“Ethical and Philosophical Consideration of the Dual-use
Dilemma in the Biological Sciences”
1 December 2007
***
What is the Dual-use Dilemma?
The so-called “dual-use dilemma” arises in the context of research in the biological and other sciences as a consequence of the fact that one and the same piece of scientific research sometimes has the potential to be used for harm as well as for good.
***
[T]he dilemma arises for the researcher because of the potential
actions of others. Malevolent non-researchers might steal dangerous biological agents produced by the researcher; alternatively, other researchers or at least their governments or leadership might use the results of the original researcher’s work for malevolent purposes. The malevolent purposes in question include bioterrorism, biowarfare and blackmail for financial gain.
***
Further, there have been a number of acts, or attempted acts, of bioterrorism,
notably by the Aum Shinrikyo in Japan (they attempted to acquire and use anthrax and botulinum toxin), Al-Qaeda (they attempted to acquire and use anthrax) and the so-called Amerithrax attacks (involving the actual use of anthrax).
In the aftermath of the 11th September 2001 attacks in the US, bioterrorism is widely considered to be a real threat, especially to populations in western countries. Moreover, it is seen as a greater threat from non-state terrorist groups than, say, nuclear WMDs, given the availability of the materials and technical knowledge necessary to produce the relevant biological agents and the feasibility of weaponisation. This is not to say that there are not obstacles for would-be bioterrorists, including the dangers to themselves in handling pathogens. But it is to say that there is a non-negligible bioterrorist threat, and it is likely to increase rather than decrease.
***
Experiments of Concern
***
Enable the Evasion of Diagnosis and/or Detection by Established Methods
***
Examples
Microencapsulation of pathogen particles would be one way of avoiding
antibody-based detection, although this technique has no analogue in nature. As such, microencapsulation would only be carried out for an offensive BW purpose (such as delivery of a pathogen to the lower intestine) or to investigate the requirements for protection against such a threat.
***
Project Jefferson. In September 2001 the New York Times revealed the existence of a classified US biodefence project (Project Jefferson) which, in early 2001, involved the production of a vaccine-resistant strain of anthrax bacteria [152]. The purpose was to reproduce results of Russian research published by Vaccine in 1997.
The researchers inserted genes from B cereus into B anthracis and showed that the engineered bacteria were highly lethal against hamsters, even when they had been inoculated with Russia’s standard anthrax vaccine [44, 142]. The US officials involved in Project Jefferson were reportedly mindful of the BWC and the need for protective intent. Accordingly, the project was to produce only small quantities — one gram or less — of the modified anthrax [85, p. 309]. Though the Soviets allegedly had the capacity to produce 4,500 metric tons of anthrax yearly [85, p.
254], strictly speaking even one gram of anthrax is a large quantity, capable of infecting thousands of people if a suitable dried spore preparation is made.
When Project Jefferson produced a vaccine-resistant, genetically modified
biological agent, it was only verifying something that had already turned up in the scientific literature. It is a different matter to produce modified pathogens that no one, potential adversary or otherwise, has ever created.
Enable the Weaponization of a Biological Agent or Toxin
Experiments of this kind test the bounds of permissibility most severely.
Weaponized agents do not exist in nature, and so (absent the threat of biological weapons attack) there is no ongoing public health imperative for protective mechanisms as there is against a naturally occurring infectious disease threat.
The Dual-use Dilemma Understanding weaponization processes may facilitate the development of protections against a potential BW perpetrator (including a nationstate contemplating a terrorist attack on civilians). Our focus here will be on the weaponisation of biological agents by nation-states, as opposed to the processes for delivery of biological agents that might be used by non-state actors contemplating a terrorist attack. (We do not thereby mean to imply that the threat assessment in relation to the latter is not important; clearly it is of enormous importance.)
Weaponization for “threat assessment” purposes is likely to be interpreted by
outsiders as simply the production of BW, thus endangering the norm against their production, driving a biological arms race, and making biological attacks more likely.
Examples Project Clear Vision. In September 2001, the New York Times revealed the existence of a classified US biodefence project (Project Clear Vision) which, from 1997 to 2000, involved building and testing a Soviet-model bomblet for dispersing bacteria [152]. This involved tests of bacteria bomblets, built according to a Soviet design, and conducted by Battelle, a military contractor in Columbus, Ohio. The bomblets were reportedly filled with simulant pathogens and tested for their dissemination characteristics and performance under different atmospheric conditions. Experiments in a wind tunnel revealed how the bomblets, after being released from a warhead, would fall on targets [85, p. 295]. Before the testing took place, some US government legal experts had argued the experiments were not a
breach of the BWC provided they were not intended for offensive purposes. Other officials argued that a weapon was, by definition, meant to inflict harm and therefore crossed the boundary into offensive work: “A bomb was a bomb was a bomb”.2
***
Aerosolization. Small-scale aerosolization technology may be useful for administering individual doses of inhaled vaccine or antiviral therapy (such as ribavirin) to humans, and larger-scale aerosolization could be used for mass-vaccination of animals —for example, in the poultry industry. It is hard to imagine large-scale aerosolization being therapeutically useful for humans, although such technology would certainly have enormous value for the purpose of delivering BW agents. Such technology might also be developed and tested for protective purposes. One of the principal aims of the NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda, for example, is to ensure adequate numbers of BSL-3 [Biosafety Level Three] facilities with aerosol challenge capacity. [161, p. 8].
NBACC. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center
(NBACC), due to be completed in 2008, is intended to provide the United States with high-containment laboratory space for biological threat characterization and bioforensic research. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, NBACC will form part of the National Interagency Biodefense Campus at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Its programs will investigate the infectious properties of biological agents, the effectiveness of countermeasures, decontamination procedures, and forensic analysis. Part of NBACC is the Biological Threat Characterization Center, which will conduct laboratory experiments aimed at investigating current and future biological threats. The Center will also assess vulnerabilities, conduct risk assessments, and determine potential impacts in order to guide the development of countermeasures such as detectors, vaccines, drugs, and decontamination technologies [135].
Many of the activities to be undertaken by NBACC could readily be interpreted
by outsiders as the development of BW under the guise of threat assessment. In particular, weaponization projects and the construction of novel (not previously existing) pathogens arguably constitute impermissible research. In a February 2004 presentation, George Korch, Deputy Director of NBACC, revealed that one of its research units intended to pursue a range of topics including “aerosol dynamics”, “novel packaging”, “novel delivery of threat”, “genetic engineering”, and “red teaming.” At one point in his presentation, Korch summarized the threat assessment task areas as: Acquire, Grow, Modify, Store, Stabilize, Package, Disperse [38, 115, 117]. Such language is identical to that which would describe the functions of an offensive BW program.
***
Ashraf Ali, sender of October 2001 white powder hoax letters to jewish organizations and a media organization in the UK saying “All Jews Die”, “World Trade Centre” and “Pentagon” pleads guilty.
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=60389&ATypeId=1
Ashraf Ali was caught six years later when forensic experts matched his DNA to samples found on the letters.
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/Man-faces-jail-for-campaign.4135928.jp
He had included pictures and annotated them.
Each year, for the past decade, there have been many hundreds of hoax letters. In November 2001 (as I recall) there was a letter to Senator Daschle. Proponents of a Hatfill Theory thought a letter from England while Hatfill was at a conference there in November dovetailed nicely with a Hatfill theory. But why, after sending the real thing, would he then send a hoax letter from a country where he had just quite publicly traveled? While the relevance of that November hoax letter would depend on the details (which have not been disclosed), in broad outline it did not fit a Hatfill Theory. He would have had no reason to draw attention to himself in that way.