons—is made more difficult by the importance of tacit knowledge in our education. Methods for understanding, communicating, and mitigating risk are difficult to transfer to others. To enhance public health and safety, people in my line of work should ease this transfer by considering how the profession might be standardized and formalized.”
“Viral Families and Disease X: A Framework for U.S. Pandemic Preparedness Policy”
In this policy brief for the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Schuerger et al. explain that “Pandemic threats are increasing as globalization, urbanization, and encroachment on animal habitats cause infectious outbreaks to become more frequent and severe. It is imperative that the United States build a pipeline of medical countermeasure development, beginning with basic scientific research and culminating in approved therapies. This report assesses preparedness for families of viral pathogens of pandemic potential and offers recommendations for steps the U.S. government can take to prepare for future pandemics.”
“Integrating Public and Ecosystem Health to Foster Resilience: Proceedings of a Workshop”
“Ecosystems form the foundation upon which society can survive and thrive, providing food, water, air, materials, and recreation. The connections between people and their environments are under stress from human-driven climate change, pollution, resource exploitation, and other actions that may have implications for public health. Existing intellectual frameworks including One Health, Planetary Health, ecosystem services, and nature-based solutions help to connect different elements related to the resilience of public health and ecological health systems. However, because of the breadth of this issue, many implications regarding public health are not well characterized, leading to gaps in understanding the interconnections between public health and ecosystem health systems and how ecosystem resiliency may affect public health.”
“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop in September 2022 focused on the integration of public and ecosystem health to foster resilience. This workshop was designed to inform the development of a research agenda aimed at bridging the knowledge-to-action gap and spur a move from research to policy and practice. Participants included a broad range of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners from the public health, natural resource management, and environmental protection communities. The workshop provided a forum for the exchange of knowledge, discussion of critical gaps in understanding and practice, and identification of promising research that could support the development of domestic and international policy and practice.”
“The proceedings summarizing the workshop is now available for free download, and a public webinar exploring the workshop topics will take place virtually in early May. Click below to download the proceedings, register for the webinar, and visit the project page to more about this publication.”
“The Right People and the Right Question: Getting Chemical Weapons Out of Syria”
In this recent video story for the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, Tom Countryman discusses his tenure as the Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation as the Department navigated concerns about Syria’s chemical weapons. He highlights key lessons learned in doing this, including the need to mind the political context one is operating in, the importance of knowing who the right people are and being able to motivate and mobilize them, appropriately identifying goals and what is needed to achieve them, and, finally, not allowing the difficulties of political relationships to overshadow common interests.
“Reducing the Problem: Eliminating Syria’s Chemical Weapons”
Andy Weber discusses elimination of the Syrian CW stockpile in this video story for the Stanley Center. He covers how he came to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs and more, saying in part “Sometimes, whether it’s Gaddafi in Libya, or Assad in Syria, it’s unsavory characters, who have these horrific weapons. And you have to work with them sometimes, and it’s hard, and it’s challenging, and you have to keep your eyes open. You need to make sure you’re not indirectly helping them in another area. But that’s where good oversight comes in, and you have to think about the objective of all these programs. The objective is to save lives, to prevent mass casualties in any country, anywhere in the world. These are global programs that improve global security.”
“Armed Conflict and Nuclear Security: Implications for Europe” Muhammed Ali Alkiş discusses the efficacy of the traditional approach to nuclear security in this recent publication for SIPRI: “The traditional approach to nuclear security is unlikely to be effective against the full spectrum of current threats, including those posed by state actors. The lessons learned from the Russian occupation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the potential radiological consequences of armed attacks against nuclear facilities and the potential increase in the number of nuclear power states in the future underscore the need for a strong international framework to address nuclear security challenges.”
“The European Union (EU) is committed to implementing the highest international standards for nuclear security and may therefore be in a position to lead efforts to address threats of armed attacks against nuclear installations. This paper provides a range of potential policy recommendations and actionable steps that the EU and its member states could take at legal, institutional and operational levels to minimize the nuclear security threats posed by armed conflict in the future. While they may appear politically challenging or even unrealistic at present, the conflict in Ukraine highlights the very real need for the types of actions recommended by this paper.”
Checkout this new report from the Harvard Belfer Center: “Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be defined as the theory and application of machines—especially computer programs—to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as image captioning and generation, speech recognition and synthesis, natural language understanding and production, tool assembly and utilization, as well as various other perception-action based engagements. AI, in its current technological state, is being applied in various industries and domains, such as online advertising, financial trading, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and robotics. The lucrative market opportunities offered by AI applications have attracted investments from tech giants like Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, as well as research universities and startups.”
“Machine Learning (ML), commonly categorized as a subfield of AI, is a field of study concerning the automatic discovery of historical patterns in data using statistical algorithms. ML’s driving principle is that historical patterns are likely to reappear in the future. The discovered historical patterns can therefore be leveraged to make accurate predictions on data that has not been seen before. Once an algorithm is trained, it can be applied to new, larger streams of data. ML is already an integral component of many deployed commercial applications, such as content generation (e.g., text, image, audio, video generation), virtual assistants, social media feed ranking, content recommendation systems, financial market prediction, and healthcare screening and diagnostic tools, as well as administrative applications. In addition, ML is foundational in various other emerging technologies, such as autonomous vehicles and next-generation cybersecurity.”
“Currently, United States policy with regards to AI often derives from interpretations of various pre-existing legislations and legal precedents. However, with the increased awareness of AI-related risks (e.g., bias, accountability, misuse, etc.), and the potential size of their impact, over the last decade, the number of proposed bills containing AI provisions significantly increased at both the state and federal levels (i.e., from two bills in 2012 to 131 in 2021), with 2% of them becoming law at the federal level and 20% of them becoming law at the state level. Similarly, policies and regulatory frameworks are being crafted to guide the development and application of AI in other continents too, with Europe and Asia leading the process. Acknowledging the potential impact of this technology on human life and societal dynamics, there is a pressing need for U.S. legislators and policymakers to remain engaged in the ethical and practical development of artificial intelligence.”
Lessons From the COVID War: An Investigative Report
The independent, nonpartisan Covid Crisis Group has spent two years investigating the causes and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Schar School of Policy and Government and Biodefense Graduate Program are proud to host two members of the group, Andrew Kilianski and Melissa Harvey, for an in-depth discussion of the group’s long-awaited report on what went wrong—and right—with America’s response to the pandemic: Lessons from the Covid War: An Investigative Report (Public Affairs, 2023).
The Covid Crisis Group is a remarkable group of 34 distinguished practitioners and scholars from a variety of backgrounds who came together determined to learn and share the most valuable lessons from the worst peacetime catastrophe of modern times. Lessons from the Covid War is plain-spoken and clear-sighted. It cuts through the jumble of information to make some sense of it all and answer: What just happened to us, and why? And crucially, how, next time, could we do better? Because there will be a next time.
Book Event: Open Source Investigations in the Age of Google
From the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “How did a journalist find out who was responsible for bombing hospitals in Syria without leaving his desk in New York? How can South Sudanese activists safely track and detail the weapons in their communities, and make sure that global audiences take notice? What are policy makers, lawyers, and intelligence agencies doing to keep up with and make use of these activities? A team of authors tackle these questions in their new book “Open Source Investigations in the Age of Google.”‘
“This new interdisciplinary book seeks to answer these questions and more, with contributions by prize-winning practitioners, experts, and rising stars from across the open source investigation community. Painting a comprehensive picture of the digital information space today, it explores the manner and methods in which current open source investigations are conducted, as well as examines the opportunities and challenges they present to salient issues to the information environment such as trust and transparency, accountability, justice, amongst others.”‘
“Please join CSIS virtually on April 24, 1-2 pm EDT for a panel discussion on open-source investigations moderated by Diane Cooke, visiting fellow with the International Security Program. The conversation will include Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists; Christiaan Triebert, journalist on the New York Times Visual Investigation Team; and Henrietta Wilson, Senior Analyst for the Strategic Concept for the Removal of Arms and Proliferation, SOAS University of London & King’s College London.”
Online Event:Civil Society at the 5th CWC Review Conference
From the CWC Coalition: “The Fifth Five-Year Review Conference (RC-5) for the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention will be held in the Hague from May 15-19, 2023.”
“At the CWC RevCon, member states and the broader chemical weapons disarmament community will gather to assess past achievements, treaty implementation and compliance, and discuss plans to strengthen the CWC in the years ahead.”
“You are invited to join a virtual discussion on the upcoming Fifth Five-Year CWC Review Conference (RC-5), major issues to be addressed, and the role of civil society and non-governmental organizations.”
“We will be joined by Elisabeth Waechter, Head of Public Affairs at the OPCW. Paul Walker, the Chair of the CWC Coalition, will moderate.”
This event will take place on April 26 at 10 am EST. Register here.
National Biodefense Science Board Public Meeting
The NBSB will meet virtually on May 4 at 2 pm EST to discuss lessons from COVID-19 and will present recommendations on several topics, including collection, analysis, and sharing of operational health data, uses of virtual healthcare during disaster response, and disaster response challenges specific to rural and underserved communities. Register here.
Virtual Workshop:Prioritizing Actions for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness
From the National Academies: “Please join us May 4 & 18, 2023 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET for a virtual symposium examining how to strengthen the evidence-based prioritization of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response capabilities.
The symposium will convene global health planning stakeholders, including those in government and academia, and across health- and non-health sectors to:
Review assessment tools and how, independently and together, they relate to national action planning.
Gain insight into how countries and organizations currently select priorities in funding for epidemic prevention, detection, and response.
Assess evidence for effective prioritization approaches to building disease surveillance and risk communication capabilities.
Identify governance structures that can support robust and reliable systems for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response investments.
Taking place May 24-26 this year in DC and virtually, this Nobel Prize Summit asks “How can we build trust in truth, facts and scientific evidence so that we can create a hopeful future for all?”
“Misinformation is eroding our trust in science and runs the risk of becoming one of the greatest threats to our society today.”
“Join us at this years’ Nobel Prize Summit which brings together laureates, leading experts and you in a conversation on how we can combat misinformation, restore trust in science and create a hopeful future.”
CSWMD 2023 Annual Symposium: WMD in the Decisive Decade
“The National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (CSWMD) invites you to join us on 14 June 2023 for the virtual Annual CSWMD Symposium, titled WMD in the Decisive Decade.”
“This year’s symposium will explore the cognitive impacts WMD has on strategic decision making and the challenges associated with operating in an environment where WMD has been employed. It will be an opportunity for the WMD community to engage with officials and thought leaders on current WMD challenges at the unclassified level, including keynote addresses by Richard Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and CWMD Policy and Rebecca Hersman, Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.”
“For more information and to register for this event click here. Please RSVP by 9 JUNE 2023.”
“We look forward to hosting you for the event. For more information about the WMD Center and reference our research, please visit our website at https://wmdcenter.ndu.edu/ and follow us on Twitter and on LinkedIn.”
Gordon Research Conference: Cross-Cutting Science Facilitating Collaboration Across the Threat-Science Research Community
“The Nonproliferation, Counterproliferation and Disarmament Science GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.”
This conference will take place July 9-14 in Ventura, CA. Learn more and register here.
Call for Applications: Early-Career Fellowship for Reducing Nuclear Weapons Risks
The Council on Strategic Risks “is announcing a continuation of its Early-Career Fellowship for Reducing Nuclear Weapons Risks. Through this six-month program, early-career professionals will work with leading experts from CSR’s team and network to develop a better understanding of practical risk reduction concepts and to generate new ideas regarding:
Nuclear strategic stability
Strengthening norms against nuclear weapons threats and use
Avoiding miscalculations and preventing accidents/incidents
Preventing and addressing nuclear proliferation
Responsibilities of nuclear weapons-capable states”
Seeking Subject Matter Expert(s) (SMEs) with Experience Educating Global Audiences on the Importance of Securing Emerging Technologies
“CRDF Global is seeking subject matter expert(s) (SMEs) to engage and educate global audiences. The expert(s) will work on deliverables relating to building a culture of security in the private sector. These deliverables will include the development of an online asynchronous course and four hybrid hackathons, which will take place at local incubator hubs in several countries.”
“The expert(s) will design and develop an asynchronous course to counter misuse and raise awareness of emerging technologies with potential weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related applications by state and non-state actors. The audience for this course will be individuals in the private sector (particularly in start-ups, innovation hubs, and incubator spaces) in various countries globally. This asynchronous course should train key stakeholders on how to develop and foster a culture of security.”
You read the Pandora Report every week and now it’s time for you to show off what you know! The first person to send the correct answer to biodefense@gmu.edu will get a shout out in the following issue (first name last initial). Our question this week is: “In 1984, what group spread Salmonella enterica at restaurants and shops in Dulles, Oregon in an attempt to influence local elections?”
Last week, our question was: “In the 2011 film Contagion, Dr. Erin Mears (played by Kate Winslet) is an officer in which CDC program?” The answer is the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
Happy end to yet another very eventful week! Today we are covering the Department of Energy’s updated assessment on the start of the pandemic, the subsequent discourse, the IC’s assessment on Havana syndrome, the newly-signed NSM 19, and Iran’s investigation into alleged poisonings of schoolgirls.
Spy Agencies Gone Wild RE: COVID-19 Origins? Not Quite…
This week, the Department of Energy (DOE) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provided assessments and statements indicating that they believe the initial spread of SARS-CoV-2 was the result of a lab leak in Wuhan. The initial firestorm was kicked off by a Wall Street Journalarticle with a less-than-helpful headline regarding DOE’s delivery of an assessment to the White House. In the following days, the FBI director provided statements indicating his agencies reached the same conclusion. Subsequent discussion has been rife with poor understandings of the Intelligence Community (IC) and intelligence itself, in addition to flawed claims about what these assessments actually mean. This section aims to break down what all has happened in this area this week and highlight the intrinsically interdisciplinary nature of intelligence and national security more broadly.
What Actually HappenedThis Week
As previously mentioned, the Wall Street Journal published an article on Sunday entitled “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of COVID-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says” to much uproar from all matter of folks. The assessment referenced by the article stemmed from analysis conducted by Z-Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which led DOE to conclude “as part of a new government-wide intelligence assessment that a lab accident was most likely the triggering event for the world’s worst pandemic in a century.”
As the Washington Post explains, “…other intelligence agencies involved in the classified update — completed in the past few weeks and kept under wraps — were divided on the question of covid-19’s origins, with most still maintaining that a natural, evolutionary “spillover” from animals was the most likely explanation. Even the Energy Department’s analysis was carefully hedged, as the officials expressed only “low confidence” in their conclusion, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a classified report.”
“U.S. officials confirmed that an updated assessment of covid-19’s origins was completed this year, and said the document was based on fresh data as well as new analysis by experts from eight intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council.” Furthermore, the IC remains firm in its view that SARS-CoV-2 was absolutely not developed as a biological weapon.
Of course, this news sparked a lot of conversation from lab leak and natural origin proponents alike. As NPR notes:
…at the end of the day, the origin of the pandemic is also a scientific question. Virologists who study pandemic origins are much less divided than the U.S. intelligence community. They say there is “very convincing” data and “overwhelming evidence” pointing to an animal origin.
In particular, scientists published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science in July 2022, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.
Virologist Angela Rasmussen, who contributed to one of the Science papers, says the DOE’s “low confident” conclusion doesn’t “negate the affirmative evidence for zoonotic [or animal] origin nor do they add any new information in support of lab origin.”
“Many other [news] outlets are presenting this as new conclusive proof that the lab origin hypothesis is equally as plausible as the zoonotic origin hypothesis,” Rasmussen wrote in an email to NPR, “and that is a misrepresentation of the evidence for either.”
The FBI also re-iterated its moderate confidence assessment that the virus originated in a lab, with FBI Director Christopher Wray highlighting this in an interview with Fox News. To summarize, the FBI maintained its moderate confidence assessment that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a lab accident, DOE changed its view to that above, and the CIA and another agency remain undecided as they did in the 2021 unclassified assessment. The others continue to favor a natural origin. So where does that leave us?
#FBI Director Wray confirmed that the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China. pic.twitter.com/LcBVNU7vmO
As this discussion has been fraught with confusion about the IC, we will cover some brief basics about the IC’s structure and work. First, the IC is broad and diverse. It is composed of 18 organizations, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the 17 constituent organizations that report to ODNI. ODNI and the Central Intelligence Agency are independent organizations. Nine others are Department of Defense elements (including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the DoD service intelligence elements). Seven other organizations are elements of other departments and agencies. These include the “Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and US Coast Guard Intelligence; the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Office of National Security Intelligence; the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.”
