A Beginner’s Guide to Bioterrorism Wednesday, Oct 8 2008
risks 1:55 pm
“The main thing that stands between the human species and the creation of a supervirus is a sense of responsibility among individual biologists.”
– Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer, page 227
From a 2002 article by Danny Penman in The Guardian:
“A few months’ work in a makeshift laboratory is all it would take to produce a biological weapon that could kill hundreds of millions of people.
The scientific information is freely available and the raw materials easily sourced. The only difficult part would be mastering the necessary scientific skills, and they are taught on most biology degree courses.
One of the simplest ways of constructing a biological weapon would be to engineer an existing human disease and to make it even more lethal. Something as simple as the flu virus, when engineered with the gene for botulinum toxin, could wipe out a significant part of the human race. A low dose of this toxin is the main ingredient in cosmetic botox injections.
The genetic sequence for the toxin is freely available. This sequence could then be uploaded to a commonly available gene synthesizer, which would churn out millions of copies of the gene in a few hours. The flu virus would then be grown in the presence of this newly synthesized gene. As the virus reproduced, a few of the virus particles would absorb the gene. With a bit of luck, the budding terrorist would have produced a new biological weapon.”
Human beings are inherently vulnerable to a significant number of lethal compounds. Given a highly contagious biological vector to distribute these compounds, the potential outcome is grim. Given adequate tools, knowledge, and time, groups could manufacture several such viruses and release them simultaneously in different areas, thwarting quarantine and antidote efforts. Governments know this — hence the Biological Weapons Convention. Bio-weapons are off-limits for warfare at the international level, but such rules might break down in the case of a large enough war, and will not be respected by rogue parties.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Michael, sometimes I read your stuff and…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8253259004004602203
October 8th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The questions that are raised in my mind, in no particular order:
It seems doubtful to me that this is as easy as described. My reasoning for this is I believe that making a virulent pathogen (as opposed to culturing one) is probably as difficult and time consuming as making a vaccine or treatment for one. Genes aren’t lego, you can’t just throw them into a bucket of influenza and pull out some ebola. If this can be done, has it been done (given evidence tends to be more convincing than speculation)? It sounds like it would be a very useful research tool - if it exists.
In regards to making a pathogen, why not just use one that already exists? There are plenty of really nasty pathogens in the world already, I’m pretty sure that they could either be bought, stolen or acquired with a bit of social engineering. What would make a would be bioweapon engineer think that they can do a better job than evolution has? There’s a lot to be said for not reinventing the wheel.
There is also the matter of why one would do this. Biological weapons, whilst scary, aren’t actually very good - they are indiscriminate, hard to store, hard to deploy and hard to produce. If you are going to spend the time and money, why not spend it on something more effective (even if your goal is terror over bodycount)?
The strictures of the Biological Weapons Convention don’t really represent that big of a deal to governments - anyone who can do the research, is doing it (probably as part of, or under the guise of disease mitigation and infection control research. There would be significant crossover in the data, skill set and laboratories, eg. nobody would question the CDC having a library of the deadliest pathogens) so the most lethal agents would already exist and have decades of research behind them. The other part of the equation is that, as stated before, bioweapons aren’t that good as weapons. So you are looking at a reverse arms race - you don’t care about the weapon, you just care about knowing how to mitigate it’s effects. You don’t want it, and you don’t want anyone else to have it.
The reason I mention the BWC and government is that the dreaded bogeyman, the terrorist, is mentioned in the article. Any time a terrorist is mentioned it is like a red flag for my bullshit meter. Terrorists don’t have nukes, bio or chemical weapons, and in many cases they are lucky if they have a gun to shoot. If a group have to resort to irregular combat tactics (ie. guerilla warfare, of which terrorism could be argued to be a part), then they’ve already lost the war. They don’t have anything to fight with. If they had these weapons, don’t you think they’d use them as soon as they could? If you are a terrorist with a WMD, the best strategy is to deploy it immediately, before anyone can stop you. The most successful actions of terrorists, historically speaking, are explosive devices - terrorists blow people up because it’s cheap, easy and it works. Even the gold standard of terrorism, 9/11, was effectively a rocket attack. My point is, terrorists aren’t going to move into bio or chem, the opportunity cost is simple too high for them.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Michael, I’m inherently quite a positive person, meaning that you should be even more worried when I am forced to discuss negative possibilities. It means that these negative possibilities actually have a substantial chance of occurring, and even the most inherently optimistic of us have reason to be concerned. Of course, because humans evolved in circumstances where global risk was impossible, and negativity generally signals personal unhappiness rather than the possibility of global disaster, we have a tendency to dismiss those concerned with x-risk as “downers”. Like Hawking, Bostrom, and Rees, I know enough about science and technology to know that the human species is at great risk. If you, or anyone else, views concern about the possibility as a “downer”, then maybe you should investigate more for yourself. But then again, ignorance is bliss.
Stuart, yes, kids in high school introduce new genes to bacteria. This is called transformation and has been performed since 1928, when it was used to produce virulent strains of bacterial pneumonia by getting non-virulent strains to take in genetic material from virulent strains that had been killed by heat. And yes, if you read to the end of the article I linked, you’ll see that researchers have introduced the botulinum-producing gene to bacteria.
