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This was posted on another thread but is relevant to TM.

Bioterrorism 101
8/5/04 | razoroccam

Posted on 08/05/2004 7:37:37 AM MDT by razoroccam

The anthrax attacks and smallpox scare have thrust bioterrorism into the spotlight. Never before has the average person been so cognizant of the negative potential of research in the biological sciences.

However, the truth is that the scare, though hyped by some accounts, does not adequately convey the danger involved.

The danger is that by altering bacterial and viral DNA, a terrorist could create an agent far more devastating than the bugs featuring in today’s headlines.

And these agents could cause far more damage than nuclear weapons could.

After all, let us not forget that the largest mass casualties in human history were caused by biological weapons - smallpox (which killed approximately 27 million Incas) and plague (which killed about as many Europeans).

"In light of the September 11 tragedy, we can no longer afford to be complacent about the possibility of biological terrorism,” warns a commentary in Nature Genetics. “The revolution in biology could be misused in offensive biological weapons programs, directed against human beings and their staple crops and livestock.”

The 20th century saw seven countries by known count — Britain, France, Germany, Iraq, Japan, the Soviet Union and the US — embark on programs to identify, manufacture and weaponize killer agents. But the next generation of biological weapons may exploit knowledge about genomes, with calamitous effect.

A couple of years from now, there may be as many as 70 pathogens whose genetic code has been cracked.

The genome of cholera, leprosy, the plague and tuberculosis are already in the public domain, as is Staphylococcus aureus that is becoming resistant to antibiotics.

There is fear that a bioterrorist with lots of money and a good laboratory could use this readily available data, inserting or swapping genes in bacteria and viruses to create new, horrifyingly virulent agents.

There are at least two documented cases in which biologists have created doomsday bugs.

One was a strain of the common intestinal bug Escherichia coli that was 32,000 times more resistant to the antibiotic cefotaxime than conventional strains.

The superbug’s creator was Willem Stemmer, chief scientist with Maxygen, a California pharmaceutical research firm, who was exploring the function of resistance genes in bacteria.

The technique used, DNA shuffling, involves shattering multiple copies of a gene and then reassembling them. The process produces a range of daughter genes with the fragments stitched together in subtle but new ways.

The enzymes involved in the re-assembly are prone to errors, leading to mutations, and therefore greater diversity. The daughter genes can then be re-introduced into the bacteria and the resultant bacteria with the desired strains (such as those good as biological agents) selected.

Fragments from different bacteria can be mixed and matched by this technique. Needless to say, the potential of this in the wrong hands is enormous.

In response to an appeal by the American Society for Microbiology, the E.coli created by Stemmer was destroyed.

In another example, Australian scientists Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw unwittingly created a vicious strain of mousepox, a cousin of smallpox.

They were attempting to control the population of mice by altering the genes of mousepox to make it more lethal. To create their mouse contraceptive, they took a relatively benign strain of mousepox and added genes for proteins carried on the surface of mouse eggs.

The idea was that cells infected by the viruses would churn out egg proteins, causing female mice to produce antibodies against their own eggs.

To maximize the vaccine’s effectiveness, Jackson and Ramshaw also engineered the virus so that it contained the gene for interleukin 4, a cytokine that boosts antibody production. The IL-4 gene also shut down the mice cellular immune response so they were unable to fight off the virus.

The effect was lethal, with mice that were previously immunized against mousepox dying within days.

The implications for smallpox are obvious and profound - what would happen if the gene for IL-4 was introduced into the smallpox virus?

Would the present vaccines even work?

When the Australian scientists realized the implications of their creation, they destroyed the virus and then went public with their findings to draw attention to the potential abuse of biotechnology.

Biological weapons using recombinant technology are not implausible.

....

In addition, it is possibile that bugs could be tailored to attack certain ethnic groups, based on the genotype of that ethnic group.

Attempts to identify bacteria or virus thus should not only include the ability to detect microorganisms in trace amounts, but also to identify them so as to take appropriate counter measures early.

XX, MD Ph.D Author, Germs of War (Booksurge.com)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185500/posts

UK Navy: Al Qaeda Has Plan to Target Shipping

Aug. 5, 2004 — By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - Intelligence shows al Qaeda has plans to target merchant shipping in a bid to disrupt world trade, Britain's top navy officer said in an interview published on Thursday.

"We have got an underlying level of intelligence which shows there is a threat," the Royal Navy's First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, was quoted as saying by Lloyd's List maritime newspaper.

The Defense Ministry confirmed West had given the interview in which he reiterated previous warnings about the threat of an attack on the world's commercial fleets.

"What we've noticed is that al Qaeda and other organizations have an awareness about maritime trade ... They've realized how important it is for world trade in general," he said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, governments and security experts have repeatedly voiced fears about the vulnerability of the shipping industry, which carries more than 90 percent of the world's traded goods.

The British naval chief said Western governments had intelligence that showed extreme groups viewed ships as iconic targets and had plans to blow them up. "We've seen other plans from intelligence of attacks on merchant shipping," he said.

"I can't give you detail on any of that, clearly, but we are aware that they have plans and (that) they've looked at this," West was quoted as telling the paper.

The Defense Ministry said the comments related to existing naval intelligence and were not based on new attack-specific reports. "He did not say that there was any new intelligence to suggest an imminent attack," a spokesman said.

The spokesman said the admiral had chosen to talk about the maritime threat because he was visiting a region of the world -- Gibraltar -- that was heavily reliant on shipping.

MARITIME STRATEGY

West said ports and strategic sea lanes like the Malacca Straits, the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Gibraltar posed the biggest risks as ships stack up in large numbers.

While the threat is not new, the stark nature of the warning by a senior military figure is likely to throw the spotlight back on the maritime industry and efforts to tighten security.

Through the arrests of top suspects, al Qaeda is known to have a maritime arm.

In 2002, extremists linked to al Qaeda attacked the French supertanker the Limburg off Yemen, killing a member of the crew and setting the tanker ablaze.

In October 2000 the bombing of the USS Cole killed 17 U.S. navy personnel.

In 2002, a potential attack was thwarted after a group of Moroccan extremists were caught planning attacks on the Strait of Gibraltar -- the western gateway to the Mediterranean. In April suicide bombers linked to al Qaeda launched three boat attacks close to Iraq's crucial Basra oil terminal and two oil tankers. Three U.S. Navy sailors were killed and others injured.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040805_134.html