Naturally, each of these agencies has its strong suits and purposes, though there is intentional overlap. The intelligence failures in the lead up to the events of September 11, 2001, significantly changed the IC, bringing the abolition of the Director of Central Intelligence, the establishment of ODNI and the Director of National Intelligence position, creation of new agencies and restructurings of existing ones, and an overall effort to improve coordination, collaboration, and communication in the community. The main failure in the case of 9/11 was in not “connecting the dots”, so there have been strong efforts to make agencies share information in a timely, useful manner. Of course, this has not made the IC immune to failures, but it has been a positive step in improving coordination and creating appropriate overlap that can help provide more comprehensive intelligence to decision makers.
Furthermore, far from simply being “spy stuff”, intelligence draws on broad expertise and knowledge sources in a cycle of evaluation and feedback. In fact, it is estimated that about 80% of intelligence relies on open information, including news and academic sources. Information gaps and limitations may require further collection, but the bulk of information is often times openly available. Furthermore, the community is simply not full of a bunch of spies. For example, in 2003, it was estimated that just 10% of the CIA’s workforce were clandestine officers-the ones that recruit sources and go on covert missions like you might see in the movies. The rest are all kinds of analysts, mission management and admin folks, and even all kinds of scientists, physicians, public health experts, and so on. Agencies oftentimes have entire directorates dedicated to S&T work, and there are entire sub-organizations dedicated to specific S&T-related topics, including the National Center for Medical Intelligence.
There is also confusion about how analysts conduct their work. The 2011 IC Consumers Guide referenced by many news outlets and scholars discussing these assessments and their confidence levels explains how analysts conduct their work. It reads in part “Intelligence analysts are generally assigned to a particular geographic or functional specialty area. Analysts obtain information from all sources pertinent to their area of responsibility through information collection, processing, and forwarding systems. Analysts may tap into these systems to obtain answers to specific questions or to generate information they may need.”
“Analysts receive incoming information, evaluate it, test it against other information and against their personal knowledge and expertise, produce an assessment of the current status of a particular area under analysis, and then forecast future trends or outcomes. The analyst also develops requirements for the collection of new information…Analysts rarely work alone; they operate within a system that includes peer review and oversight by more senior analysts.“
With this information in mind, it is clear that statements that paint the IC as a hive mind that produces assessments on political whims without oversight, methodologies, or internal review processes are unhelpful and untrue. Though it is not publicly known who specifically wrote these assessments, it is reasonable to believe they were made in good faith and in accordance with the above information. In addition to personal knowledge and expertise, importantly, IC analysts do have access to classified information-a fact seemingly overlooked by many in the last week.
One of the main points of confusion in public discussion of this has centered on why the Department of Energy is making an assessment on the origins of a virus. It is true that the Department of Energy, as the name implies, oversees national energy policy and manages nuclear power and weapons, but that is not its only tasking. In fact, the idea that eventually led to the Human Genome Project was conceived in the Department’s Office of Science. DOE has an intelligence element (as referenced above) and also oversees the National Laboratories, a broad system that aims to address critical scientific challenges “from combating climate change to discovering the origins of our universe”. Three of these laboratories (Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia) are National Nuclear Security Administration labs, meaning they do work related to nuclear weapons in addition to other kinds of research-including global security research. The labs do work in conjunction with other organizations and, in some cases, support the IC. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for example, has its Laboratory Intelligence Program, which has been at the heart of this frenzy and provides “critical science and technology support to the intelligence community’s foundational intelligence missions in strategic intelligence and anticipatory intelligence, as well as mission objectives in counterproliferation, cyber intelligence and counterterrorism.” The point is-DOE is not just a bunch of physicists working on the nuclear weapons stockpile. The Department is as large and diverse as its taskings, including those requiring expertise in the life and social sciences.
Much attention has also been paid to the confidence levels of the assessments. WSJ noted later in its piece that the assessment was made with low confidence, a term used by analysts when “…information used in the analysis is scant, questionable, fragmented, or that solid analytical conclusions cannot be inferred from the information, or that the IC has significant concerns or problems with the information sources.” Unfortunately, this information is not particularly helpful for the general public as the assessment itself is classified, so it is not known what information led to the assessment and why specifically it was rated low confidence. Analytical confidence can be influenced by several factors, including analyst expertise (which is likely limited given the nature of this specific assessment), time constraints, source reliability and corroboration, and more.
As ODNI identified in its unclassified October 2021 Intelligence Community Assessment on COVID-19 Origins, at the time, four elements and the National Intelligence Council also assessed with low confidence that initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was likely caused by natural exposure to an infected animal. One agency (the FBI) was noted to assess that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident. This assessment was made with moderate confidence, which “…generally indicates that the information being used in the analysis may be interpreted in various ways, or that the IC has alternative viewpoints on the significance or meaning of the information, or that the information is credible and plausible but it is not sufficiently corroborated to warrant a higher level of confidence.” At that time, three other IC elements remained unable to coalesce around either explanation. Again, however, these assessments are classified, so there is no way of knowing why they were judged this way in the open source.
Others have taken aim at a low confidence assessment finding a lab origin “very likely”, arguing that these terms are mutually exclusive. Analytic confidence is separate from the estimative language employed by the IC. Estimative language (“very likely”, “almost certainly”, “unlikely”, etc.) expresses an assessment or judgement. Assessments are oftentimes based on incomplete information, which is why analysts use estimative language to express the likelihood or probability of something given what information is available. Because information gaps are inherent to this work, these products include declarations of underlying assumptions and judgements analysts made in their processes. Confidence levels “reflect the scope and quality of the information supporting its judgements.” In fact, to avoid confusion, the ODNI indicates that a confidence level and degree of likelihood should not be included in the same sentence. Again, as these assessments are classified, we do not know what assumptions were made nor what sources were used. However, it is possible and okay to judge that something is very likely with low confidence, particularly when dealing with something as complex as the origin of this virus.
The Bottom Line
Flashy news headlines aside, what have we really learned from these reports? Well…not much. It was well-established in late 2021 that the IC is unclear on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and the events of this week have not settled that debate. As the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, told the press this week, “There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how covid started…That work is still ongoing, but the president believes it’s really important that we continue that work and that we find out as best we can how it started so that we can better prevent a future pandemic.”
Furthermore, it is important to address the question of to what extent we can know this and what it would change at this point. China is clearly not going to cooperate on any kind of investigation into COVID-19’s origin. That has been clear since the early days of the pandemic and is part of a pattern of behavior on the part of the CCP. Irrespective of where this virus actually came from, it is clear that China did cover up its initial spread in the population, censoring netizens and healthcare professionals until it was impossible to conceal further. While an in-depth investigation into the start of this pandemic has always been needed, hyper focusing on this runs the risk of diverting attention from other critical issues we have much more information readily available on. China did cover up the initial spread of this virus and has been disingenuous in its reporting and handling of it ever since. The United States failed to adequately respond to this pandemic for a variety of reasons, a fact that does not depend on how the virus initially spread. It is vital to balance desires to find the truth of COVID-19’s origins, something that is indisputably important, with using the information that is available and can reasonably be acquired to address these problems before the next pandemic. This information could inform debates on laboratory safety and oversight, though, as Biodefense Graduate Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz demonstrated in his interview with the New York Times this week, there is a wealth of information available already driving these discussions.
Finally, this all demonstrates the intrinsically inter/multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral nature of these problems. False dichotomies pitting national defense against public health, particularly in terms of funding, are not helpful, particularly as it is increasingly clear that public health threats are critical national security threats. As the IC learned in the early years of this century, siloing information is incredibly dangerous-a lesson we cannot afford to have to re-learn at the intersection of public health and national security. While respect for expertise and experience is an absolute necessity, understanding the need to collaborate, work across lanes, and recognize what unique capabilities others can offer is equally vital. These threats are not going anywhere, so learning to understand how different disciplines approach these problems and how best to work together is of the utmost importance.
New ICA-Havana Syndrome Very Likely Not Caused by Foreign Adversary
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines released a statement this week regarding the Intelligence Community’s assessment of the mysterious “Havana syndrome”, indicating the IC finds it very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for the phenomenon. The Washington Post writes “The new intelligence assessment caps a years-long effort by the CIA and several other U.S. intelligence agencies to explain why career diplomats, intelligence officers and others serving in U.S. missions around the world experienced what they described as strange and painful acoustic sensations. The effects of this mysterious trauma shortened careers, racked up large medical bills and in some cases caused severe physical and emotional suffering.”
The DNI Statement reads in part “Today we are sharing key judgments and investigative efforts from our Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs). This assessment builds on the Intelligence Community’s (IC) interim findings released last year, which described the IC’s judgment that U.S. adversaries, including Russia, were not engaged in a global campaign resulting in AHIs, but indicated that we continued to investigate whether a foreign actor was involved in a subset of cases. Since then, we continue to surge resources and expertise across the government to explore all possible explanations.”
“Based on the latest IC-wide effort, which has resulted in an ICA that will be issued today, I can share with you that most IC agencies have now concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels because we still have gaps given the challenges collecting on foreign adversaries — as we do on many issues involving them.”
President Biden Signs National Security Memorandum to Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Advance Nuclear and Radioactive Material Security
This week, President Biden signed National Security Memorandum (NSM) 19 to Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Terrorism and Advance Nuclear and Radioactive Material Security. According to the White House, “This comprehensive new strategy advances several of President Biden’s most enduring national security priorities: protecting our nation and the international community from the existential threats posed by WMD terrorism and preventing non-state actors from using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.”
Among its central aims is that of keeping radioactive materials used in industry out of terrorists’ hands, notesthe New York Times. The same article explains that “Details of the new memorandum are classified. Previous versions of the policy focused on securing fissile material commonly used in nuclear weapons such as the ones the United States used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The effort focuses on specific radioisotopes that terrorists could potentially use in so-called dirty bombs — improvised weapons that use explosives to blast radiological materials into the surrounding area, potentially sickening or killing people and causing environmental harm.”
President Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, explained the impact of NSM 19 on the medical field at an event at the Nuclear Threat Initiative: “In her remarks, the homeland security adviser said that medical devices for treating blood with X-rays — a process that makes transfusions safer — have traditionally used cesium-137 as the radioactive source to produce those rays, but that alternatives that use less dangerous materials now exist…The Department of Veterans Affairs, which manages the largest public health care network in the country, recently removed all cesium-based blood irradiators from its hospitals, she said, and transitioned in October to machines that produce X-rays though different processes.”
This comes just over a month after a small quantity of cesium-137 went missing in Western Australia, prompting a large search for the tiny cylinder that lasted six days.
Iran Investigating Reports of Schoolgirl Poisonings
Iran announced this week it is investigating reports that several schoolgirls were poisoned as revenge for the role of young women in recent protests in the country. The Guardianexplains “Iran’s deputy education minister, Younes Panahi, told reporters yesterday: “After the poisoning of several students in [the city of] Qom … it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed.” He added: “It has been revealed that the chemical compounds used to poison students are not war chemicals … the poisoned students do not need aggressive treatment and a large percentage of the chemical agents used are treatable.”
OK. As promised, a thread about allegations of poisoning incidents in Iran. (Long thread.) Hold all questions until the end. (1 of xxx) #IranianSchoolgirls
— Dan Kaszeta, FRHistS, Legal Juggernaut 🇱🇹 🇺🇦 (@DanKaszeta) March 2, 2023
Dan Kaszeta, author of multiple well-known works on chemical weapons, discussing Iran’s investigation
“Report: A Summary on Ending Biological Threats-Event Summary”
From the Council on Strategic Risks: “This report summarizes discussions held during a workshop hosted by the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) on September 26, 2022, focused on ending extreme risks from biological threats. For several years, CSR has convened diverse experts who agree that it is more feasible than ever to halt the spread of infectious disease threats from all sources before they cause significant damage. After several years of virtual discussions during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic, this in-person, invitation-only event brought together experts from government, academia, industry, and non-profit organizations to discuss how to use technological advances, policy, and other tools to gauge progress, identify open questions and ongoing challenges, and think strategically about what steps must be done next.”
“Conversations and panels held during “The Summit on Ending Biological Threats” were held under the Chatham House Rule. This report does not represent consensus among participants, nor does it assign specific perspectives to any individual participant. Though many topics were covered throughout the Summit, conversation centered around a few core subject areas: pathogen early warning, public-private collaboration, interagency efforts and collaboration, and strategic communications. This summary report will discuss these central topics and provide a general overview of discussions.”
“A Bipartisan Approach to Pandemic Security? It’s Within Reach”
Beth Cameron, Gary Edson, and J. Stephen Morrison recently published this opinion piece with STAT News in which they discuss the findings of the “Democracy and Pandemic Security” roundtable convened by their respective organizations. They write in part “Covid-19 laid bare persistent inequities across America. Polarization, a comorbidity that made the pandemic worse, continues to impede a unified and effective response to public health threats, and not just those caused by viruses. When the next threat emerges — and it will — it is uncertain if most Americans will adhere to public health measures.”
“That is why our organizations — the Brown University School of Public Health Pandemic Center, the Covid Collaborative, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies Global Health Policy Center — recently convened a diverse group of leaders to discuss how to better protect Americans from pandemic threats while at the same time reinforcing American values of freedom and democracy. The group included former governors and mayors; officials from red, blue, and purple states and from the Biden, Trump, Obama, and Bush administrations; as well as experts in incident management and pandemic inequity.”
“Prevention of Zoonotic Spillover”
From the WHO: “The devastating impact of COVID-19 on human health globally has prompted extensive discussions on how to better prepare for and safeguard against the next pandemic. Zoonotic spillover of pathogens from animals to humans is recognized as the predominant cause of emerging infectious diseases and as the primary cause of recent pandemics.”
“This spillover risk is increased by a range of factors (called drivers) that impact the nature, frequency and intensity of contact between humans and wild animals. Many of these drivers are related to human impact, for instance, deforestation and changes in land use and agricultural practices. While it is clear that the triad of prevention-preparedness-response (P-P-R) is highly relevant, there is much discussion on which of these three strategic activities in the field of emerging infectious disease should be prioritized and how to optimally target resources. For this, it is important to understand the scope of the respective activity and the consequences of prioritization. “
“WHO Warns of Worsening Health Situation in Ukraine”
This Devex Inside Development piece discusses the WHO’s data on health care in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country last year. It reads in part “About 44% of people in liberated areas are seeking health care for chronic conditions, such as kidney and heart disease. One in 3 people can no longer afford to buy medicines. An estimated 10 million people may have a mental health condition. All this is happening against a backdrop of continued attacks on health care in the country. Since the war started, WHO has recorded more than 800 attacks on health care, a huge majority of which damaged or destroyed facilities, including hospitals and pharmacies.”
Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing
The Royal Society will host this hybrid summit March 6-8, 8:30- 6 pm GMT. “Building on previous events held in Washington, DC (2015) and Hong Kong (2018), the London meeting will continue the global dialogue on somatic and germline human genome editing. Major themes for discussion include developments in clinical trials and genome editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, as well as social, ethical and accessibility considerations these scientific developments entail.”
“The three-day Summit is being organised by the Royal Society, the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, the US National Academies of Sciences and Medicine and The World Academy of Sciences. Find out more about the Summit’s Organising Committee, chaired by Professor Robin Lovell-Badge FMedSci FRS.”
Report Launch– Preparing for Success at the Fifth Review Conference of the CWC: A Guide to the Issues
“The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) is pleased to invite you to the in-person launch of a new report on Preparing for Success at the Fifth Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention: A Guide to the Issues. This is the first in a series of events the Institute is hosting in preparation for the Fifth CWC Review Conference, which is scheduled to take place from 15 to 19 May 2023.” One version will be hosted in The Hague on Monday, March 6 from 12:30-14:30 CET and another in Brussels on Tuesday, March 7 from 12:30-14:30 CET. Both will also be broadcast via Zoom.