Because you haven’t even heard of this 80-year-old technology, it’s somewhat difficult to take your other thoughts on the matter seriously.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Hmmmm interesting, I’d contemplate a well-written simulator utility, that shows me the the effects of releasing several vectored diseases, one after another, into the wild. Simulates dispersal speeds, panic, crackdowns, government overload, infrastructure failure. I bet with some research one can release a dozen plagues, one after another, in specific places, times of year, under conditions, follow it up with a PR/innuendo campaign, to cause maximum effect. If you have well-vectored epidemical agents and do this right I think you could maximize the effects of the dispersal for optimal lethality and societal desintegration. Start with 3-4 distinct influenza strains to deplete viral treatments, then follow up with a long-infection time and several bam bam bam short ones. Add a really brutal one to explode the panic. Finish off with several opportunistic lingering ones that sap survivors and waste resources on treating them. Could exterminate 5 billion over a year and I think 25 dedicated people with skills, a few ten millions and two year could do it. One year preparation, one year execution.
October 11th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I really hope you did not take offense to me, my brother. Of course I know you are a positive person! If my brand of joking around with you is offensive, I apologize and will no longer exchage levity with you in this form.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Dual use material are … all over the world.
This week in Valencia (Spain) a Streptococus Poygenes, a soft pathogen bacteria,
did so.
You do not need change anythig, it is alive, already among us, like MRSAureus, only need to look for them and … avoid yourself contamination.
¡Salud!
October 12th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Stuart,
Let me tackle some of your points…
> Genes aren’t lego, you can’t just throw them into a bucket of influenza and pull out some ebola.
If a cell is coinfected by two different influenza viruses then, in fact, their genes reassort and new strains are created. Scientists are already synthesizing artificial influenza RNA:
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=20000175
> What would make a would be bioweapon engineer think that they can do a better job than evolution has?
Evolution has as it’s goal genetic fitness not necessarily the goal of killing the maximum number of hosts. In the biologic world we have the DNA sequences which can produce some really nasty results. Take those sequences and insert them into viruses that spead easily and infect a decent % of the population and you have a combination that could wreak real havoc.
> Biological weapons…are indiscriminate
Right now they are. But with the advent of really cheap sequencing anyone could find ethnic differences which, in theory, could be targeted. But regardless, the indiscriminate nature of a bioweapon reduces but does not eliminate the number of people that would use them.
> Any time a terrorist is mentioned it is like a red flag for my bullshit meter.
Fine, but terrorists are not make-believe.
> Terrorists don’t have nukes, bio or chemical weapons
Actually they had chemical weapons:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/19/terror.tape.chemical/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
> If they had these weapons, don’t you think they’d use them as soon as they could?
> My point is, terrorists aren’t going to move into bio or chem, the opportunity cost is simple too high for them.
The reason why terrorists haven’t yet used designer viruses is because:
1) their numbers are relatively small,
2) western cells have been wiped out,
3) they’re busy fighting conventionally in their own backyard, and
4) they simply haven’t gotten around to it.
But they’re trying (sarin, salmonella, chlorine, cyanide, ricin, dirty bombs)
October 12th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Genetically engineered BT corn was found in the human food supply chain by testing for the protein which it produced. This created quite a stir because BT corn wasn’t supposed to be in the human food chain.
What if someone were to develop a non-pathogenic microbe which had a specific sequence (um, let’s say GATTACA?)? If this strain could then be detected at a distance it could demonstrate that the threat of designer bioweapons is real and that more needs to be done to protect and survive it.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Michael, the weakness with this vector in the future (once gene sequencing only requires a degree) is we still might not really know what genes do. Finding this requires real world human testing, something along the lines of Hitler’s grotesque medical experiments. And the mindset is likely doomsday wackjob, not mere terrorist. A designer pandemic would bite the friends/family of whoever unleashes it. I think the result of a lack of gene expression knowledge is we’ll see some weak designer attacks 10-15 years from now that hopefully direct money at the issue in time to prep for a strong one.
Right now we could upgrade the security clearance “vetting” of biolab scientists. Whatever the highest government mental screening test are for any occupation, could be applied to biolab personnel. Increased surveillence, increased budgets to renovate biolabs. The recent UK foot-and-mouth outbreak likely could’ve prevented with the latter. Was the anthrax mailor who was a previous biolab employee screened for mental illness?
Simple things like hospitals buying Medonyx/Sprixx personal alcohol rub dispensors, would help. The University of Toronto has prottypes a $600 hospital bed handwash sensor that beeps if a nurse forgets.
Biosensors everywhere. I can envision passengers blowing into a sensor balloon before and after boarding airplanes, and the draconian quarantines that must accompany this. A couple years ago a son of a US biolab employee was flagged not to fly at the airport but talked his way past low-paid airport security. Throw money at this problem. It (panic, think 911 times 5, or 4555) will be a bigger brake on world trade than high oil prices.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
…the logic above is based upon the fact a gene sequenced attack will cheaper than expensive defense biosensors and tenious quarantine and physical distancing procedures. But the expensive mostly public but some private investments in biosensor basic research, industrial commercialization, National Guard training, airport infrastructure and training, hospital infrastructure and training, sensor surveillence networks, building of biosensor research parks and university wings…should be hastened by vivid descriptions, even if such descriptions constitute a “doomsday playbook”.
Strategy is certainly open to criticism.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Weird how those two doctors who tried to blow up a London nightclub and then Glasgow Airport for Al Qaeda stuck with such low-IQ terror tactics. If they’d used their qualifications and some simple research, who knows what they could have unleashed. For all their threats, it seems that very few fanatics have any imagination. Thankfully.