Biochemical Advances Create New Weapons Potential

GSN: ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Advances in biochemistry could lead to the development of new agents capable of causing terror, pain and a host of other effects, an expert said Saturday (see GSN, April 21, 2004).

These weapons could be used by law enforcement and the military to reduce casualties during engagements, but also would risk falling into the hands of torturers and terrorists, said Mark Wheelis, a senior microbiology lecturer at the University of California, Davis.

“We will not be just equipping our police and our military, we will also be equipping our adversaries,” Wheelis said during a panel discussion on biological weapons at the 2006 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Genomics — the study of an organism’s genetic material — is paving the way for development of a wide range of “bioregulators” that target highly specific physiological processes with reduced side effects. Making these pharmaceuticals ready for public use would cost millions of dollars and take years, but eventually they could be used to treat physical pain, mental illness and other “dysfunctional states,” according to Wheelis.

However, it would not be an inconceivable step to turn these drugs against people, Wheelis said: “Some of these products have potential as weapons.”

The militaries of Russia, the United States and other nations are already believed to be in possession of or looking toward new forms of incapacitating weaponry, he said.

Russian forces are believed to have used an aerosol version of the synthetic opiate fentanyl in several hostage situations, including the 2002 incident at a Moscow theater in which more than 100 hostages died after exposure to the gas. U.S. special operations forces have also been said to have a “knockout gas” in their arsenal, Wheelis said (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2002). “There’s almost certainly interest from a wide variety of other countries in these types of agents,” he said.

“Pharmaceutical-like” compounds in gas form could increase the capability of military or police personnel to end hostage situations, pacify prisoners or clear buildings during urban warfare — hopefully without killing their targets.

These drugs could advance to the point in which they would be able to cause anxiety, depression, stupor, terror, pain or paralysis, Wheelis said. Sending an enemy combatant into a stupor or leaving him immobile removes that person as a threat.

New drugs potentially put new weapons in the hands of terrorists, criminals, torturers, interrogators, dictators and enemy militaries, Wheelis said.

He noted that people with bad intentions already regularly use incapacitating agents. Robbers use pepper spray on their targets and date rapists use the drug Rohypnol to subdue their victims and limit their memory of being assaulted. There have also been allegations of psychiatric medications used on prisoners at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Wheelis said.

Using bioregulators as weapons would also undermine the international norms against use of chemical weapons and of using pharmaceuticals for nontherapeutic purposes, Wheelis said.

Scientific progress cannot be stopped, so policies must be prepared to prevent the use of these potential weapons, he said. Nations and international bodies must “preserve, define and strengthen” the boundaries between permitted law-enforcement activities and the prohibition against use of toxic chemicals. Human rights must also be recognized to include the protection against nonconsensual physiological manipulation, Wheelis said.

Wheelis and fellow panelists gave a grim assessment of the present and future of biological weapons and biological defense. They warned, though, against overstating the threat posed by bioterrorism.

While weaponized forms of naturally occurring toxins such as anthrax and smallpox are likely to remain the main biological threat for the foreseeable future, technology is pushing weapons beyond those “traditional” agents, said panel moderator Alan Pearson, Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.

The door has opened for “enhanced” weapons engineered for increased virulence or resistance to countermeasures, Pearson said. For example, it was reported last year that Australian scientists had accidentally produced a form of mousepox able to infect vaccinated mice (see GSN, March 21, 2005).

Another threat would come from “advanced” agents that target a specific biological process, such as the immune system or heart functions.

The danger comes not just from terrorism but from potential state programs, Pearson said. Terrorists, in fact, are not yet thought capable of preparing a biological weapon.

“Even those who are most concerned about the bioterrorism problem will tell you that terrorists don’t yet have the capability for a substantial bioterrorism attack,” Pearson said. “We’re not at doom and gloom right now.”

The task now is to keep the theoretical threat from becoming an actual threat, he said. That means preparing further measures to prevent the use of biological weapons and plans and materials for responding to an attack should one occur.

“Nothing we do may be 100 percent. The goal here is to reduce the risk as much as we possibly can,” Pearson said.

The U.S. biodefense policy established in 2004 runs the risk of creating additional dangers from other nations, said Jonathan Tucker, senior researcher at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Traditional efforts to gather intelligence on state biological weapons programs have proven insufficient, as illustrated by the Soviet Union’s ability to hide its military project under the guise of a civilian facility, Tucker said.

The United States is addressing that shortfall through development of the Biological Threat Characterization Center at the U.S. National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. The threat center’s role is to “close critical knowledge gaps” of both known and potential threats to guide development of countermeasures, Tucker said.

Exploring “putative” threats runs the risk of focusing on the wrong dangers, Tucker said. There are “vast numbers” of genetic manipulations that could be made to organisms, he said.

“How are we to know which ones an adversary would be likely to pursue?” Tucker said.

Studying offensive capabilities — even only with the intent of developing countermeasures to those weapons — could lead to a new arms race, he said. Suspicious nations are more likely to react to the United States’ suspected capability rather than its pledges that its intent is purely protective.

The problem is aggravated by the operation of secret U.S. biodefense programs, Tucker said. “At the very time when openness would be needed to reassure other countries … these programs have become more and more nontransparent.”

There is also danger of technology “leakage” through inside threats along the lines of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, who sold secrets to the Soviet Union respectively from inside the CIA and FBI.

Multiple strategies are needed to avoid the danger that could be posed in the effort to defend the United States against biological weapons, Tucker said. Among his recommendations were realistic transparency of biodefense work, ending assessments of “putative” threats, more international collaboration, and readying a rapid system for countermeasure development.

Changes must be made in the research and development of protective drugs, said Brad Smith, an associate at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity. Put simply, the system needs to be “faster, cheaper, better,” he said.

It can take between $400 million and $800 million and up to 12 years to put a new drug on the market. That means the pharmaceutical companies focus on areas that are known to be lucrative.

There were 506 drugs known to be in development in 2004 in the United States. Six of those were antibiotics and five were non-HIV antivirals.

Policy and technological changes must be made to improve the system, Smith said. Infectious disease research and development need to remain “vibrant” even when the danger seems low. All players in the drug development process — research laboratories, biotechnology firms and the “Big Pharma” companies — must be engaged in the effort, he said.

“It’s something that we have to be committed to … but I think it’s a struggle worth pursuing,” Smith said.