Penetrate, Exploit, Disrupt, Destroy – with Dr. Craig J. Wiener
From the Alperovitch Institute: “Join us on Wednesday, March 15th at 5pm at the SAIS Hopkins Kenney Auditorium. Dr. Craig J. Wiener is recognized as an expert in major foreign adversary espionage, sabotage and strategic capabilities that pose threats to the U.S. Government (USG) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Dr. Wiener’s previous position was as the Senior Technical Analyst for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence where he fulfilled a role as DOE’s lead all source cyber threat analyst, the Department’s representative to the National Security Council for Cyber Operations, a key member of National Intelligence Council Special Analytic Groups, and a government briefer and/or advisor for Defense Science Board studies on Cyber as a Strategic Capability, Homeland Defense, Strategic Surprise and the future of US Military Superiority among other topics. Additionally, Dr. Wiener initiated and led studies for special nuclear weapons related threat and vulnerability analyses and advanced technical security threats to USG equities by foreign adversaries and engaged in the development, planning and operationalization of counter-adversary strategies across multiple domains of operations. Dr. Wiener joined the MITRE Corporation as a Technical Fellow in early-2020, where he supports key U.S. Government (USG) national security initiatives. He was recently appointed by the Secretary of Energy to the Electricity Advisory Committee to advise DOE on current and future electric grid reliability, resilience, security, sector interdependence, and policy issues.”
Dr. Wiener is an alumnus of the Biodefense PhD Program! Learn more and register for this event here.
Intelligence Studies Consortium
“On March 24, 2023, the Intelligence Studies Consortium is convening its third symposium, entitled New Perspectives in Intelligence Studies. This year, George Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government is hosting. The symposium will be from 8 AM to 4 PM in Rooms 125-126 Van Metre Hall, 3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA. The closest Metro is Virginia Square/GMU on the Orange and Silver lines.
The symposium will feature student presentations in four panels:
Russia and China
Violent Non-State Actors
Emerging Technologies
Transnational Challenges
There will be an 8:30 AM keynote address from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Shannon Corless, and a lunchtime conversation with General Michael V. Hayden.
We encourage students to attend in person. We have also provided a livestream option for those not in the Washington DC area.”
Charity Entrepreneurship currently has a call open to support the launch of a nonprofit in Biosecurity and Large-Scale Global Health. Possible organizations includes: “An organization that addresses antimicrobial resistance by advocating for better (pull) funding mechanisms to drive the development and responsible use of new antimicrobials,” and “An advocacy organization that promotes academic guidelines torestrict potentially harmful “dual-use” research.” Learn more and apply for these grants here.
Sustainable Diagnostic Containment Laboratories – Request for Expressions of Interest
“This Expression of Interest (RFEI) is seeking bold ideas that will reinvent the diagnostic laboratory, making it fit-for-purpose in resource-limited contexts globally. These innovative solutions are expected to reimagine the physical laboratory in order to reduce ongoing operational and maintenance costs and allow sustainable presence of safe and secure handling of high-consequence pathogenic materials, whilst maintaining and/or optimizing core functions of a diagnostic laboratory in low- and middle- income countries.”
“This RFEI represents Phase I of a dual-phase approach to development of a Grand Challenge for Sustainable Diagnostic Laboratories. The pool of Expressions of Interest received will be used to inform the scope of a full Grand Challenge program in Phase II, under which Grand Challenges Canada will award funding. Submission of an Expression of Interest does not constitute an application for funding; however, Expressions of Interest will receive feedback from an external review process designed to improve the quality of full proposals submitted for an open call for funding applications in Phase II. Most promising Expressions of Interest may also be shortlisted for direct invitations to submit full proposals for funding in Phase II.”
You read the Pandora Report every week and now it’s time for you to show off what you know! The first person to send the correct answer to biodefense@gmu.edu will get a shout out in the following issue (first name last initial). This week, we are throwing it back to middle school English class: This chemical agent features in Roald Dahl’s famous short story, The Landlady, in which the main character is given a tea that tastes of bitter almonds. What is the name of this agent?
The correct answer to last week’s question, “What is the first multilateral disarmament treaty that banned an entire category of WMD?” is the Biological Weapons Convention.
Happy Friday! This week we are tackling reporting on the WHO’s investigation into COVID-19’s origin, estimates that counter China’s official COVID-19 death count, new insight into the death of Pablo Neruda, and more. New publications listed in this issue include Rolf Ekéus’ book discussing his time leading UNSCOM and a recent CBWNet working paper authored by Ralf Trapp.New professional opportunities are also included in this week’s announcement section alongside our weekly trivia question.
Biodefense Alumnus Named 2023 Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow
Matthew Ferreira (Biodefense MS ’22) was recently selected as a 2023 Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) fellow by the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University. Ferreira joins a class of 31 fellows selected from a pool of more than 227 applicants. He told the Schar School, “I am so excited to be accepted into the ELBI Fellowship program…I am looking forward to meeting and connecting with the others in the Fellowship class as well as alumni of the program. Many of the professionals and scholars that I have had the pleasure to work with have participated in ELBI, so I’m honored to have the chance to meet and learn from this cohort of diverse and talented people in the coming year.”
Read more about Ferreira and his time in the Biodefense Graduate Program here.
Confusion Over Nature WHO COVID-19 Investigation Reporting
This week, Nature published a news article indicating the WHO had abandoned the planned second phase of its investigation into the origin of COVID-19. In it, Smriti Mallapaty began by writing “The World Health Organization (WHO) has quietly shelved the second phase of its much-anticipated scientific investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China, Nature has learned. Researchers say they are disappointed that the investigation isn’t going ahead, because understanding how the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 first infected people is important for preventing future outbreaks. But without access to China, there is little that the WHO can do to advance the studies, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. “Their hands are really tied.”
Naturally, this caused quite the ruckus. However, the WHO was quick to pushback and clarify that it has no plans to abandon this investigation. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove released a statement denying the claims. In Nature‘s reporting, Van Kerkhove is quoted saying “There is no phase two,” to the investigation and that “the plan has changed,” as “The politics across the world of this really hampered progress on understanding the origins.” However, on Wednesday, she clarified-“I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of Covid 19. We have not, and we will not.” As Health Policy Watch explains, she elaborated with “In a sense, phase two became the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of novel pathogens (SAGO),” she clarified. SAGO held its first meeting in November 2021 and was established as a permanent advisory group to work on drawing up a framework to understand the origins of not just COVID-19 but any future outbreaks. “So the creation of SAGO was in effect, our best effort to move this work forward.”
On issues with the PRC’s cooperation (or lack thereof), she added “Studies that were recommended from the March 2021-WHO report, from the June 2022-SAGO report and studies that we’ve been recommending at the animal human interface and markets, on farms need to be conducted in China. We need cooperation from our colleagues there to advance our understanding…”
As said earlier, @WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of #COVID19. We have not, we will not.
We owe it to the people who died, families who have suffered, for all of us so that we are better prepared the next time.
The WHO is not the only one investigating COVID-19’s origin either, with House Republicans launching their investigation into whether the pandemic began with an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. AP reports “The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic are seeking information, including from Dr. Anthony Fauci, concerning the idea that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab.”
China-From CRISPR to COVID
China’s Post-Zero-COVID Wave
As China rolled back its Zero-COVID policies in early December, estimates and concerns about the deadly wave of infections the country faced abounded. This was particularly true as the new year travel season approached, as millions were set to travel from urban centers to their hometowns in rural areas across the country. Soon, reports of overflowing crematoriums and funeral parlors, sold out coffin makers, and sweeping infections coincided with continuously relaxing COVID-19 control policies. However, as of February 9, China has reported just 83,150 COVID-19 deaths, and leaders just declared a “decisive victory” against the virus. Of course, this is a number particularly difficult to believe in a country that has struggled so much with acquiring and delivering effective vaccines, relying instead on harsh lockdown and testing requirements.
As the New York Times explains, “The question of how many people died has enormous political relevance for the ruling Communist Party. Early in the pandemic, China’s harsh lockdowns largely kept the coronavirus at bay. Xi Jinping, the top leader, has portrayed that earlier success as evidence of China’s superiority over the West, a claim that would be hard to maintain with a high death toll.”
“The differences between China’s figures and researchers’ estimates are dramatic. The official numbers would give China the lowest death rate per capita of any major country over the entirety of the pandemic. But at the estimated levels of mortality, China would already have surpassed official rates of death in many Asian countries that never clamped down as long or as aggressively.”
So what gives? As we have discussed in the posts linked above, China is using much more narrow definitions of COVID-19 deaths, counting only those who died from respiratory failure and excluding those who died of liver, kidney, and even cardiac failure. Worse, the government quit counting COVID-19 deaths that occurred outside of hospitals which, coupled with the sudden absence of required testing and reporting, certainly had a major contribution to these suspicious numbers.
This piece from the New York Times discusses the numbers below and how experts at different institutions calculated them, including factors like China’s less effective vaccines, elderly populations, and more.
Biodefense Graduate Program Associate Professor Dr. Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley recently hosted an event along with her colleagues, titled “Looking Back into the Future: CRISPR and Social Values-BioGovernance Common’s Open Discussion with Chinese Academics.” Among other things, they highlight in their event summary that “We’ve exposed that there is little substance behind the ambitious Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene therapy that Dr. Jiankui He, the scientist behind the illegal heritable human genome editing, has been boasting about to global patients. We were concerned that he might endanger another vulnerable population if his new venture remains unchecked,” and “Our event nudged Chinese media to publicly challenge Dr. He for the first time on his DMD research. As a result Dr. He has announced that he will prioritise research rather than social media promotion.”
Nature also covered the event, highlighting He’s refusal to discuss his past work and potential challenges this will create in understanding other important ethical issues. The article explains “On Saturday, He spoke at a virtual and in-person bioethics event that was promoted as “the first time that Dr. He has agreed to interact with Chinese bioethicists and other CRISPR scientists in a public event”. But during the talk, He did not discuss his past work and refused to answer questions from the audience, responding instead that questions should be sent to him by email.”
It continues later with “Some researchers worry that interest in He Jiankui is diverting attention away from more important ethical issues around heritable genome editing. “This event puts the spotlight on He Jiankui — Will he apologize? Is he displaying remorse?,” says Marcy Darnovsky, a public interest advocate on the social implications of human biotechnology at the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, California. Instead, she thinks researchers should focus on discussing whether there is a medical justification for heritable genome editing.”
He, who was recently released from prison and is now working in Beijing, garnered sharp criticism in 2018 when he announced that a woman had given birth after He implanted into her uterus two embryos he had used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the CCR5 gene to make them resistant to HIV infection. It was later revealed that a second woman carried a third child whose genome He edited.
Was Pablo Neruda Murdered by a Physician Acting on Behalf of General Pinochet?
In late September 1973, the famed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died in a clinic in Santiago, having checked out of a hospital earlier that day. The Nobel laureate was hospitalized with prostate cancer earlier that month, just as the coup d’état led by US-backed Augusto Pinochet ousted Chile’s socialist president, Salvador Allende. Neruda, a member of Chile’s Communist Party and close advisor to President Allende, checked out of the hospital after he claimed a physician injected him with an unknown substance. He reportedly died that evening of heart failure. In the decades since, his family and many members of the public have insisted he was murdered on the orders of Pinochet. This was spurred by reports from Manuel Araya, Neruda’s driver, that he witnessed Neruda tell his wife he believed the physician was ordered by Pinochet to kill him and the belief that Neruda was flying to Mexico to counter Pinochet in exile.
In 2013, a Chilean court ordered the launch of an investigation into Neruda’s death in light of these allegations and concerns. Neruda’s body was exhumed that same year, allowing scientists to test samples to better understand the poet’s death. This Wednesday, following a ten-year investigation by scientists in Chile, Canada, and Denmark, Chilean Judge Paola Plaza received the findings of an international report on the matter. The report indicates Pablo Neruda may have been killed by botulinum toxin-producing bacteria. The New York Timesreports “The scientists found in Mr. Neruda’s body a potentially toxic type of bacteria that would not naturally occur there, and confirmed that it was in his system when he died, according to a two-page summary of the report shared with The New York Times. But they could not distinguish whether it was a toxic strain, and they could not conclude whether he was injected with the bacteria or if, instead, it came from contaminated food.”
The same article continues, “Yet the scientists conceded that other circumstantial evidence supported the theory of murder, including that in 1981, the military dictatorship poisoned political prisoners with bacteria possibly similar to the strain found in Mr. Neruda. (However, that method of poisoning stemmed from a chemical-weapons program the dictatorship began in 1976, three years after Mr. Neruda’s death.)”
While definitive answers remain out of reach in this case, Neruda’s is not the only contested death from this period. As the same article also explains “Yet Wednesday’s report and Ms. Plaza’s eventual conclusion may never sway some of the Chilean public. Karen Donoso, a Chilean historian, compared the uncertainty over Mr. Neruda’s death to some people’s lasting questions over the death of the leftist President Salvador Allende, who shot himself rather than fall into the hands of the military as it overthrew his government.”
“World’s Largest Collection of Viruses: Inside the Massive Biodefense Lab in Houston Area”
Houston’s ABC13 recently got an insider’s look at Galveston National Laboratory, located at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Their reporting offers an overview of the work that goes on at the facility, including in the BSL-4 area. As the station explains, “The Galveston National Laboratory is one of 14 U.S. facilities with BSL4 labs built by the National Institutes of Health in the years following the 2001 Anthrax attacks as a network of biodefense laboratories to “study viruses of pandemic potential and to develop medical countermeasures…The team is proud that in its 15 years, there has never been a “major laboratory incident resulting in the transmission of a disease” at the facility. This may be why most of us know little to nothing about their work.”
You can learn about the other 13 BSL-4 labs in the US and more around the world at globalbiolabs.org.
“Chemical and Microbiological Forensics in Investigations of Alleged Uses of Chemical and Biological Weapons – A Preliminary Analysis”
New from CBWNet: “In the latest CBWNet working paper, Ralf Trapp discusses the mechanisms for investigating the use of chemical and biological weapons and the development of scientific capacity for such investigations. The author highlights the importance of investigations in determining if a chemical or biological weapon was used, the type of agent used, and the origin of the weapon. The OPCW and the UN Secretary General’s Mechanism have set up systems with designated laboratories to investigate such allegations. However, there are still significant scientific challenges to be addressed, including validation of methods, agreed acceptance criteria, and distinguishing between natural and deliberate events. The paper emphasizes the need for continued investment and attention from governments to make progress in this field.”
“A Notorious Syria Conspiracy Theory is Definitively Debunked”
Brian Whitaker tackles the OPCW IIT’s newest report on the Assad regime’s use of CW in Douma and its debunking of disinformation surrounding the attack in this piece for New Lines Magazine. He writes in part, “The essence of the disinformation campaign was a refusal by its purveyors to accept that the Bashar al-Assad regime was conducting chemical warfare in Syria. Instead, they claimed all such attacks were “staged” by rebels to frame the regime and trigger a Western intervention. There was never any evidence for this, but it became the deniers’ standard response to reports of chemical attacks. The main reason the Douma attack in particular became a cause celebre for the deniers is it was one of only two chemical attacks (out of a total of over 300) that did in fact result in punitive airstrikes by Western powers. In addition, for the deniers, the emergence of two dissenters from within the OPCW and a series of leaked documents kept the issue alive longer than might otherwise have been expected. Meanwhile, Russia’s attempts to shield its Syrian ally led to political divisions in the OPCW, which threatened to undermine the global prohibition against chemical weapons.”
Iraq Disarmed: The Story Behind the Story of the Fall of Saddam
Rolf Ekéus, Chair of the UN Special Commission on Iraq from 1991-97, recently published his book covering his tenure and the organization’s struggles in disarming Iraq of its WMDs-Iraq Disarmed:
“The quest to disarm Iraq took place between two wars—one justified and right, the other a dreadful mistake, a violation of international law that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.” With these unvarnished words, Rolf Ekéus begins his political-thrilleresque story of the disarmament of Iraq—and the machinations that ultimately led to the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of ISIS.”
“After Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the war that followed, the UN Security Council ruled that Iraq must rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction. The difficult, politically sensitive, and dangerous task of accomplishing this rested with the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), led by Ekéus, one of Sweden’s most seasoned diplomats. This was a radical experiment in UN governance—essentially conveying to one individual the power to conduct a disarmament program, with oversight only by the Security Council.”
“What followed were a succession of tense conversations with the Iraqi leadership, often-dangerous inspections, complex destruction processes, negotiations with Security Council representatives, and diplomatic maneuvering by world leaders. The recounting of these events lies at the heart of Ekéus’s personal narrative of disarmament history in the making, a narrative that adds substantially to the evidence that UNSCOM’s mission was successful and the 2003 war clearly illegal.”
