Boyle: Stop US Biowar at Los Alamos! Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Francis Boyle" STOP US BIOWARFARE AT LOS ALAMOS! "Boyle theorizes that the people behind the recent anthrax attacks were trained in the United States and probably funded by the government, which embarked on a wide variety of biological weapons research under both Clinton and Reagan." Albuquerque Journal - November 11, 2001 LAB: BIO UNIT CRUCIAL LANL Hopes To Boost Anthrax Response by Jennifer McKee LOS ALAMOS--Jill Trewhella cannot hide her pride in the role her team is playing in trying to solve the anthrax puzzle. "Yes," said the head of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Biosciences Division, "we're working on it." Los Alamos studied anthrax for years before the disease made headlines. Now, the lab is playing a part in tracking down the source of the bacteria that has killed four Americans and sickened at least 13 others since September. But Trewhella and the lab would like to do more. This spring, the lab and its government overseer, the National Nuclear Security Administration, announced plans to take LANL's anthrax work into uncharted territory. The government proposes building a Biosafety Level Three laboratory at Los Alamos where scientists would work with live anthrax and other deadly, disease-causing bacteria. The DOE has not decided on an exact site for the proposed lab and has no firm completion dates or cost figures. But such plans signal a big step for anthrax research both at Los Alamos and within the National Nuclear Security Administration. And a controversial one. Trewhella said the new lab, a "BSL-3" in bio-researcher slang, would allow LANL to develop faster responses to potential biological attacks or to thwart such an attack. Others, like the Federation of American Scientists and the Illinois law professor who wrote the law banning biological weapons in America, say the proposed lab suggests something darker. They wonder whether it may be part of a larger government program of so-called "dual use" biological research, studies that can be used to stop a biological attack or launch one. Prefab or permanent Los Alamos' specific requests are rather modest. The lab proposes to build a 3,000-square-foot, one-story building housing three research labs. One would be BSL-3, and two labs would be similar to those Los Alamos already has, labs that will not handle living, disease-causing microbes. The Energy Department released an environmental assessment on the proposed lab late last month. The assessment spells out the three options DOE is considering for the lab: a permanent building; a prefabricated lab; or a small, temporary prefab lab while the permanent building is under construction. The assessment starts the clock running on a 21-day window of public comment. Even without the facility, Los Alamos lab has racked up a considerable amount of information on anthrax, the most infamous bug studied there. The lab specializes in "Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism," a method of "fingerprinting" specific strains of anthrax. Using a unique technique, the lab analyzes the germ's DNA to figure out where the bug originated and whether more than one genetic variety of anthrax was involved in an anthrax attack. It can also tell if someone genetically changed the bacteria, and even if he tried and failed, Trewhella said. Using this technique, lab scientists have accumulated the world's largest library of anthrax genetic information. But the scientists have a major hurdle, Trewhella said: They can't handle live, disease-causing anthrax. That means they must have scientists somewhere with a BSL-3 lab extract anthrax DNA and ship it to Los Alamos. It also means that Los Alamos scientists have less control over the quality and purity of what they study. Lab scientists once ordered anthrax DNA and ended up with a sample contaminated with a common skin microbe. Plus, lab scientists' work is growing, thanks in large part to anxiety about a possible biological attack on America and a 1996 law calling for the United States to understand the pathogens that could be used as weapons against this country and make defensive preparations. The Energy Department responded by turning the national labs' attention to chemical and biological threats. But the agency has no BSL-3 lab and cannot handle the very bugs the agency is trying to understand. The United States has hundreds of private and university BSL-3 labs, including one in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. But getting access to them is increasingly difficult, according to the DOE, and some do not have the security the agency would like. The latest anthrax attacks by mail seem to justify the work Los Alamos scientists have been doing, Trewhella said, and a BSL-3 lab would only expand that research. "Somebody needs to be working on this," she said. What is research? But Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, contends that Los Alamos lab is the last place this kind of research should take place. "It is a known United States weapons lab and the only conclusion would be that this is being done for weapons purposes," he said. Boyle wrote the law implementing the international Biological Weapons Convention in the United States, a document that forbids developing biological weapons but does not include any kind of international verification. Boyle is also a member of the Committee for Responsible Genetics, which last weekend condemned pending genetics engineering of anthrax sponsored by the U.S. government. The problem, he said, is that it is tough to define what is research designed to fight biological weapons and what is research designed to make them. Susan Wright, a University of Michigan research scientist and member of the Committee for Responsible Genetics, said the line is so fuzzy, it doesn't exist. She criticized President Bush for leaving international talks last summer aimed at finding a way to enforce the law with international inspections of biological weapons research. Boyle points to new revelations, uncovered by The New York Times early in September, which show that the United States has already engaged in secret biological weapons research that, in his opinion, violates the convention. Specifically, the Pentagon built a biological weapons production plant at the DOE Nevada Test Site, using products legally available on the open market between 1997 and 2000. The CIA built and tested a prototype of a Soviet-built biological bomb. The Pentagon now proposes genetically modifying Bacillus anthracis, splicing it with a microbe that causes food poisoning, producing a bacterium resistant to existing vaccines. In each case, the agencies said they conducted research for defensive purposes. In the case of genetically modified anthrax, U.S. scientists would only be replicating research by Russian scientists, who pioneered the experiments and published their findings. Even if the research isn't aimed at offensive purposes, Boyle said, simply training scientists to conduct such experiments makes for a more uncertain world it is giving people a deadly know-how that can be very difficult to control. Boyle theorizes that the people behind the recent anthrax attacks were trained in the United States and probably funded by the government, which embarked on a wide variety of biological weapons research under both Clinton and Reagan. He sees the proposed Los Alamos lab as part of a much larger biological weapons program, and if it opens at all, Boyle said the facility should be subject to international inspectors. "If anything needs to be done, the Pentagon and the DOE should be out of it completely," Boyle said. Copyright (c) 2001 Albuquerque Journal Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954(voice) 217-244-1478(fax) e-mail: fboyle@law.uiuc.edu ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-11.19.01-20:14:07-22704