WP,pg1: Custom-Built Pathogens Raise Bioterror Fears

[DeepModem Mom]

Custom-Built Pathogens Raise Bioterror Fears
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 31, 2006; Page A01

....Five years ago, deadly anthrax attacks forced Americans to confront the suddenly real prospect of bioterrorism. Since then the Bush administration has poured billions of dollars into building a defensive wall of drugs, vaccines and special sensors that can detect dangerous pathogens. But already, technology is hurtling past it. While government scientists press their search for new drugs for old foes such as classic anthrax, a revolution in biology has ushered in an age of engineered microbes and novel ways to make them.

The new technology opens the door to new tools for defeating disease and saving lives. But today, in hundreds of labs worldwide, it is also possible to transform common intestinal microbes into killers. Or to make deadly strains even more lethal. Or to resurrect bygone killers, such the 1918 influenza. Or to manipulate a person's hormones by switching genes on or off. Or to craft cheap, efficient delivery systems that can infect large numbers of people.

"The biological weapons threat is multiplying and will do so regardless of the countermeasures we try to take," said Steven M. Block, a Stanford University biophysicist and former president of the Biophysical Society. "You can't stop it, any more than you can stop the progress of mankind. You just have to hope that your collective brainpower can muster more resources than your adversaries'."

The Bush administration has acknowledged the evolving threat, and last year it appointed a panel of scientists to begin a years-long study of the problem. It also is building a large and controversial lab in Frederick, where new bioterrorism threats can be studied and tested. But overall, specific responses have been few and slow.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declined so far to police the booming gene-synthesis industry, which churns out made-to-order DNA to sell to scientists. Oversight of controversial experiments remains voluntary and sporadic in many universities and private labs in the United States, and occurs even more rarely overseas....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000580.html?nav=most_emailed

[dipsydoodle]

1. I suggest you all get a copy

of Frank Herbert's book The White Plague and read it thoroughly. Then be afraid.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Thanks for the tip, edwardlindy. nt

[dipsydoodle]

3. Was discussing this last week -

it's out of print but you can get used paperbacks on Amazon for buttons. I won't spoil it but it's especially the simple means by which the virus is distributed that has stuck in mind for over 20 years.