“Crafted not in the interests of a political agenda, but rather for the sake of historical accuracy, Iraq Disarmed serves today as a sobering cautionary tale.”
“Private-Sector Research Could Pose a Pandemic Risk. Here’s What To Do About It”
Dr. Gerald Epstein, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University, recently published this piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In it he discusses biosecurity issues in the private sector, using the 2018 synthesis of horsepox in a Canadian academic lab and Larry Wayne Harris’ attempt to order freeze-dried Y. pestis as touch points. He writes in his conclusion, “With the growth of the bioeconomy and increasing amounts of privately funded life sciences research, restricting biosecurity policy only to government-funded institutions creates an ever-growing gap. Even though research with enhanced potential pandemic pathogens constitutes an extremely small fraction of the overall life science and biotechnology enterprise—and the fraction of that work done with private funding even smaller—the potential global consequences of such work make it increasingly important to develop governance approaches that go beyond attaching strings to US government dollars. Closing this gap within the United States is not sufficient, given the global extent of the life science enterprise and the global consequences of any lab-caused pandemic—but it is a necessary start.”
Strategic Trade Review, Winter/Spring 2023
The 10th issue of the Strategic Trade Review covers a number of timely topics. Dr. Andrea Viski, Schar School Adjunct Professor and editor for the Review, writes in here introduction “The role of the Strategic Trade Review is to empower readers from all stakeholder communities with the powerful tool of rigorous and consummate scholarship from some of the top experts in the world on this and other questions. From discovering the ways that North Korean nuclear researchers acquire sensitive technology through international collaborations to how companies implement R&D compliance, this 10th issue of STR holds a mirror to today’s most important trade and security concerns.”
“MCMi Program Update”
“This newly released annual report provides an update on the US Food and Drug Administration’s work to support medical countermeasure-related public health preparedness and response efforts:
FDA plays a critical role in protecting the United States from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and emerging infectious disease threats. FDA ensures that medical countermeasures (MCMs)—including drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests—to counter these threats are safe, effective, and secure. FDA works closely with interagency partners through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE, or Enterprise) to build and sustain the MCM programs necessary to effectively respond to public health emergencies. FDA also works closely with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to facilitate the development and availability of MCMs to support the unique needs of American military personnel. The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013 (PAHPRA), requires FDA to issue an annual report detailing its medical countermeasure activities. This report responds to that requirement for the latest fiscal year available.”
Personal Protective Equipment and Personal Protective Technology Product Standardization for a Resilient Public Health Supply Chain
“The National Academies will convene a public workshop, March 1-2, to examine standards gaps related to personal protective equipment (PPE) and personal protective technology (PPT). The event will explore innovative approaches and technologies needed to update and streamline the U.S. standardization system for PPE and PPT in support of supply chain resiliency. Policymakers, manufacturers, users, and relevant technical contributors will discuss ways to improve the effectiveness, safety, supply stability, and accessibility of PPE and PPT in health care settings and increase usage by critical infrastructure workers and the general public.” Learn more and register here.
Novel Applications of Science and Technology to Address Emerging Chemical and Biological Threats
For the first time since 2019, this Gordon Research Conference is back, this time in sunny Ventura, CA. “The Chemical and Biological Defense GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.” The conference will be held March 19-24, 2023. Learn more and apply here by February 19.
Call for Applications: Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons (2023 – 2024)
From the Council on Strategic Risks: “In a time of rising geopolitical tensions and the continued emergence of biological events, the devastation that biological threats can cause is clearer than ever. Whether biological threats arise naturally, by accident, or through a deliberate effort to weaponize infectious diseases, they pose grave risks to international security and stability, and significantly impact the welfare and health of people around the globe. The urgency for mitigating this area of catastrophic risks is further driven home by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and concerns that its leaders might consider using weapons of mass destruction in conflict, which includes biological weapons, and continued misinformation and disinformation related to biological weapons threats.”
“The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) is continuing to develop and cultivate creative solutions to help address biological threats, including a particular focus on reducing risks of the deliberate weaponization of infectious diseases. As part of this work, CSR is announcing a call for applications for the 2023–2024 class of our Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons. Applications are due by 5pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time on March 24, 2023. Four to six Fellows will be selected.” Learn more and apply here.
IFBA Launches New Professional Certification in Cyberbiosecurity
From the International Federation of Biosafety Associations: “The IFBA is pleased to announce the launch of their new Professional Certification in Cyberbiosecurity which identifies individuals with demonstrated competencies in the mitigation of cybersecurity risks within biological laboratories. This includes Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) risks in order to protect sensitive biological research, data, databases, and laboratory facilities and equipment against illicit or unauthorized access, theft, tampering, or other forms of misuse.” Read more here.
Weekly Trivia Question
You read the Pandora Report every week and now it’s time for you to show off what you know! The first person to send the correct answer to biodefense@gmu.edu will get a shout out in the following issue (first name last initial). For this week, our question is: This viral disease is primarily spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and was first detected in humans through a serological survey conducted in Uganda in 1952. What is its name?
Shout out to Scott H. for winning last week’s trivia! The correct answer to “This disease, named for a Brazilian physician, is caused by the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite, and is commonly spread by kissing bugs. What is it?” is Chagas disease.
Happy Friday! This week we are covering President Biden’s announcement that the national and public health emergency declarations for COVID-19 will terminate on May 11, recommendations to expand federal oversight of biosecurity and risky research, and the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team’s third report on the 2018 Douma chemical attack. We also have a number of new publications and a podcast episode featuring Dr. Glenn Cross, an alumnus of the Biodefense PhD Program, discussing Rhodesia’s CBW program during its counterinsurgency in the 1970s.
Biden Administration to End COVID-19 Emergency Declarations in May
In September of last year, President Biden declared in an interview on “60 Minutes” that “The pandemic is over,” drawing swift backlash for seemingly endorsing the sentiment that the pandemic is over because Americans want to behave like it is. He continued, saying “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it…but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing.” We wrote then, “Everybody” is definitely not “in pretty good shape.” With developments announced this week, this has potential to become even more true later this year with the end of pandemic protections.
President Biden notified Congress this week that he plans to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations for the COVID-19 pandemic on May 11, a move that will shift the federal response to one designed at managing an endemic threat and end several protections and benefits. It comes as many have pushed for a “return to normal” and House Republicans threaten to end the national emergencies themselves. The end of these emergencies will likely mean that many Americans will have to pay for COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, and treatments out of pocket that were previously free to them. Zeke Miller explains this further in AP News, writing in part “It comes as lawmakers have already ended elements of the emergencies that kept millions of Americans insured during the pandemic. Combined with the drawdown of most federal COVID-19 relief money, it would also shift the development of vaccines and treatments away from the direct management of the federal government.”
Congress has refused to authorize additional funding for COVID-19 vaccines, prompting the federal government to begin preparations to move this care to the commercial market last year. Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that their prices for COVID-19 vaccines will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose. This amount is between three and four times what the federal government has paid for them through bulk purchasing programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The same Kaiser analysis found that, “If payers end up paying those prices for one dose per adult, the analysis estimates that the total cost of purchasing booster shots commercially would run between $6.2 billion and $29.7 billion a year, depending on price and how many people nationally get the vaccine or booster.”
The federal government spent over $30 billion on these vaccines to “…encourage their development, guarantee a market, and ensure that the public can access them at no charge.” Insurers may be able to negotiate discounted prices, but as Kaiser also points out, “…they will have limited leverage because they will generally be required to cover all recommended vaccines and boosters.” While those with public or private insurance may not personally bear this cost, this could drive up insurance premiums. Worse, those who are uninsured will lose their guaranteed access to these vaccines and, given the prices announced per dose by Pfizer and Moderna, paying out-of-pocket will likely be out of reach for many.
And the number of uninsured also has potential to rise with the end of expanded Medicare coverage in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. AP explains, “Medicaid enrollment ballooned during the pandemic, in part because the federal government prohibited states from removing people from the program during the public health emergency once they had enrolled. The program offers health care coverage to roughly 90 million children and adults — or 1 out of every 4 Americans. Late last year, Congress told states they could start removing ineligible people in April. Millions of people are expected to lose their coverage, either because they now make too much money to qualify for Medicare or they’ve moved. Many are expected to be eligible for low-cost insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act’s private marketplace or their employer.”
Worse yet “Food help for unemployed adults, under the age of 50 and without children, will also change after the public health emergency is lifted in May. During the emergency declaration, a rule that required those individuals to work or participate in job training for 20 hours per week to remain eligible for SNAP benefits was suspended. That rule will be in place again starting in June. SNAP aid for more low-income college students will also draw down in June.” Important to note here is that it is estimated as many as 4 million Americans are out of work because they are dealing with long COVID. The unemployment rate stayed roughly the same in January 2023 as job growth continued, but this does not address discrepancies between stagnated wages and rising costs of living. Ultimately, the end of all these expanded benefits and protections now will only harm especially vulnerable populations, more than likely threatening their overall health.
Finally, the Office of Budget and Management indicated this week that “…an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans. During the PHE, the Medicaid program has operated under special rules to provide extra funding to states to ensure that tens of millions of vulnerable Americans kept their Medicaid coverage during a global pandemic. In December, Congress enacted an orderly wind-down of these rules to ensure that patients did not lose access to care unpredictably and that state budgets don’t face a radical cliff. If the PHE were suddenly terminated, it would sow confusion and chaos into this critical wind-down. Due to this uncertainty, tens of millions of Americans could be at risk of abruptly losing their health insurance, and states could be at risk of losing billions of dollars in funding.” If the last three years have taught us anything, it is that giving about 100 days notice for these kinds of changes is hardly helpful for those who will be the most impacted.
Of course, the end of the national emergencies does not mean the pandemic is actually over. Three years after its inaugural meeting, the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee released the report from its fourteenth meeting regarding COVID-19. While the committee and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged the pandemic is likely at a transition point, the “WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the Committee regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and determines that the event continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).”
Importantly, “The WHO Secretariat expressed concern about the continued virus evolution in the context of unchecked circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and the substantial decrease in Member States’ reporting of data related to COVID-19 morbidity, mortality, hospitalization and sequencing, and reiterated the importance of timely data sharing to guide the ongoing pandemic response…WHO is urging countries: to remain vigilant and continue reporting surveillance and genomic sequencing data; to recommend appropriately targeted risk-based public health and social measures (PHSM) where necessary; to vaccinate populations most at risk to minimize severe disease and deaths; and to conduct regular risk communication, answering population concerns and engaging communities to improve the understanding and implementation of countermeasures.”
Ultimately, apathy towards this ongoing emergency is driving the end of protections and needed benefits for those that need them most. The pandemic is not over, despite politicians’ interest in that being the case. No amount of political rhetoric will ever substitute making needed investments in adequately managing and preventing these kinds of public health emergencies–a lesson the United States seems destined to “re-learn” yet again.
This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically. A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. The illness caused by this virus has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).| Credit: CDC PHIL
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity Recommends Changes in Biosecurity Oversight
The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity endorsed a set of draft recommendations this past week that found, among other things, that current definitions of potential pandemic pathogens (PPP) and enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP) are too narrow and over-focused on pathogens that “…are both likely “highly” transmissible and likely “highly” virulent”. Their recommendations would expand oversight to cover work considered less risky and end blanket exclusions for “research activities associated with surveillance and vaccine development or production,” among several other measures aimed at enhancing safety and transparency. The White House will decide whether or not to adopt these recommendations.
Dr. Gregory Koblentz, Biodefense Graduate Program Director, discussed these recommendations with The New York Times, saying ““If the government implements the spirit of what they’ve written, this would be a major overhaul of dual-use research oversight in the United States,”. The article also explains his argument that the White house should go beyond these recommendations and create an independent agency to perform this oversight and streamline a system he says is too fragmented.
OPCW Investigation and Identification Team Releases Third Reporton Douma Attack
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons released its third report from its Investigation and Identification Team investigating a chemical weapons attack that occurred on April 7, 2018, in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic. The report indicates that “Based on the holistic assessment of the large volume and wide range of evidence gathered and analysed, and on the convergence of the outcomes of such corroborated multiple analyses, the IIT concluded that, on the evening of 7 April 2018, at least one helicopter of the Syrian “Tiger Forces” Elite Unit dropped two yellow cylinders containing toxic chlorine gas on two apartment buildings in a civilian-inhabited area in Douma, killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more.”
🔴 Reasonable grounds to identify Syrian Arab Air Forces as perpetrators of 2018 #Douma#ChemicalWeapons attack, #OPCW IIT report concludes.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry commented on the report: “The [Syrian Foreign Ministry] statement said that the report lacks scientific and objective evidence, and no sane person or specialist can reach such misleading conclusions,” Syria’s state-run SANA news agency summarized the foreign ministry as saying….”Those who prepared this report neglected the objective observations raised by State parties, experts, academics and former OPCW inspectors, known for their expertise and knowledge.”
However, as polygraph.info explains, “That is false…The OPCW reviewed over 19,000 files, obtained and assessed 66 witness statements, and considered data related to 70 samples. It also followed up on “lines of inquiry” suggested by Syria and other state parties…Adhering to “best practices,” the OPCW reached its conclusions after collecting, scrutinizing and corroborating all the available information gathered throughout the course of its nearly two-year investigation.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a joint statement with UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna, and German Federal Foreign Minister Annalen Baerbock discussing the OPCW report:
Today, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released a report that found the Assad regime responsible for the deadly chemical weapons attack on Douma on April 7, 2018. The report refutes the Russian claim that it was an opposition attack.
The report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that, around 19:30 local time on April 7, 2018 at least one Mi-8/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force, departing from Dumayr airbase and operating under the control of the Tiger Forces, dropped two yellow cylinders which hit two residential buildings in a central area of the city releasing chlorine killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more.
This report marks the ninth instance of chemical weapons use independently attributed to the Assad regime by UN and OPCW mechanisms.
Our governments condemn in the strongest terms the Syrian regime’s repeated use of these horrific weapons and remain steadfast in our demands that the Assad regime immediately comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Syria must fully declare and destroy its chemical weapons program and allow the deployment of OPCW staff to its country to verify it has done so.
The report also points out that the IIT received credible information, corroborated through multiple sources, that Russian forces were co-located at Dumayr airbase alongside the Tiger Forces. The IIT also obtained information that, at the time of the attack, the airspace over Douma was exclusively controlled by the Syrian Arab Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces.
We call on the Russian Federation to stop shielding Syria from accountability for its use of chemical weapons. No amount of disinformation from the Kremlin can hide its hand in abetting the Assad regime. In the aftermath of Syria’s chemical attack on April 7, 2018, Russian military police helped the Syrian regime obstruct OPCW access to the site of the attack and attempted to sanitize the site. Russian and Syrian troops also staged photographs later disseminated online in an attempt to support its fabricated narratives of this incident.
We commend the independent, unbiased, and expert work of the OPCW staff, condemn the use of chemical weapons anywhere, by anyone, under any circumstances. We also reaffirm our commitment to hold accountable the perpetrators of all chemical weapons attacks in Syria and beyond.
The @OPCW found Syria responsible for the deadly chlorine attack on #Douma. I join my German, French and British counterparts in condemning Syria for its repeated use of chemical weapons. We also call on Russia to stop shielding Syria from accountability. https://t.co/te9HnJSNmM
Dr. Gregory Koblentz, Biodefense Graduate Program Director, said of the OPCW report: “This report documents the fifth chemical attack that can be directly attributed to the Syrian air force. The chlorine attack on Douma fits a pattern of chemical weapon use by the Assad regime and was an integral part of the brutal counterinsurgency operation the Assad regime was conducting at the time. The report is based on a thorough, multidisciplinary investigation that refutes Syrian and Russian allegations that this attack was somehow staged by the rebels. The report breaks new ground by naming the Syrian military officer responsible for conducting this attack: Brigadier General Souheil Al-Hassan, commander of the notorious Tiger Forces, which has been responsible for a series of chemical attacks and other atrocities during the Syrian civil war.”
