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The controversy about biodefense laboratories has deep historical roots. The first use of biological agents by a nation occurred during World War 1, when the German military plotted to kill their enemies' pack animals by secretly infecting them with anthrax and glanders (a livestock disease that can affect humans). After the war, the French began investigating different disease agents for possible use in coming conflicts with Germany. In 1925, the first international treaty banning the use of biological weapons was signed, the Geneva Protocol. This treaty still allowed nations to prepare biological weapons for retaliation, in case an enemy should attack them with disease agents.
In 1940, in the heat of war, the British government began its biological weapons program out of fear the Germans might attack them. After the United States entered World War II, it also developed an entire program to research and test biological weapons. The United States had never fully agreed to the Geneva Protocol. Its program grew for more than two decades until, in 1969, President Richard Nixon renounced biological weapons for the United States. Before that, the US conducted many open air field trials to test biological agents, usually with bacteria that would not harm healthy adults but sometimes with virulent agents. In the period 1962-1973, under Project 112, this testing intensified and grew in geographical scope, so that, in theory, entire regions could be targets for germ weapons. In 1972, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and many other nations signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which banned all preparations for biological warfare. In 1975, the United States finally ratified its agreement to the Geneva Protocol.
The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s brought revelations that the Soviet Union had violated the Biological Weapons Convention by creating a large program to prepare it for biological warfare. In addition, the world learned that apartheid South Africa during the 1980s had also been working on such weapons and that Iraq as well attempted to build a biological, chemical, and nuclear arsenal.
During the 1990s, the fear grew that biological agents such as anthrax and smallpox, which were explored by state programs, would be used by terrorists. During this time, the federal government supported numerous "domestic preparedness" programs throughout the nation. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax letters that followed soon after, the United States responded with strong programs to defend American civilians against possible bioterrorism--although no communities had ever been the target of such attacks.
In 2003 President George W. Bush announced a new initiative called BioShield for pharmaceutical companies, in conjunction with federally-funded scientists, to develop new vaccines and drugs against traditional biological weapons agents. New funding went to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), especially the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund research on what are called "select agents." Many of these agents are dangerous to research and develop, which is why they were chosen as weapons. To explore defenses against them might require more laboratories with high containment and safety provisions. The Bush administration budget for 2005 calls for an increase in biodefense program funding in general, from $5.04 billion this year to $6.98 billion. Support for BioShield, which is within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), would increase from $1.34 billion to $2.65 billion, if the budget is approved. At National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), research funding for biodefense would remain around $1.6 billion.
The need for new high-containment laboratories has been linked to the possibility that an unusual disease outbreak would require quick analysis of specimens by a Level-4 laboratory more conveniently located than those already existing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, has the capacity for Level-4 research and is expanding that capacity. The US Army's Fort Detrick in Maryland and the National Institutes of Health, also in Maryland, have Level-4 capacity. The Southwest Institute for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas, offers another Level-4 facility and a small laboratory of the same capacity exists at the University of Georgia in Athens.
See Proposed Locations on this site.
It should be noted that research done on biological weapons agents under the sponsorship of United States intelligence agencies are also difficult to identify. This problem was highlighted in the 2001 book Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War (Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad, Simon & Schuster) and further noted in an article by Michael Scherer in the March/April 2004 issue of Mother Jones, which quotes a high-level Defense Intelligence official on the need for secret projects (http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/03/02_400.html).
The question remains whether the risks of more high-containment laboratories themselves—in terms of accidents or sabotage—are worth the utility of having a) better defenses against bioterrorist events which have yet to occur, or b) unusual disease outbreaks requiring rapid identification.
In 2003, Boston University's application for a Level-4 laboratory was approved, as was a similar laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. There has followed a controversy about whether the Boston University project will benefit the city and the public in general. A critical issue is whether the government will practice openness in this and other biodefense issues. The point of this website is to help ordinary citizens influence the entire biodefense project to the extent that they feel protected.
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