Bug Off: Taking the Bioterrorism Threat Seriously

Dr. Gerald L. Epstein

It is difficult to prove how serious the threat from bioterrorism is. True, several nations’ bioweapons programs demonstrated long ago that bacteria and viruses can kill over large areas and place many thousands of lives at risk. However, producing biological weapons agents and disseminating them effectively is not easy. It requires expertise, access to pathogens (from natural sources or laboratories), specialized equipment, and experimentation. Bioweapons have rarely been used by terrorists, certainly not with the deadly effects of which these weapons are capable. So the bioterror threat has tended to play second fiddle to the historically established threat of epidemics and state-sponsored biological weapons programs.

Unfortunately, technological and political trends all point towards an increased risk of bioterrorism. Continued advances in biological and other technologies have put much of the bioweapons capability that once required the resources of a state within the reach of non-state actors. Moreover, most of the necessary technology, materials, and skills are "dual use." They have legitimate applications in fighting disease, improving the quality of life, raising living standards, and gaining a better understanding of the natural world and ourselves.

In the past, it was thought that terrorists’ aim was exactly that: to inspire terror, usually by striking civilians unexpectedly, but in small numbers. Now, however, it is clear that a new type of terrorist seeks to inflict mass murder. We know that terrorist organizations like al Qaeda have studied biological weapons that can inflict the kind of indiscriminate mass casualties these groups seem to want. One might wonder why we have not yet suffered a major biological attack. Maybe not enough of today’s terrorists have studied biology. Future terrorists may do so—and future biology classes will be much more potent than today’s.

Instead of debating whether terrorists, who are comfortable with bombs, guns, and suicide belts, will succeed at mastering biology, we should recognize that, over time, the legitimate applications of biology and biotechnology will create an ever-growing global workforce that will already have mastered those skills. How confident can we be that none of these will sympathize with or become recruited by groups or individuals seeking to inflict widespread harm? Biologists becoming terrorists pose a greater challenge than terrorists becoming biologists.

Other Biological Risks

Bioterrorism, of course, is not the only source of biological risk. Traditionally, a key worry has been state biological weapons programs. The 1975 Biological Weapons Convention banned the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons (their use had been prohibited since 1925). However, the United States government assesses that several countries, including North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China, maintain elements of an offensive biological weapons program.

It’s not only evil people who can wreak biological havoc. Naturally-occurring infectious diseases kill more than 13 million each year. The cumulative toll from AIDS exceeds 25 million, and there are worries that bird flu could kill on the scale of the 1918 flu epidemic, which claimed some 50 million victims. Increasing global travel and growing population densities mean that such diseases can spread more quickly than ever before.

Finally, more and more research and evaluation facilities - including, but not restricted, to those working on biodefense - are handling dangerous pathogens, so the chances of a pathogen escaping are increasing too. The mounting scientific and commercial applications of microorganisms increase the odds of their being used in ways that might have unforeseen adverse consequences.

Some measures currently being taken to counter, mitigate, or respond to bioterrorism, such as improved disease-tracking efforts and preparations to address mass casualties, will also address these other threats. But there are some threats that need a more tailored response.

Even after getting policymakers’ attention on the risks of bioterrorism vis-à-vis other biological threats, there are a host of other challenges in countering it. First, the pervasively dual-use nature of biotechnology means that measures designed to impede biological weapon development will also affect a wide range of legitimate activities. Moreover, scientific and technical advances – even (or especially) ones deriving from biodefense research – can expand the knowledge and skills base from which future weaponeers might draw.

Policy Challenges

Traditional intelligence-gathering is not well suited to bioweapons-related activities. These have a very small "signature" and are difficult to distinguish from the vast, diverse, and constantly-growing sea of legitimate biotechnology. Even if today’s intelligence were perfect, it would not be good enough. Certain countermeasures will have long lead times, and so we must prepare today for threats well into the future—threats that may not yet have started to materialize.

Our problem is simply that it is much easier to attack than to defend. Breaking something is easier than fixing it. In addition, a defender must anticipate a vast range of conceivable attacks, whereas the attacker needs only select and accomplish one. Furthermore, defensive actions must be implemented within an extensive regulatory framework to ensure safety and efficacy. These strictures do not fetter attackers, who do not worry about legal compliance and may not care about their own safety.

Given the diversity of potential biological attacks, any single response can address, at best, a part of the problem – and, given the complications above, incompletely at that. A concerted and coordinated web of actions will be needed to counter terrorist and national activities to develop, acquire, and use biological weapons. Traditional arms control, nonproliferation, and military approaches still have a role, but they are increasingly unable to cope with changing technologies, threats, and times. A new strategic approach is needed.

All-Inclusive Approach

Effectively frustrating the various stages of bioweapons attacks requires a comprehensive approach that operates across "the four D’s": dissuading potential attackers and their unwitting accomplices by means such as codes of conduct for scientists and the criminalization of weapon-related activities; denying weapons programs access to materials and expertise, for example, by tightening security at facilities housing dangerous pathogens; detecting illicit programs, perhaps by alerting scientists to be sensitive to the possible misuse of biology; and defending against or managing the consequences of an attack, such as through improved epidemiological surveillance systems and development of broad spectrum therapeutics (single products that can each counter a wide range of diseases).

Effective programs to counter biological threats must also be fully international. Given our global transportation systems and interlinked economies, all of our fates are intertwined. A group based in one location can acquire resources in a second location to mount attacks in a third– attacks that can spread to many countries and that will have ramifications in many more. Developing a program in which all nations have a stake in biological threat reduction will considerably enhance global efforts to counter the bioweapons threat.

Finally, critical to an all-inclusive approach, we must foster the collaboration of various professions to actively address the biological weapons threat. Traditional military and diplomatic approaches must be supplemented by new partnerships among the international scientific, public health, medical, and law enforcement communities, local governments, private industry, and others – communities that have different values, objectives, modes of behavior, and even languages. The deliberate use of disease for harm can simultaneously be a public health emergency, a crime, an act of aggression, and the object of scientific investigation, and it will present each of the communities that deal with these problems with a challenge that is familiar in some ways but novel in others. Countering such acts will require engagement and partnership.

The arsenal of policy tools described above will raise barriers to bioweapons, with the objective of portraying them as unattractive, difficult to develop covertly, and unlikely to attain their users’ desired consequences. Such a comprehensive, international, and interdisciplinary approach therefore not only increases our ability to interdict, mitigate, or counter biological attacks, but it improves our chances of dissuading would-be bioterrorists from pursuing such a path in the first place. •

Dr. Gerald L. Epstein is Senior Fellow for Science and Security in the Homeland Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he co-directs its Biological Threat Reduction Forum: (www.csis.org/hs/btr).

Reprinted with permission from Global Agenda (2006) and updated for the National Strategy Forum Review.