“Pandemic Origins: Technologies, Challenges, and Policy Options to Support Investigations”
This report from the Government Accountability Office discusses the findings of the office’s technology assessment, Pandemic Origins: Technologies and Challenges for Biological Investigations and covers “(1) key technologies available for pandemic origin investigations, (2) strengths and limitations of these tools and how researchers use them to investigate pandemic origins, and (3) cross-cutting challenges researchers face in trying to determine a pandemic’s origin.” GAO identified several challenges that can inhibit determination of a pandemic’s origin, including challenges in acquiring data and the lack of a sufficient and skilled workforce. According to the report, “GAO identified five policy options that may help address the cross-cutting challenges, including proactively establishing multilateral agreements for accessing and sharing samples and genetic sequence data, taking steps to grow an interdisciplinary workforce, and developing a national strategy targeted to pandemic origin investigations. These policy options represent possible actions that policymakers—who may include Congress, federal agencies, state and local governments, academia, industry, and international organizations—could consider taking.”
Disease X: The 100 Days Mission to End Pandemics
This new book was published this week by Kate Kelland, Chief Scientific Writer at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). “Distilling insights from health security experts, examining epidemics and pandemics of the past and present, and analysing what governments, societies and their people got right and wrong in the response to COVID-19 and other devastating disease outbreaks, Kelland explores why and how viruses—tiny as they are—can wreak enormous havoc on our way of life. But she also tells a story of hope, giving readers a glimpse of a future where the threat of pandemics has been neutralised by a prepared and collaborative world.”
Governing Pandemics Snapshot Inaugural Issue
The first issue of Governing Pandemics Snapshot is available now from the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre. “Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot, a publication aiming to provide a concise, periodic overview on the state of efforts to strengthen global pandemic preparedness and response (PPR). This first issue looks back at 2022 and forward to 2023, examining three topics that will recur with each issue: negotiations towards a Pandemic Treaty (or instrument), amendment of the International Health Regulations; and Financing of PPR. Each issue will also cover a rotating special topic, and we begin here with Pathogen- and Benefit-Sharing (PBS). More frequent updates are available on our timeline at GoverningPandemics.org.”
“Addressing Misconceptions About Biological and Chemical Weapons and Related Legal Frameworks”
This new report from VERTIC is available now here. “The main purpose of this resource is to disprove misconceptions about biological and chemical weapons and related international instruments. It addresses misconceptions about biological and chemical weapons and related legal frameworks that VERTIC staff have identified through interactions with states over 20 years’ work on these treaties, and from other sources such as the media. Each misconception is broken down into an explanation of the misconception and its implications, and how to address it. The misconceptions are then disproved through factual and legal discussions, supported by expert commentary.”
“New Bio-Defense Strategy to Eschew ‘One Bug, One Drug’ Programs”
This piece in National Defense covers discussion of the upcoming Bio-Defense Posture Review with USAF Col. James Harwell, deputy director for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Requirements Office. The article reads in part, “Gone are the days where we take long periods of time to identify an emerging threat and build a specific countermeasure to that threat. Science is moving at a pace that allows for new threats to rapidly emerge and to undermine our ability to achieve our National Defense Strategy,” Harwell said.”
“The Doomsday Clock is Ticking on Biosecurity”
In this piece for Defense One, Suzet McKinney, Asha George, and David Relman discuss the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board’s setting of the Doomsday Clock’s time to 90 second to midnight. They acknowledge that it was mostly moved because of the war in Ukraine, but they also write that “The impact of this war on the global order has implications far beyond the nuclear realm and the battlefield more generally. The war thwarts international cooperation exactly when we need cooperation most—to address pressing 21st-century threats such as climate change, mis- and disinformation, and a problem we and others know quite well: the proliferation of biological threats.”
“Managing the Risks of Biotechnology Innovation”
In this workshop policy paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Gigi Kwik Gronvall discusses the risks posed by biotechnological progress and summarizes a November CFR workshop titled “Managing the Risks of Biotechnology Innovation.” She identifies several gaps in global governance of these risks, including misinformation and disinformation’s influence on the progress and governance of biotechnology, writing in part “Well-funded groups have undermined the development of various biotechnologies, as seen in “golden rice,” which was developed in the 1990s to combat vitamin A deficiency. However, this intervention has not been deployed due to unjustified safety concerns, and millions of children have died from vitamin A deficiency. Misinformation about GMOs, vaccines, and therapies is common, and has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Russia has recently presented the presence of public health laboratories in Ukraine as cause for suspicion of misuse of biotechnologies. Sometimes institutions, newspapers, or research groups will organize to counter specific threads of misinformation and disinformation, but it is a significant, often uncompensated, obligation for those involved.”
“The Next Generation of Coronavirus Vaccines: A Graphical Guide”
“Vaccines against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have been given to billions of people to protect them from COVID-19, and have saved more than 20 million lives. But viral variants can evade some of the immunity provided by the original vaccines. As a result, vaccine developers around the world are working on dozens of ‘next-generation’ COVID-19 vaccines: not just updates of the first versions, but ones that use new technologies and platforms.” Check out this graphical guide from Nature that covers the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Could a Chatbot Teach You How to Build a Dirty Bomb?”
In this piece for Outrider, Matt Korda discusses concerns brought about by chatbots like ChatGPT and OpenAI. He writes in part, “But despite being programmed to align with human values, could ChatGPT be tricked into doing harm? To answer this question, many researchers (myself included) picked up ChatGPT’s proverbial gauntlet and went to work searching for creative ways to circumvent the AI model’s safety guardrails. The results of this collective experiment were often funny and—worryingly—occasionally successful.”
What We’re Listening To 🎧
Poisons and Pestilence “14 Bonus Episode: Dirty War with Glenn Cross”
In this latest episode, Dr. Brett Edwards discusses Rhodesia’s development of a CBW program and its use during the country’s counterinsurgency in the 1970s with Dr. Glenn Cross, an alumnus of the Biodefense PhD program and author of Dirty War, a book discussing this program in-depth that is a must read.
This Podcast Will Kill You “Episode 111 RSV: What’s syncytial anyway?”
“We’re kicking off our sixth season in the same way we ended our fifth: with another headline-making respiratory virus. But as our listeners know, not all respiratory viruses are the same, and it’s often those differences among them that play the biggest role in their spread or the symptoms they cause. This episode, we’re exploring the virus that everyone has been talking about lately. No, not that one. Or that one. The other one. Yes, we’re talking about respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. For many people, the recent surge in RSV infections that dominated headlines this winter may have been the first time they had heard of this viral infection or realized how deadly it could be. But for others, RSV has long inspired fear and dread. In this episode, we Erins explain why this virus deserves such notoriety, how long we’ve recognized the dangers of infection, and what hope the future may hold for novel RSV treatments or vaccines. If at any point you’ve wondered what all the fuss is about this virus or how to pronounce syncytial, then this is the episode for you!”
Prosperity and Human Security: Japan and Asia’s 21st Century Governance Challenges
Join Harvard’s Program on US-Japan Relations for this symposium that includes panels on “Development and Governance Challenges in Public Health” and “Development, Climate Change, and Climate Migration”. The former will feature Dr. Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussing “China, Covid-19, and global health governance”. This event will take place on February 6 at 12 pm EST. Learn more and register here.
Jonathan Tucker CBW Symposium
“The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies cordially invites you to the 11th annual Jonathan Tucker Symposium on chemical and biological weapons issues on February 9th and 10th, 2023.” BW topics include “Revisiting the Siege of Caffa & Catapulting Cadavers” and “Governance of Dual-Use Biological Research,” the latter of which will be moderated by Dr. Gregory Koblentz. CW topics include “Lessons learned from the U.S. Chemical Weapons Destruction Program” and “The 2023 CWC Review Conference”. Learn more and register for the virtual events here.
Join the Strategic Trade Research Institute on February 15, at 9 am EST for this launch event moderated by Dr. Andrea Viski, a Schar School adjunct professor who teaches courses on strategic trade controls. Featured authors will engage in a virtual interactive panel discussion discussing the new edition. Learn more and register here.
Personal Protective Equipment and Personal Protective Technology Product Standardization for a Resilient Public Health Supply Chain
“The National Academies will convene a public workshop, March 1-2, to examine standards gaps related to personal protective equipment (PPE) and personal protective technology (PPT). The event will explore innovative approaches and technologies needed to update and streamline the U.S. standardization system for PPE and PPT in support of supply chain resiliency. Policymakers, manufacturers, users, and relevant technical contributors will discuss ways to improve the effectiveness, safety, supply stability, and accessibility of PPE and PPT in health care settings and increase usage by critical infrastructure workers and the general public.” Learn more and register here.
Novel Applications of Science and Technology to Address Emerging Chemical and Biological Threats
For the first time since 2019, this Gordon Research Conference is back, this time in sunny Ventura, CA. “The Chemical and Biological Defense GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.” The conference will be held March 19-24, 2023. Learn more and apply here by February 19.
Weekly Trivia Question
You read the Pandora Report every week and now it’s time for you to show off what you know! The first person to send the correct answer to biodefense@gmu.edu will get a shout out in the following issue (first name last initial). For this week, our question is: In February 1964, Albert Nickel, an animal caretaker at Fort Detrick, contracted and died from a disease after he was bitten by an infected rodent. What is the name of the disease and what is its causative agent?
Shout out to Pappas G. for winning last week’s trivia! The correct answer to “On April 22, 1915, the German Army infamously unleashed more than 160 tons of chlorine gas on French trenches near which Belgian city?” is Ypres. Check out the National World War I Museum and Memorial’s page on this event.
The year of the rabbit is off to one heck of a start. This week we cover COVID-19’s spread in China as the Party increasingly cracks down on Zero-COVID protesters, growing concern amount H5N1 in mammals, new insight into the history of the plague, and more. Several new publications are listed, including a fresh book from Ed Regis about the history of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program and multiple works on misinformation’s impact on COVID-19 responses. As always, we round out with events and announcements, including multiple great upcoming professional opportunities. Happy Friday!
COVID-19 Multiplying Like Rabbits in China
China’s CDC claimed this week that cases of critically ill COVID-19 patients are down 72% from a peak earlier this month in the country, with daily deaths of hospitalized COVID-19 patients down 79% as well. This comes as Wu Zunyou, Chief Epidemiologist at China CDC, claims that 80% of the country’s 1.4 billion people have already been infected. This seems like an effort to indicate that a rebound is unlikely in the coming months amid concerns that the new year travel season will cause further spread and deaths. Just last week, China claimed to have 60,000 COVID-19 deaths in the month since it rolled back its notorious Zero-COVID policies, a number far below the one million some models estimated the country will suffer this winter.
However, CNBC notes, “…some experts said that figure probably vastly undercounts the full impact, as it excludes those who die at home, and because many doctors have said they are discouraged from citing Covid as a cause of death.” This understanding better aligns with reports of over-crowded funeral homes and crematoriums, and reports of coffin makers and funeral decoration companies repeatedly selling out of their products amid the spread. Because of these discrepancies, many are doubtful of the government’s official statistics.
At the same time, reports of Zero-COVID protesters being arrested or intimidated are mounting. Four women in Beijing are known to have been arrested in connection with these protests, seemingly in retaliation for their role in what has been described as “the boldest challenge to the Communist Party’s rule in decades and an embarrassing affront to its leader, Xi Jinping.” The New York Timesexplains the Party’s need to do this, writing “The party seems determined to warn off anyone who may have been emboldened by the remarkable outburst of public discontent, which was followed just days later by Beijing’s abrupt decision to abandon Covid restrictions. Since then, domestic challenges have mounted: Youth unemployment is high, the economy is slowing, and Covid infections and deaths have accelerated.”
The same piece continues, “The party is also working to discredit the protesters by casting them as tools of malevolent foreign powers. Beijing has long dismissed dissent at home — from calls for women’s rights to pro-democracy activism to ethnic unrest — as the result of Western-backed subversion. The protests against “zero Covid” were no exception: One Chinese diplomat suggested that some of the demonstrators had been “bought by external forces.”
Chunyun, the Lunar New Year travel period in China, typically lasts from mid-January through late-February, meaning opportunities for spread in rural parts of the country are far from over, despite China CDC’s apparent claims to the contrary. The continued supply of highly suspect statistics and crackdowns on Zero-COVID protesters presents a troubling situation and indicates that the Party has done anything but change its ways.
Thinking of Offering a Nice Egg in This Trying Time? Mink Again
US egg prices skyrocketed in price by more than 137% between December 2021 and December 2022, leaving many in constant sticker shock at the grocery store as this once reliably cheap staple becomes increasingly expensive. Much of this is attributed to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1), which has been spreading in US flocks since January 2022, resulting in cullings of over 57 million birds across industrial and backyard flocks. However, over the past year, this virus has also demonstrated its ability to spread from birds to mammals, with infections found in several species in the US so far, including raccoons, foxes, seals, grizzly bears, and, most recently, minks. Naturally, this had led to increased concern about potential spread into other mammal populations.
“Transmission electron microscopic image of two Influenza A (H5N1) virions, a type of bird flu virus Note the glycoprotein spikes along the surface of the virion and as a stippled appearance of the viral envelope encasing each virion.” Credit: CDC PHIL
Nature covered this story this week, writing “Until this particular outbreak, all mammalian infections could be attributed to direct contact with virus-contaminated material, says Hualan Chen, a virologist at the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China. For example, animals that ingest wild-bird droppings, or that prey on infected animals, can develop the disease. But its spread between mammals “implies that this H5N1 virus may pose a higher risk to public health”, Chen says.”
A new article in Eurosurveillance discusses the alarming spread of HPAI A(H5N1) at an American mink farm in Galicia, Spain in October 2022. In it, Agüero et al. explain that the farm experienced an acute increase in its mortality rate (.77% versus an expected range of .2-.3%), prompting the facility’s clinical veterinarian to collect samples from affected animals. These animals tested positive for H5N1, and “Post-mortem examination revealed haemorrhagic pneumonia or red hepatisation of the lungs as the most notable lesions”
The authors further explain the set-up of the farm, which housed 51,986 minks, writing “The minks were housed in wire netting cages placed in rows and situated in a series of over 30 partially open barns, which provided overhead protection but not total shelter of their sides. The minks were fed with raw fish and poultry by-products, cereals and blood meal. Poultry farms and avian slaughterhouses supplying the poultry by-products were located in Galicia. Up to 10 January 2023, H5N1 poultry outbreaks have not been reported from this region.”
The outbreak soon peaked, with a weekly mortality rate of 4.3% documented between October 17 and 23. Culling measures were ordered quickly, and all minks from infected pens were culled by November 17, along with destruction of all carcasses, fomites, and waste. Of the farm’s 12 workers, 11 were in contact with infected and culled animals, though none of them tested positive and they all completed quarantine without any problems. However, as the authors note in their abstract, “The identified viruses belong to clade 2.3.4.4b, which is responsible of the ongoing epizootic in Europe. An uncommon mutation (T271A) in the PB2 gene with potential public health implications was found. Our investigations indicate onward mink transmission of the virus may have occurred in the affected farm.”
While the mink farm seems to have been thorough in its efforts to stop this outbreak, there are concerns that this new variant may be circulating in wild bird populations. Nature writes, “But Puryear thinks that because the new variant contains genetic material from gull flu, it’s likely that at least some of its genetic changes arose in gulls before entering the mink farm. This means that a strain containing those mutations is probably still circulating in the bird population. But for human populations, the outlook is still good: if the new strain did start to infect people, health authorities could probably produce a vaccine quickly, and the antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir) can reduce the severity of the disease.”
The Nature news piece concludes with, “The potential risk to wild animals is greater. Bird flu has consistently caused high levels of sickness and death among wild birds and mammals over the past year, and how the new variant will affect that trend remains to be seen. “We just simply don’t know,” says Puryear.”
Shake Ups and Mess Ups at the Department of Health and Human Services
CDC Takes Major Steps in Revamp
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced a number of high-level changes to her agency this week, including the creation of the Office of Health Equity and the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology. These are steps taken in light of last year’s internal review that found, among other things, that the agency struggled with appropriately and rapidly sharing scientific findings, communications in general, and that it needed to strengthen relationships with federal, state, and local partners. Furthermore, most of the organizations under CDC will now report directly to the Office of the Director, moving away from what has been described as a “Community of Practice structure”.
MedPage Todayexplained this leadership re-structuring, writing “Today, additional details about that leadership structure became clear. There will be a centralized leadership team of experts housed within the director’s office, which will include the director of the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry; the principal deputy director; the deputy director for program and science/chief medical officer; the deputy director for policy, communications, and legislative affairs/chief strategy officer; the deputy director for global health; the chief operating officer; and the chief of staff.”
“These changes will improve efficiency, speed decision-making, and strengthen the communication of scientific information to the American public, ensuring CDC’s science reaches the public in an understandable, accessible, and implementable manner as quickly as possible,” an unnamed staffer told The Hill.
