In the wrong hands...

I read Stephen King's The Stand as a kid. Twelve Monkeys is one of my favorite movies. And I've always been fascinated by biology and am studying it now.

And I have to say that one of the more worrisome developments in the world is the spread of biotechnology. It's getting easier and cheaper every day to tinker with germs...

A new government report is coming out soon; the Washington Post obtained a draft. From their article:

No single government agency has authority to oversee security at these U.S. labs, most of which are run by private companies or universities. Such facilities in the United States "are not regulated" unless they obtain government funding or acquire pathogens from the government's list of known biowarfare agents. Because of this gap, labs can work with "dangerous but unlisted pathogens, such as the SARS virus," which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, without the government's knowledge.

Internationally, the challenges are even greater. While the U.S. government continues to spend billions of dollars to secure Cold-War-era nuclear stockpiles, similar efforts to dismantle Soviet bioweapons facilities have been scaled back because of disagreements with the Russian government, the report notes. The only global treaty that outlaws the development of biological weapons has no mechanism for inspections or enforcement. Efforts to strengthen the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention were dealt a symbolic blow in 2001 when the Bush administration withdrew its support for a new accord that had been under negotiation for six years.

Meanwhile, the growth in biodefense research seen in the United States has spread to dozens of countries, including developing nations such as Malaysia and Cuba that are investing heavily to develop world-class biotech industries. One of the fastest-growing technologies is DNA synthesis, which offers new capabilities to alter the genes of existing pathogens or synthesize them artificially. While governments, trade groups and professional organizations are experimenting with various voluntary controls over such new capabilities, the United States should lead a global effort to strengthen oversight and clamp down on the unregulated export of deadly microbes, the panel said.

"Rapid scientific advances and the global spread of biotechnology equipment and know-how are currently outpacing the modest international attempts to promote biosecurity," the report says.

More from the New York Times here.

I read most of Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War a year ago. We ended our own biological weapons program when we signed a treaty prohibiting such weapons in 1972. The problem is that a lot has changed since then... research programs that might once have required dozens of scientists and required large expenditures can now be undertaken by a handful of people at a fraction of the cost. It's no longer an issue of what a foreign country might do.

And this is one of those challenges for which I have no good ideas beyond improving our readiness for the inevitable attack. Right now the U.S. public health system is woefully unprepared...

UPDATE: Get this... the Pentagon plans to have 20,000 troops ready to respond to a domestic attack (nuclear or otherwise) by... 2011! Only ten years after 9/11. Now that's what I call a rapid response.