[CPEO-MEF] BIOWEAPONS: The biodefense debate

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Anthrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror

By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE
New York Times
August 3, 2008


WASHINGTON - Until the anthrax attacks of 2001, Bruce E. Ivins was one 
of just a few dozen American bioterrorism researchers working with the 
most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military 
laboratories.

Today, there are hundreds of such researchers in scores of laboratories 
at universities and other institutions around the United States, 
preparing for the next bioattack.

But the revelation that F.B.I. investigators believe that the anthrax 
attacks were carried out by Dr. Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who 
committed suicide last week after he learned that he was about to be 
indicted for murder, has already re-ignited a debate: Has the 
unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure 
by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?

"We are putting America at more risk, not less risk," said 
Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of a House 
panel that has investigated recent safety lapses at biolabs.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/03anthrax.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=Ft.%20Detrick%20labs&st=cse&oref=slogin

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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