OIG Report Finds NIH and EcoHealth Alliance Fell Short in Monitoring and Oversight
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at HHS released this week the findings of its audit of the National Institutes of Health’s grants to the EcoHealth Alliance. This audit was initiated because of concerns over NIH’s grant awards to EcoHealth as well as EcoHealth’s subawards to foreign entities. OIG aimed to “…determine whether NIH monitored grants to EcoHealth in accordance with Federal requirements, and whether EcoHealth used and managed its NIH grant funds in accordance with Federal requirements.”
The Office found that, “Despite identifying potential risks associated with research being performed under the EcoHealth awards, we found that NIH did not effectively monitor or take timely action to address EcoHealth’s compliance with some requirements. Although NIH and EcoHealth had established monitoring procedures, we found deficiencies in complying with those procedures limited NIH and EcoHealth’s ability to effectively monitor Federal grant awards and subawards to understand the nature of the research conducted, identify potential problem areas, and take corrective action. Using its discretion, NIH did not refer the research to HHS for an outside review for enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs) because it determined the research did not involve and was not reasonably anticipated to create, use, or transfer an ePPP. However, NIH added a special term and condition in EcoHealth’s awards and provided limited guidance on how EcoHealth should comply with that requirement. We found that NIH was only able to conclude that research resulted in virus growth that met specified benchmarks based on a late progress report from EcoHealth that NIH failed to follow up on until nearly 2 years after its due date. Based on these findings, we conclude that NIH missed opportunities to more effectively monitor research. With improved oversight, NIH may have been able to take more timely corrective actions to mitigate the inherent risks associated with this type of research.”
Biodefense Graduate Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz was quoted in the New York Times‘ piece on this report, saying “Although concerns were identified by NIAID staff, the proposal was not referred to NIAID’s review committee for further consideration.” He continued, saying “On paper, NIAID staff were encouraged to ‘err on the side of caution’ in identifying and referring such proposals…but in practice it looks like they erred on the side of complacency.”
Woman Pleads Guilty to Mailing Ricin Letters in 2020
Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier pleaded guilty this week in a US District Court “…to sending a threatening letter containing homemade ricin to then-President Donald J. Trump at the White House in September 2020, and eight similar letters, each containing ricin, to Texas State law enforcement officials.” Ferrier, a dual French-Canadian national, holds a French engineering degree and admitted in her plea agreements that she made ricin in her Quebec home in September 2020. According to the FBI, “Ferrier placed the ricin in envelopes containing letters she wrote to then-President Trump at the White House and to eight Texas State law enforcement officials.”
“Ferrier was detained in the State of Texas for around 10 weeks in the spring of 2019, and she believed that the law enforcement officials were connected to her period of detention. In early September 2020, Ferrier used the Twitter social media service to propose that someone should “please shoot [T]rump in the face.” The letters in the envelopes contained threatening language, and the letter addressed to then-President Trump instructed him to “[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election.” Ferrier mailed each of the threatening ricin letters from Canada to the United States. Ferrier then drove a car from Canada to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, New York, on Sept. 20, 2020, where border patrol officials found her in possession of a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons.”
Ferrier is scheduled for sentencing on April 26. She faces 262 months imprisonment if her plea agreements are accepted.
An Oldie, But a (Not So) Goodie: Y. Pestis Strains May Have Been Around Centuries Before Outbreaks
A new article in Communications Biology discusses how Yersinia pestis spread globally over longer periods of time than previously estimated. Eaton et al. estimate that the strain of Y. pestis responsible for the Black Death in the mid-14th century diverged from the ancestral strain as early as 1214, while the one responsible for the Plague of Justinian may have cropped up between 272 and 465–up to nearly 270 years before the epidemic began in 541. “‘It shows that each major plague pandemic has likely emerged many decades to centuries earlier than what the historical record suggests,” study coauthor and evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, director of McMaster University’s Ancient DNA Centre in Canada,” said in a statement to CNN.
The authors write in their abstract: “Plague has an enigmatic history as a zoonotic pathogen. This infectious disease will unexpectedly appear in human populations and disappear just as suddenly. As a result, a long-standing line of inquiry has been to estimate when and where plague appeared in the past. However, there have been significant disparities between phylogenetic studies of the causative bacterium, Yersinia pestis, regarding the timing and geographic origins of its reemergence. Here, we curate and contextualize an updated phylogeny of Y. pestis using 601 genome sequences sampled globally. Through a detailed Bayesian evaluation of temporal signal in subsets of these data we demonstrate that a Y. pestis-wide molecular clock is unstable. To resolve this, we developed a new approach in which each Y. pestis population was assessed independently, enabling us to recover substantial temporal signal in five populations, including the ancient pandemic lineages which we now estimate may have emerged decades, or even centuries, before a pandemic was historically documented from European sources. Despite this methodological advancement, we only obtain robust divergence dates from populations sampled over a period of at least 90 years, indicating that genetic evidence alone is insufficient for accurately reconstructing the timing and spread of short-term plague epidemics.”
“Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), this digitally colorized scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image depicts a number of yellow-colored, Yersinia pestis bacteria, that had gathered on the proventricular spines of a Xenopsylla cheopis flea. These spines line the interior of the proventriculus, a part of the flea’s digestive system. The Y. pestis bacterium is the pathogen that causes bubonic plague.” Credit: CDC PHIL
It’s 90 Seconds to Midnight (That’s Not Good)
“This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.” Read the Bulletin’s statement here (also available in РУССКИЙ and УКРАЇНСЬКА).
Say “Hello” to the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science
The Nuclear Threat Initiative recently announced the creation of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), an organization “trying to prevent dramatic advances in bioscience from unleashing engineered pathogens from the lab, and wants research funders, scientists and journals to help.” NTI explains: “NTI is working with international stakeholders to establish the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), an independent organization dedicated to reducing emerging biological risks associated with technology advances. A core element of the IBBIS mission will be to strengthen international biosecurity norms and develop innovative, practical tools and incentives to uphold them. IBBIS has a broadly defined mission, but initially it will focus on preventing the misuse of DNA synthesis technology—with the understanding that it will expand its remit over time.”
“IBBIS will collaborate with stakeholders across the global bioscience and biotechnology enterprise including academia, industry, the public health community, governments and philanthropy. These activities will complement the important work of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, and other national, regional, and international organizations. NTI’s work to establish IBBIS is rooted in the vision of a world in which bioscience and biotechnology flourish, with safeguards against deliberate or accidental misuse with potentially catastrophic consequences.”
David Matthews discusses IBBIS in-depth, including the fraught geopolitical situation it faces, in this piece for Science Business.
The Lancet Series on One Health and Global Health Security
Check out this recent series from the Lancet: “Following the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the on-going global COVID-19 pandemic, the One Health approach (bridging the Animal-Environmental-Human Health interface) has rapidly gained political and financial support, particularly in regional and transcontinental initiatives to improve Global Health Security, including through recently established institutions like Africa CDC and other multidisciplinary consortia. This four-paper Lancet Series explores the adoption of One Health approaches to improve health security and include an analysis of the current landscape of preventive, surveillance, and response measures in outbreak situations of emerging and re-emerging zoonotic infectious diseases with epidemic potential as well as other potential public health emergencies such as neglected endemic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, environmental and chemical hazards and natural disasters.”
“Combating Misinformation as a Core Function of Public Health”
Knudsen et al. discuss the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s role in countering misinformation in this New England Journal of Medicine Catalystpiece: “The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene determined that the spread of misinformation about Covid-19 was having a harmful health impact, particularly on communities of color with low vaccination rates. It established a dedicated Misinformation Response Unit to monitor messages containing dangerous misinformation presented on multiple media platforms, including social media, non-English media, and international sites, and proliferating in community forums. The Misinformation Response Unit and the Health Department collaborated with more than 100 community partners to tailor culturally appropriate, scientifically accurate messages to different populations. The Health Department and its partners were able to rapidly identify messages containing inaccurate information about Covid-19 vaccines, treatment, and other issues and to support the delivery of accurate information to various populations. Although the harms of misinformation and benefits of addressing the problem require additional evaluation, internal and external interviews suggested that the Misinformation Response Unit helped the Health Department counter misinformation and disseminate accurate scientific information to the community, thus improving health and vaccine equity during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
“Fault Lines: The Expert Panel on the Socioeconomic Impacts of Science and Health Misinformation”
This new report from the Council of Canadian Academies includes a number of important findings, including that COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2,800 Canadian lives and CAD 300 million in hospital expenses over a period of just nine months. “Fault Lines details how science and health misinformation can proliferate and its impacts on individuals, communities, and society. It explores what makes us susceptible to misinformation and how we might use these insights to improve societal resilience to it. The report includes a model of the impacts of COVID‑19 misinformation on vaccination rates in Canada, producing quantitative estimates of its impacts on our health and the economy, and situating these within a broader context of societal and economic harms.”
“Battling Biological Threats: Complacency, Progress, or Both?”
“As 2023 opens, there is apprehension that partisan divisions and politicized health security approaches may worsen as the United States moves into a divided government of ultra-thin margins. But over the course of 2022, several important new national security directives and policies and bipartisan legislative actions significantly advanced thinking on health security and what is required to better protect Americans—proving that progress remains in reach, despite tough odds. Global health security, including biodefense, has been elevated to new prominence in U.S. national security thinking. The Biodefense Posture Review, expected to be released in early 2023, is mandated to unify and modernize DOD’s broad, comprehensive biodefense capabilities, and synchronize these efforts with those of other federal departments in line with the recently released National Defense and Biodefense Strategies. The United States must be resolute and clear, leaning forward not backwards, investing in new capabilities sustained over many years to protect Americans and the larger world against future dangerous pathogens. In a new commentary, Thomas R. Cullison and J. Stephen Morrison argue that it remains possible to bridge divides and make measurable progress to prepare the United States for inevitable future biological threats.” Read this CSIS report here.
“The Pentagon’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program Moves Towards Modernization, Yet Congress Slashes Funding”
Dan Regan discusses DoD’s seemingly mismatched objectives and funding decisions in this piece for the Council on Strategic Risks. He writes, “To achieve its mission set, including investing in emerging biotechnologies and bolstering industrial capacity to scale MCMs to novel threats, developing and investing in stand-off pathogen early warning detection, and advancing protective equipment for the Joint Force, the CBDP budget requires a nearly two-fold increase from the President’s request of $1.32 billion in FY23 to $3 billion for FY24. However, Congress unfortunately just dealt a 7% cut to chemical and biodefense programs with the FY23 omnibus spending bill, following years of declining funds for CBDP. As the FY24 Presidential Budget Request is being drafted, the Biden Administration and Congress should consider significant increases to CBDP’s budget, along with the other biodefense and global health security priorities outlined in the 10 + 10 over 10 strategy, to combat biological threats.”
“Virology Under the Microscope–a Call for Rational Discourse”
In this commentary in mBio, more than 130 authors call for a return to rational discourse about virology and its role in modern issues like pandemic response and debates over GoF research. “Viruses have brought humanity many challenges: respiratory infection, cancer, neurological impairment and immunosuppression to name a few. Virology research over the last 60+ years has responded to reduce this disease burden with vaccines and antivirals. Despite this long history, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented attention to the field of virology. Some of this attention is focused on concern about the safe conduct of research with human pathogens. A small but vocal group of individuals has seized upon these concerns – conflating legitimate questions about safely conducting virus-related research with uncertainties over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. The result has fueled public confusion and, in many instances, ill-informed condemnation of virology. With this article, we seek to promote a return to rational discourse. We explain the use of gain-of-function approaches in science, discuss the possible origins of SARS-CoV-2 and outline current regulatory structures that provide oversight for virological research in the United States. By offering our expertise, we – a broad group of working virologists – seek to aid policy makers in navigating these controversial issues. Balanced, evidence-based discourse is essential to addressing public concern while maintaining and expanding much-needed research in virology.”
“CRISPR Technology: A Decade of Genome Editing is Only the Beginning”
Wang and Doudna discuss the first decade of CRISPR in Science: “In the decade since the publication of CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome-editing technology, the CRISPR toolbox and its applications have profoundly changed basic and applied biological research. Wang and Doudna now review the origins and utility of CRISPR-based genome editing, the successes and current limitations of the technology, and where innovation and engineering are needed. The authors describe important advances in the development of CRISPR genome-editing technology and make predictions about where the field is headed. They also highlight specific examples in medicine and agriculture that show how CRISPR is already affecting society, with exciting opportunities for the future. —DJ”
“Zombie Viruses from the Arctic”
Jean-Michel Claverie’s new piece in Think Global Health discusses the threat global warming poses to global health by threatening Earth’s permafrost, potentially releasing ancient microbes. Claverie explains the evolution of this threat and how it may evolve throughout the piece, writing in part “This science fiction scenario became more realistic in 2015 when an international research team succeeded in resurrecting several viruses isolated from permafrost dating back 30,000 years. Following additional experiments, it is now clear that a significant proportion of prehistorical viruses can remain infectious for even longer periods of time. This article reviews the reality of the risks that their release might represent for the future.”
“This is the story of how the Smithsonian Institute became intertwined in a secret biological warfare project.”
“During the 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution undertook a large-scale biological survey of a group of uninhabited tropical islands in the Pacific. It was one of the largest and most sweeping biological survey programs of all time, a six-year-long enterprise during which Smithsonian personnel banded 1.8 million birds, captured live specimens and took blood samples, and catalogued the avian, mammalian, reptile, and plant life of 48 Pacific islands.”
“But there was a twist. The study had been initiated, funded, and was overseen by the U.S. Biological Laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The home of the American biological warfare program. In signing the contract to perform the survey, the Smithsonian became a literal subcontractor to a secret biological warfare project. And by participating in the survey, the Smithsonian scientists were paving the way for top-secret biological warfare tests in the Pacific.”
“Critics charged the Smithsonian with having entered into a Faustian bargain that made the institution complicit in the sordid business of biological warfare, a form of combat which, if it were ever put into practice and used against human populations, could cause mass disease, suffering, and death. The Smithsonian had no proper role in any such activities, said the critics, and should never have undertaken the survey.”
Science, Secrecy, and the Smithsonian: The Strange History of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program explores the workings of the survey program, places it in its historical context, describes the military tests that followed, and evaluates the critical objections to the Smithsonian’s participation in the project.”
Jonathan Tucker CBW Symposium
“The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies cordially invites you to the 11th annual Jonathan Tucker Symposium on chemical and biological weapons issues on February 9th and 10th, 2023.” BW topics include “Revisiting the Siege of Caffa & Catapulting Cadavers” and “Governance of Dual-Use Biological Research,” the latter of which will be moderated by Dr. Gregory Koblentz. CW topics include “Lessons learned from the U.S. Chemical Weapons Destruction Program” and “The 2023 CWC Review Conference”. Learn more and register for the virtual events here.
Novel Applications of Science and Technology to Address Emerging Chemical and Biological Threats
For the first time since 2019, this Gordon Research Conference is back, this time in sunny Ventura, CA. “The Chemical and Biological Defense GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.” The conference will be held March 19-24, 2023. Learn more and apply here by February 19.
High School and College Student Internship: Data Analytics for Elite Young Scholars – Biology and Medical Science Experience
“This Young Scholars Research Program is designed for Elite High School Students and Undergrad Students, who are interested in pursuing their study and/or career in the fields of biology or medical science with emphasis on advanced data analytics. You will work with our esteemed George Mason University faculty members on a specific team project. The team will consist of about three to four members of both high school and undergraduate students. The project will be assigned to the students at the beginning of the program based on the preference indicated by the students prior to the program. Two outputs will be expected from each team at the end of the programs: i) a final paper which will be published on the Center for Biomedical Science and Policy website as well as a special issue of World Medical & Health Policy; and ii) Team presentation at a symposium at which students compete for prizes.”
“During this program, students will be participating in a research project applying some of the following methods, including but not limited to biostatistics using R or Stata, data visualization using QGIS or ArcGIS, and network visualization using Gephi.”
“During this program, students will be participating in a research project applying some of the following methods, including but not limited to biostatistics using R or Stata, data visualization using QGIS or ArcGIS, and network visualization using Gephi.”
Special Call for Papers-Journal of Science Policy & Governance
The Journal of Science Policy & Governance recently announced a special call for papers “and competition to provide policymakers with a new perspective on how scientific expertise could be useful to the complex brew of 21st foreign policy and national security challenges, resulting in a special issue on Policy and Governance on Science, Technology and Global Security.” The journal invites “students, post-doctoral researchers, policy fellows, early career researchers and young professionals from around the world to submit op-eds, policy position papers and other articles addressing foreign policy and national security challenges. These include concerns about the use of nuclear or radiological weapons driven by the war in the Ukraine, hypersonic weapons, immigration driven by climate change, and emerging threats in cybersecurity and biosecurity.” The deadline for submission is April 30.
Additionally, there will be a science policy writing workshop on January 30 in addition to two webinars on February 20 and March 30 (one on Policy and Governance on Science and Technology and one on Foreign Policy and National Security, respectively) to help prospective authors prepare their submissions. Learn more about these events and register here.
Weekly Trivia Question
You read the Pandora Report every week and now it’s time for you to show off what you know! The first person to send the correct answer to biodefense@gmu.edu will get a shout out in the following issue (first name last initial). For this week, our question is “On April 22, 1915, the German Army infamously unleashed more than 160 tons of chlorine gas on French trenches near which Belgian city?”
Shout out to Morgan M. for winning last week’s trivia! The correct answer to “In 1985, an American extremist group’s compound was raided by more than 300 law enforcement officers from several federal, state, and local agencies following a three-day standoff. Among other items, officers seized about thirty gallons of potassium cyanide the group intended to use to poison water supplies of several cities. What was the name of this group?” is the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord.
Shockingly low case counts, the Party’s Central Economic Work Conference concludes, thick smoke emanating from Beijing crematoriums, and a closed-door meeting of the National Health Commission…
Amid the endless stream of Tweets and headlines warning of a massive wave of COVID-19 deaths in China, there is no shortage of discussion about how serious the situation in the country might become. However, there has been some confusion, incomplete information, and countless questions circulating about what is known right now. We discussed the rollback of China’s Zero-COVID policies and growing problems like antiviral shortages in last week’s Pandora Report, so check there for more detailed discussion on those topics. This update aims to explain and clarify what is known about the current situation and analyze what might happen as a result of it, covering how China is counting cases and deaths, what vaccines are available in the country, critical threats the healthcare system is facing, and what this means in the current economic and political environment in the country.
The Basics
The current wave in China is being driven by BF.7, which is short for BA.5.2.1.7, a sub-lineage of the Omicron BA.5 variant (good luck remembering all that!). BF.7 is reported to transmit faster than other variants, have a shorter incubation period, and be better able to infect those who previously had COVID-19 or are vaccinated. Dr. Li Dongzeng, Chief Physician at Beijing YouAn Hospital’s Infectious Disease Department, reported late last month that BF.7 is thought to have an R0 between 10.0 and 18.6. For context, the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 had an R0 between 2.0 and 3.0 and it officially infected 68,150 people as it ripped through Wuhan in 2020, though estimates of the true case count are as much as three times that number. Given what we have discussed previously about China’s Zero-COVID policy, specifically its failed vaccine strategy, this is incredibly dangerous with many models predicting around one million COVID-19 deaths in China in the coming months. Furthermore, with the rollback of Zero-COVID restrictions, a massive, immunologically vulnerable population is likely to be quickly infected, causing national and global economic problems. This policy pivot is also likely to further complicate business for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as its credibility is challenged by this spread and as the likely economic and human costs it will bring come to fruition.
What’s Up with China’s Case and Death Counts?
The incredibly low case and death counts China is reporting currently have left many highly skeptical of the government’s truthfulness. For example, there were officially five COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, December 20, and just two the day before-and zero in the two weeks prior. The government also reported shockingly low numbers of new cases throughout this week. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reported that China has 26,878 new cases and 78 new deaths, causing some confusion online and in media reporting. So, what gives?
First-What Counts as China in These Numbers?
Regarding the WHO numbers, it is important to remember that they include Taiwan’s counts in the totals for China. While the WHO’s interactions with and stance on Taiwan made global headlines in early 2020, little has been done to address this issue. Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), initially represented China in the United Nations and its umbrella organizations. This was because China was one of the original UN member states during the organization’s creation in 1945. This predated the Chinese Communist Party’s defeat of the Kuomintang-led government of the ROC, which led to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the exiling of the ROC to the island of Taiwan in 1949. The ROC (still under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek) continued to represent China in the UN until the passage of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, or the Resolution on Admitting Peking, in 1971. This resolution recognized the PRC as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations,” giving the PRC its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and expelling “representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.”
Though Taiwan has functioned as a self-ruled democracy since 1949, the PRC insists that Taiwan is a renegade province that will eventually be reunified to the rest of the country. As a result, Taiwan lacks proper representation in organizations ranging from those in the UN System to the International Olympic Committee (where it is listed as Chinese Taipei). While this might normally seem like a purely political issue between the countries, it has important implications, particularly in the context of global health. Taiwan is an excellent international player in pandemic response, as demonstrated in its work to support other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WHO has been largely unresponsive, however, which many critics argue is because the PRC forces its view of Taiwan as a province of the PRC on international organizations, irrespective of the potential harm this carries in matters like international development and global health. Earlier this year, there was a movement to allow Taiwan to attend the WHO’s World Health Assembly as an observer, which had support from 13 member states, including the United States. However, this bid was rejected.
Important to also consider is that the WHO counts Hong Kong and Macao in its counts for China, whereas some data sources differentiate between them and the mainland. Hong Kong and Macao are special administrative regions (SARs) of the PRC with their executive, legislative, and judicial powers devolved from the national PRC government. These SARs are the subject of the “one country, two systems” policy in China which came about as Hong Kong and Macao were transferred to the PRC from the United Kingdom and Portugal respectively in the late 1990s. Under this policy, the SARs would continue to have their own governments and maintain functions like overseeing their own legal financial affairs, including foreign trade. This has allowed them to hold onto their distinct cultures and functions with, for example, both SARs maintaining their own currencies separate from the PRC’s renminbi. In recent years, China has aimed to reduce the independence of the SARs, taking aim at Macao’s famous casinos this year and implementing the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2022, which sharply reduced Hong Kong’s autonomy. Importantly, despite these changes, the SARs have separate healthcare systems and have implemented different policies to control COVID-19 than the mainland. As we will discuss later, this has made the SARs an attractive location for mainlanders to seek care and vaccinations. However, the point here is that it is important to take Taiwan and the SARs into consideration when looking at COVID-19 cases and deaths in China.
Daily confirmed cases and deaths in China (the mainland PRC), Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan from Our World in Data, which uses Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering’s COVID-19 Data Repository. This repository counts cases and deaths by dates of reporting, not by the actual dates of tests and deaths. Furthermore, it is possible to get separate counts for each of these places on this site. Meanwhile, the WHO’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard reports official daily counts made by countries, territories, and areas, accounting for some of the discrepancies pointed out by many.
What Does the PRC Consider a COVID-19 Death?
Irrespective of all this, the low number of total deaths in mainland China is still suspicious given the sudden policy reversals and sub-pay vaccines in the country. This is made worse by reports of funeral homes and crematoriums in the country being overrun by COVID-19 victims. For starters, the Chinese government is very strict in how it identifies a cause of death, which was a point of confusion even before this pandemic in comparing things like influenza mortality rates in the United States and China. However, it is even more important right now. China is only counting deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 deaths. This does not include deaths of COVID-19 patients who had pre-existing conditions, and proof like evidence of lung damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 is required for confirming COVID-19 deaths. This goes against the WHO’s guidelines and helps explain the shocking discrepancies between China and other countries’ COVID-19 death counts. During the outbreak in Shanghai earlier this year, many also claimed that their elderly family members who tested positive for COVID-19 and then later died were not included in the city’s official COVID-19 death count if they had underlying diseases, for example. Essentially this means that, even without overtly concealing numbers, China will always have a lower mortality rate than countries that count deaths where COVID-19 was a factor as COVID-19 deaths.
What About the Case Counts?
Okay, so it isn’t a COVID-19 death if a person has any kind of underlying condition or did not clearly die of pneumonia or respiratory distress after testing positive for COVID-19–but why are China’s case counts still so low? In the last two weeks, China has abandoned its mass testing strategy completely and even gone so far as to stop counting asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. It has also slashed central quarantine requirements, further reducing opportunities to accurately count cases. In May this year, as hundreds of millions were forced into lockdowns, the government ordered all cities with more than 10 million people to implement routine testing requirements and to ensure that testing facilities were available within a fifteen-minute walk from anywhere in the city. Places like malls, grocery stores, and restaurants required people to show a negative PCR test from less than 48 or 72 hours ago in order to enter, meaning that people were constantly testing even if their city, neighborhood, or building were not locked down.
Large scale mandatory testing was also mandated when cities entered lockdowns after cases were detected. For example, when Shanghai shutdown in March this year, the city tested all 26 million residents as it kept them all at home or in public quarantine centers if they were positive. The disease spread widely again this fall, prompting lockdowns across the country in an effort to control outbreaks ahead of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, further demonstrating that the Party’s Zero-COVID strategy was not working well even with mass testing requirements.
In mid-November, as cases soared in Guangzhou and Chongqing and discontent rose across the country, the National Health Commission announced its 20 rules for optimizing Zero-COVID, which included relaxation of quarantine measures. This coincided with cities like Shijiazhuang, Yanji, and Hefei announcing they would end their mass testing programs. Later, cities like Beijing and Shenzhen relaxed their requirements for negative tests to use public transportation on December 3, which came before the total abandonment of mass testing just days later following the State Council’s announcement of its ten-point plan on December 7. Xinhua News, an official state media outlet, reported on December 7 that the new rules indicate that, “Apart from nursing homes, medical institutions, primary and secondary schools, kindergartens and other special places, people will no longer be required to provide negative nucleic acid test results and undergo health code checks to access public venues or travel to other regions.”
Furthermore, the ten-point plan’s changes in quarantine policies and determination of high/low risk areas are impacting overall case counts. While the previous 20 rules from November cut down central quarantine facility requirements, ended many mass testing requirements, and changed testing and arrival procedures for international flights, the new ten-point plan totally cut central quarantine requirements for mild and asymptomatic cases. It also changed requirements for close contacts to just five days of home quarantine as well, in lieu of being taken to a central facility. While these new requirements are helpful in that people should not be yanked away for an unknown amount of time because they are considered a close contact, these new changes also mean it is not really possible to have a reasonable understanding of the full extent of COVID-19’s spread in the country. While other countries have dealt with similar issues as at-home testing became more common, this is a much more complicated problem as China faces a winter of overwhelming case counts.
However, as we discussed on Sunday, provinces are introducing rollbacks at different paces. Now we are also seeing cities reintroducing stricter measures on their own, with Shanghai ordering schools and childcare facilities to close this Monday as cases climb. This has created a confusing patchwork of different policies and requirements, further adding to the chaos unfolding as China exits Zero-COVID. As we mentioned last time, CSIS has a helpful map tracking where provinces are at in terms of rolling back restrictions, though it is still hard to keep track of how individual cities are responding as the situation progresses.
Finally, in perhaps the most shocking change, many in China are being encouraged to go to work still even if they are positive for COVID-19. Earlier this month, with some hospitals reporting as many as 80% of their staff were infected, healthcare workers were encouraged or required to still come into work in order to keep up with demand. Now several local governments in China have asked workers to continue going to work even if they are sick in what many view as a warning of the coming economic problems that will be discussed later in this post. These complete 180° changes are simultaneously removing virtually all precautions while also overtly encouraging further infections by encouraging or requiring those who are sick to continue going around others.
Announcement of Chengdu’s new “2+3” requirements for people arriving to the city. In this scheme, arrivals will take one nucleic acid test on arrival and one on their first day at a quarantine hotel. They will spend just two days in quarantine before staying home for three days afterwards, in contrast to the 7+3 and 5+3 arrangement previously in place. For context, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, locked down entirely for four days just in September to test its 21.2 million residents after 157 cases were detected.
A Glimpse Into What’s Actually Happening?
Despite the impossibly low official counts presenting by the government, a closed-door meeting of the National Health Commission reportedly offered a much better look into how many are currently infected. Reports claim that Sun Yang, Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, informed the commission that at an estimated 37 million people, or about 2.6% of the population, are thought to be recently infected. Estimates from this meeting also indicate that about 248 million Chinese were infected between December 1 and 20, making the cumulative infection rate about 17.56%. The provinces with the high single-day new infection rates are Sichuan, Anhui, Hubei, Shanghai, and Hunan. Perhaps most shockingly, both Sichuan and Beijing are thought to have infection rates over 50%. Finally, infections have spread more rapidly in the Jingjinji Metropolitan Region (the megalopolis of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei), the Chengdu-Chongqing region, Hubei and Central China. In contrast, the Yangtze River Delta (another megalopolis incorporating Shanghai, China’s most populous city), the Pearl River Delta (yet another megalopolis in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area), and the Northwest and Northeast regions of the country are less impacted thus far.
Post from popular Twitter account sharing Chinese social media posts and trends, Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher, featuring posts by netizens discussing the National Health Commission Meeting.
Though these reports indicate health officials believe Beijing is past the peak of this phase, this is still very clearly just the beginning of this disaster. Shanghai has already ordered schools to shutdown in anticipation of growing case counts, in contrast to Beijing (which rolled back essentially all of its COVID-19 policies) and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province and the producer of the 2+3 quarantine poster above. As we will discuss further down in this post, this situation is likely to get far worse as the disease continues to spread in other major metropolitan centers and, eventually, across rural regions of the country, especially with the country’s subpar vaccines and the approaching holiday travel season.
Don’t Shoot the Messenger(RNA): China’s COVID-19 Vaccine Problem
Earlier in the pandemic, China claimed that it was nearing production of a domestically-produced mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 (even going so far as to announce the construction of a facility to manufacture ARCoVax/AWcorna in late 2020) and that it would approve the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech. Today, AWcorna only has emergency use approval in Indonesia, and the only people who have access to the Pfizer/BioNTech shot in China are German expats. China’s vaccination campaign has instead depended on two domestically-produced inactivated offerings-Sinopharm BIBP and CoronaVac. The country did recently approve and rollout CanSino Biologics’ aerosol offering, Convidecia Air, a viral vector vaccine growing in popularity as more Chinese seek out booster doses.
In mid-2021, the WHO approved the initial two offerings for emergency use based on limited clinical-trial data indicating that CoronaVac was about 51% effective while Sinopharm was about 79% effective. This was alright relative to the 63% efficacy reported for AstraZeneca’s viral-vector vaccine, but it was not as effective as the 90%+ reported for the Pfize-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA offerings. Nature News explained the initial criticism of China’s vaccines, writing “Both the Chinese vaccines are inactivated vaccines, which use killed SARS-CoV-2 virus. Researchers say this type of vaccine seems to be less potent because it triggers an immune response against many viral proteins. By contrast, mRNA and viral-vector vaccines target the response to the spike protein, which is what the virus uses to enter human cells.”
These numbers sound okay, especially with a high number of fully-vaccinated individuals in the country, but these efficacy rates were for the original strain found in Wuhan in 2020 and it has been several months since most people received their last dose of vaccine. 90.3% of the population has received the entire initial protocol, but, as of December 20, just 60.5% of the population has received a booster dose. Worse, those numbers shrink to 65.8% and 40% respectively for those over the age of 80 as of November. During Hong Kong’s outbreak earlier this year, similar hesitancy in elderly people (just 20% were vaccinated at the start of the outbreak in February) contributed to widespread death in the city’s nursing facilities. China announced in late December it would push to vaccinate those over the age of 60, though this is likely too little too late now, particularly given Chinese vaccines’ even more limited efficacy against Omicron and its sub-variants.
Finally, as was hinted previously, Macao and Hong Kong have become popular destinations for mainlanders throughout the pandemic, in large part because Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA offering is available in the special administrative regions. The SARs have also largely sold out of cold and flu medications and painkillers after the rollback of Zero-COVID on the mainland as people rush to find these supplies where they could.
Why Isn’t There a Vaccine Mandate?
This issue naturally leads to questions of why the government hasn’t just mandated vaccines already, even if the ones they can offer are not as effective as the mRNA offerings in the West. A vaccine mandate intuitively makes sense at first look, especially as much of the discourse about China’s handling of COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic centered on the potential benefits of authoritarian rule in pandemic response. However, if it isn’t clear yet, China is playing a unique game and even its brand of authoritarianism is not always black-and-white.
There were attempts to create a mandate, with the Beijing Municipal Health Commission announcing one this summer, for example. Dr. Yangzhong Huang at the Council on Foreign Relations explained the announcement in June, writing “On July 7, Li Ang, the deputy head of Beijing Municipal Health Commission (BMHC) announced that beginning on July 11, those who had not received COVID-19 vaccines would be denied access to public venues including libraries, museums, and cinemas. The mandate also stated that those elderly who live in military and civilian retirement and nursing homes, as well as their visitors, be fully vaccinated.”
Chinese social media was lit up with backlash over the mandate and concerns that citizens’ informed consent was being compromised. Others directly asked the municipal government to reverse the policy, which ultimately did happen the very next day on July 8. Many around the world touted this as a victory for the people, but this is bizarre event points to the difficulty in understanding China’s health policies and to a complicated vaccine hesitancy more than a purely anti-vaccine sentiment. As Huang points out, this reversal came in a city where 98% of the residents were fully vaccinated. Furthermore, that explanation does not explain why the government reversed its policy on vaccines but not on other also unpopular measures like central quarantining. This reversal was also in response to social media posts over the course of a day so, while local governments in China do make similar policy reversals in the face of opposition movements, this usually takes much more time and is the result of backlash that is much more serious in nature. While Huang’s piece focuses on fragmented authoritarianism in the CCP and friction between leaders who supported Zero-COVID and mass vaccination, it also offers very important context for understanding vaccine hesitancy in China.
While there are younger people in China who have openly avoided getting vaccinated for COVID-19, this problem is concentrated in the elderly population. Again using the example of Hong Kong this year, 20% were vaccinated at the start of the outbreak in February, in sharp contrast to the more than 60% in that same group who were vaccinated for seasonal influenza. For reasons discussed earlier in this post, it makes sense for Hong Kong’s elderly to be hesitant to take a vaccine offered by the PRC’s government. However, these low rates were true despite the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine being available.
While some point to the initial focus on essential workers as a likely reason why vaccination rates lag in China’s elderly population, a history of scandal is likely in large part to blame. For example, in 2018, Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences was fined ¥ 9.11 billion (about $1.32 billion at the time) after an investigation by the National Medical Products Administration found the company in violation of eight drug regulations. This kind of punishment was at the very least rare and came after some had severe reactions to the company’s rabies vaccine. The incident led many netizens to express their distrust in the country’s pharmaceutical industry, prompting calls from the likes of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang for severe punishment for the company. However, the effects of this and similar events seem to have stuck around.
John Ruwitch discussed this issue recently in a piece for NPR, writing “It wasn’t always like this, according to Mary Brazelton, an expert in the history of science and medicine in China at the University of Cambridge. In the months after the Communist takeover in 1949, the Chinese government launched several successful vaccination campaigns, taking on smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria and other diseases.”
He continues, “If you look at earlier periods in the People’s Republic of China’s history…what you see is in some ways almost the opposite in terms of really strong vaccination programs that work quite hard to convince people, particularly elderly people, to receive vaccines against infectious diseases,” Brazelton says. But lax oversight and corruption during recent decades of breakneck economic growth has led to a string of product quality scandals in China — from baby formula cut with industrial chemicals to contaminated blood thinner and tainted vaccines.”
Now, as the government rushes to try and vaccinate more people, they seem to be pulling out every stop short of using foreign mRNA vaccines, seemingly sticking to the most flawed gun in the safe. Furthermore, this points to a complicated and sensitive situation for Chinese citizens as they try to balance the realities of heavily censored channels of communication, poor signaling and a history of mismanagement from the government, and a desire to protect themselves as best as possible. This situation, unfortunately, is likely to get much worse in the coming weeks as the healthcare system is overwhelmed.
Growing Danger for China’s Broken Healthcare System
Much of the world watched in horror in February 2020 as time lapse footage of Wuhan’s nearly overnight construction of two temporary hospitals to manage COVID-19 cases as the city’s normal hospitals became overburdened dominated news coverage. This wasn’t unique in the government’s epidemic playbook, as it had similarly erected the Xiaotangshan Hospital in Beijing amid the outbreak of SARS in 2003. However, it highlights an important flaw in the playbook. This kind of construction doesn’t really do much in the absence of an appropriately sized and prepared healthcare workforce. China faced a shortage of physicians and nurses well before the pandemic, a fact made much worse once case counts soared in 2020. Furthermore, as diseases spread across the country, Chinese rural citizens are typically left much less protected than their urban counterparts. These are central issues to the looming COVID-19 crisis unfurling in the country today.
The PRC has undergone significant healthcare reforms in the last decade or so, in large part through the Healthy China 2020 initiative, which sought to cut healthcare costs by increasing the percentage of care covered by insurance. Furthermore, as of 2020, about 95% of the population has at least some form of health insurance, though it typically covers only about half of medical costs. Coverage is split between employee medical insurance for employed urban residents, and resident medical insurance for unemployed urban and rural residents. About 75% of those insured in the country are insured by the resident medical insurance program, pointing to the sheer portion of the population that is either rural and unemployed.
This is an especially concerning fact as the healthcare system is overly reliant on urban hospitals for basic healthcare. The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) notes that hospitals account for 3.5% of medical institutions in China despite handling 45% of all outpatient visits. So, while the Party views quality healthcare delivery as an important part of its political agenda and there have been improvements in coverage and care, there are still serious issues in providing quality care nationally. As is often the case, corruption is a large part of this problem. As the USCC explains:
“Corruption among China’s hospitals and doctors is a widely acknowledged problem that has contributed to a low level of public trust in the country’s healthcare system and at times led to violence against Chinese doctors. In many cases, doctors accept illicit payments, known as hongbao, from patients in exchange for a higher quality of care. The practice of hongbao is widespread in China: in a 2013 survey of residents of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, nearly one-third of respondents said they or a family member had given hongbao to physicians between 2000 and 2012. In addition to accepting these payments from patients, doctors and hospital officials also receive kickbacks for purchasing certain types of medical equipment or pharmaceutical products, a practice that has been described as “endemic” in China. In a 2010 survey of Chinese doctors, 78 percent of respondents said healthcare companies could not compete in China without paying bribes.”
This seems to bleed into patient distrust of medical clinics, interestingly, contributing to the over-reliance on hospitals to treat minor conditions. Beyond simple perceived incompetence of clinic physicians, there is a cycle of patient-physician mistrust at this level, as Nie at al. have discussed in Developing World Bioethics. They write, “Mistrust (particularly physicians’ distrust of patients and their relatives) leads to increased levels of fear and self-protection by doctors which exacerbate difficulties in communication; in turn, this increases physician workloads, adding to a strong sense of injustice and victimization. These factors produce poorer healthcare outcomes and increasingly discontented and angry patients, escalate conflicts and disputes, and result in negative media coverage, all these ultimately contributing to even greater levels of mistrust.”
This is worse at small clinics, with providers enduring verbal and physical abuse at the hands of patients’ loved ones. There is even a recently coined term, zhiye yilao that describes a “medical mob”, or “people who support families and their relatives in demanding financial compensation from hospitals following medical disputes, as Nie et al. highlight. While many of China’s elites can afford to simply seek care at a private hospital, this is not the case for the majority of Chinese who rely on public hospitals and clinics for their care, particularly those who live in rural areas.
Rural citizens typically either use small clinics or travel to wait in lines in an attempt to get into a hospital, further burdening the system. These rural clinics are often understaffed and poorly equipped, and the national health insurance scheme creates incentives to hospitalize people with relatively minor problems, which is especially problematic for these rural populations. Socioeconomic determinants associated with rural living and resources also contribute to the stark difference in health outcomes between China’s urban and rural populations. Rural residents also are at higher risk of developing many chronic conditions like heart disease, putting them at increased risk during outbreaks of infectious diseases like COVID-19.
As cases climb in urban centers, there are distressing signs that the much better-equipped urban hospitals are becoming overrun. As we discussed, many hospitals are requiring sick staff to still come into work as individual patient loads continue to swell. We and others have also stressed, too, that China does not have the kind of ICU capacity needed to deal with what it faces. This is true in urban centers, but even more so in rural areas, where there are also 30% fewer healthcare workers available. Furthermore, retired physicians and other professionals across the country are currently being called upon to help support efforts to combat the current surge in Beijing. All these signs point to major trouble in urban centers, indicating it is likely to be much worse for rural regions of the country.
As the Spring Festival travel rush, chunyun, approaches, many will travel from urban centers to their rural hometowns, likely spreading COVID-19 to these vulnerable areas. While many are currently opting to stay home on their own and a number of universities have given students the option to finish the semester virtually to cut down on travel, these factors might not be enough to protect these places from becoming overwhelmed in the coming weeks. As a result, the Party has urged local governments to upgrade their facilities and prepare for the oncoming waves. South China Morning Postreports that, “In a directive on Sunday, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council asked rural hospitals and clinics to ensure pandemic medical services and timely treatment for high-risk patients, such as the elderly and people with underlying diseases.”
The directive reads in part, “Rural areas should…improve the ability of county-level hospitals to treat severe cases, and give full play to the role of health monitoring in township hospitals and village clinics to minimise the severity rate and mortality rate.” However, there is clearly no overnight fix for the kinds of deficiencies rural healthcare facilities struggle with. Despite this, Ma Xiaowei, Director of the National Health Commission, demanded on Wednesday that hospitals address swamped emergency rooms and get patients admitted to different departments. Ma also requested that medium and large hospitals accept more severe cases while promising that regulators will not hold them accountable for increasing fatality rates, according to the Financial Times.
Imploring under-equipped rural healthcare institutions and swamped urbans ones to suddenly improve their ability to treat an onslaught of severe cases is almost an unimaginable request, even for the State Council, as the country had over two years to get ready for its Zero-COVID exit. This complete failure of policymaking and pandemic management will almost certainly cost an unimaginable number of lives, irreversibly harm many people who do survive, further damage China’s and the global economy, and leave many demanding to know why the government did not prepare for this during the years the country spent shutdown.
What Does All This Mean Long-Term?
Just a couple weeks ago, testing positive for COVID-19, even if symptoms were mild or non-existent, was an express ticket to a government quarantine center for however long it took until the government decided one could leave. Shanghai shutdown for all of April and May just months ago, wreaking havoc on the local and national economy and causing global supply chain disruptions. The Party spent the last couple years pushing the message that this “devil” virus was so incredibly dangerous that it was worth it to continue these lockdowns and economic hardships. Today, however, the government insists COVID-19 is basically a cold, that nothing much will come of being infected, and that everything from herbal supplements to canned peaches are good remedies for it. This complete turnaround has many anxiously waiting for the economic consequences and wondering what this means for Xi Jinping and the Party in the long-run.
It’s the Economy, Shagua!
The CCP and State Council recently wrapped up the annual Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC), a meeting that sets the Party’s national economic agenda and directives for the financial and banking sector for the next year. At the meeting, Xi Jinping, who has been remarkably quiet since the end of Zero-COVID, gave a speech in which he indicated that China’s economy is expected to recover and improve in 2023, a tall order given the situation. A number of other critical points were made in an attempt to address the intense downward pressure the national economy is under, explicitly recognizing that the domestic economy has weak prospects coupled with unstable supply chains and shrinking demand.
Another critical point of the CEWC was that, “The meeting urged efforts to deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) while improving their core competitiveness, requiring that legal and institutional arrangements must be made to ensure the equal treatment of private enterprises and SOEs.” While China’s 2001 accession into the World trade Organization was contingent on achieving predominantly “market economy conditions,” the Chinese economy never truly transformed into a market-based one. Rather, despite some reforms in the 1990s and early 2000s, the government has maintained large SOEs in strategic and financial sectors while also maintaining policies that strongly favor these companies. Nicholas Borst explained the logic behind this succinctly for the Lowy Institute, writing “Rather than allowing the private sector more space, Beijing wants a tool for the implementation of government policy.”
In 2021, China had over 150,000 SOEs, with most of its FortuneGlobal 500 companies under state control. In 2019, SOEs accounted for more than 60% of the PRC’s market capitalization while accounting for 40% of its national GDP. For context, in 2019, Chinese SOEs made up more than 4.5% of the global economy–and now they are going to be treated equally with private businesses in China. This marks an important change as the Party also looks to increase demand by ensuring higher quality supply, and get a better hold on the deleveraging of the country’s real estate industry, stating that bail outs will come only if companies have well-founded plans for recovery. Just last month, amid further reduced apartment sales, the cabinet urged banks (again, most of which are SOEs) to increase loans for completion of unfinished apartments, with the central People’s Bank of China going so far as to reduce “by $70 billion the money that the country’s commercial banks are together required to hold for emergencies, freeing them to lend that money instead.”
Is This China’s Lehman Moment?
The current real estate crisis in China offers a particularly concerning look into just how damaging the sudden removal of Zero-COVID policies in the country could be both domestically and internationally. In recent years, it has been clear China’s real estate market was heading for trouble, with many people paying mortgages on apartments that are not even finished contrasting with the estimated 65 million units (1/5 of the homes available in the country) sitting completely open in China’s ghost cities. In late September last year, China Evergrande Group, China’s second largest property group, was forced to begin payments on its hundreds of billions of dollars in debt amid new regulations on developers’ debt limits. This started the current real estate sector crisis as when it caused several stock market indices to drop on September 20, 2021.
In the last year, it seemed that the Party was concerned the crisis would worsen in the absence of Zero-COVID restrictions. As Keith Bradsher explains in the New York Times, “Real estate development plays an outsize role in China’s economy, representing about a quarter of economic output and a quarter of its bank loans. Housing represents at least three-fifths of household assets in China, and many Chinese regard apartments as the only reliable way to build wealth.” This seemed to leave the Party locked into the restrictions in an effort to protect such an important but struggling part of its economy. Today, however, Zero-COVID is dead and the Party has indicated it wants less borrowing overall and that companies will only be bailed out if they present “well-founded” plans.
In the last year, the government has spent heavily on new railways and other infrastructure investments to try and help the economy amid low confidence, but that was with consistent COVID-19 policies in place. Furthermore, there have been concerns that injecting too much credit too quickly would be counterproductive to the goals of getting companies to borrow less and strengthen their balance sheets. In the real estate sector, the country has to somehow balance achieving sustainable growth and lowering prices, but that is not going to happen if sales keep falling. For example, in Shanghai this year, luxury apartment prices fell as much as 40% after the Party Congress because of concerns about the economic and political direction the country will take in Xi Jinping’s third term.
The CCP is Anything but a Party Right Now
Today, it is hard to fault those in Shanghai for selling off their multi-million dollar properties while they could. Models range in their estimated COVID-19 deaths in China in the absence of Zero-COVID, with some predicting under one million and some going over two million. This high of a number of deaths so suddenly, particularly as a result of the sudden end of virtually all precautions after years of constant testing and lockdowns, will be politically difficult to manage.
This also does not touch on how many Chinese will likely suffer from Long COVID and other long-term conditions if they do recover from COVID-19, something many other countries have had to learn the hard way. In the US, it is estimated that Long COVID costs the economy $3.7 trillion. While the US certainly has struggled with its COVID-19 response, it at least has effective vaccines. In September, Chinese state media was full of pieces talking about the “West’s hidden pandemic” of Long COVID and, now, it is nearly impossible to find any PRC official discussing this condition. The narrative has done a complete 180° on all fronts.
The threat of suddenly losing one million people completely and leaving an untold number burdened with long-lasting symptoms should be enough to make anyone reconsider their policy decisions. However, this is difficult for someone like Xi Jinping who has spent years building an image of infallibility while also championing Zero-COVID the last two years. He has often relied on rhetoric describing pandemic response as a war and continuously touted China’s unique approach as a better alternative to the “chaos of the West.” It is hard to believe what is happening in Xi’s China today is anything but complete chaos, and no amount of internet censorship and state media pieces about the supposed correctness of this new approach can keep the population totally unaware of that fact.
It still is not clear why Xi Jinping suddenly reversed course on Zero-COVID, even in the face of protests against the largely unpopular policy. Furthermore, as Xi begins his historic third term, he does so coming off a year of remarkable failure. As James Palmer recently pointed out in Foreign Policy, the once seemingly boring, safe choice in Chinese politics has proven to be anything but in the years since he took power, eliminated competition, and doubled down on state control over every facet of life in his country. Now, with mass death and further economic turmoil on the horizon, what will happen next for Xi Jinping and the CCP?
The Pandora Report 