It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
SCI/TECH: Cast a Wary Eye On Bio-Weapons Research
page: 10
share:
In the wake of 9/11 the US has greatly boosted funding for Bio-weapons research. This research is being used to protect us from the "dark future" of
bio-warfare. The rapid research and quick growth of the knowledge base in this area is have caused many to worry. Some say we're opening a Pandora's
Box, other's are concerned that the current research being done is in breach of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, and such breaches by the US
will lead other nations to work around the rules or snub them all together as well.
www.motherjones.com
Even more worrisome to many experts is the apparent growth in secretive, or "black box," biodefense research by the U.S. intelligence community. "There's all kinds of secret research going on right now," says Matthew Meselson, a Harvard biologist who has worked closely with the military. "The more you create secret research in biology," he warns, "the more you create risk." One program that has become public is Project Jefferson, a Pentagon effort to genetically engineer a vaccine-resistant version of anthrax. After the program's existence was revealed by the New York Times in 2001, the Pentagon announced that it intended to complete the project and that the results would be classified. "[The military's] natural instinct is to exploit the technology and keep everybody else away from it," says John D. Steinbruner, director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. "In their hands, this technology is potentially extremely dangerous."
Programs like Project Jefferson have already raised concerns that U.S. scientists are treading dangerously close to the limits of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits offensive research. Just months before September 11, the Bush administration walked away from negotiations to impose biological-weapons inspections, in part because American pharmaceutical companies did not want to open their labs to international inspectors. The abandonment of the talks left the world without any way to enforce the treaty's restrictions. Now, experts fear that the explosion of American research�including programs such as Project Jefferson that are widely viewed as potential violations of the treaty�might encourage other countries to disregard the convention.
Despite these fears, the administration is pushing to expand research programs even further. In a rare unclassified report on the Pentagon's biodefense plans, James B. Petro, a top official in the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently called for a new federal "threat assessment" facility for advanced bioweapons. Such a facility, he wrote, would investigate topics with "limited implications for the general bioscience community, but significant application for nefarious scientists."
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
The most telling thing in this article is this quote by researcher Mark Buller: " "When you have thrown a lot of money at it, people start to think very hard about what is possible, losing sight of what is practical."
Lost in the research is what the possible outcomes of doing such things as bringing back to life parts of the 1918 Influenza Virus and creating a strain of Anthrax that's immune to an antidote could be. They just don't know what might be brought to life, and with so much research going on at once many things get lost in the fray.
The international ramifications of skirting the Bio-weapons convention will lead to many other nations doing so and having the moral authority to back it. I do suppose however, if I were a pharmaceutical company I wouldn't want people nosing around my research department either.
www.motherjones.com
Even more worrisome to many experts is the apparent growth in secretive, or "black box," biodefense research by the U.S. intelligence community. "There's all kinds of secret research going on right now," says Matthew Meselson, a Harvard biologist who has worked closely with the military. "The more you create secret research in biology," he warns, "the more you create risk." One program that has become public is Project Jefferson, a Pentagon effort to genetically engineer a vaccine-resistant version of anthrax. After the program's existence was revealed by the New York Times in 2001, the Pentagon announced that it intended to complete the project and that the results would be classified. "[The military's] natural instinct is to exploit the technology and keep everybody else away from it," says John D. Steinbruner, director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. "In their hands, this technology is potentially extremely dangerous."
Programs like Project Jefferson have already raised concerns that U.S. scientists are treading dangerously close to the limits of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits offensive research. Just months before September 11, the Bush administration walked away from negotiations to impose biological-weapons inspections, in part because American pharmaceutical companies did not want to open their labs to international inspectors. The abandonment of the talks left the world without any way to enforce the treaty's restrictions. Now, experts fear that the explosion of American research�including programs such as Project Jefferson that are widely viewed as potential violations of the treaty�might encourage other countries to disregard the convention.
Despite these fears, the administration is pushing to expand research programs even further. In a rare unclassified report on the Pentagon's biodefense plans, James B. Petro, a top official in the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently called for a new federal "threat assessment" facility for advanced bioweapons. Such a facility, he wrote, would investigate topics with "limited implications for the general bioscience community, but significant application for nefarious scientists."
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
The most telling thing in this article is this quote by researcher Mark Buller: " "When you have thrown a lot of money at it, people start to think very hard about what is possible, losing sight of what is practical."
Lost in the research is what the possible outcomes of doing such things as bringing back to life parts of the 1918 Influenza Virus and creating a strain of Anthrax that's immune to an antidote could be. They just don't know what might be brought to life, and with so much research going on at once many things get lost in the fray.
The international ramifications of skirting the Bio-weapons convention will lead to many other nations doing so and having the moral authority to back it. I do suppose however, if I were a pharmaceutical company I wouldn't want people nosing around my research department either.
.
People sometimes get so excited by seeing what they can do, they often forget 'why' they are doing it.
It is like so many potentially powerful lines of research and inquiry, I have mixed feelings. It may likely be done by someone, but by creating the knowlege base who will acquire it and who will use it?
The Universe rolls on.
.
People sometimes get so excited by seeing what they can do, they often forget 'why' they are doing it.
It is like so many potentially powerful lines of research and inquiry, I have mixed feelings. It may likely be done by someone, but by creating the knowlege base who will acquire it and who will use it?
The Universe rolls on.
.
That bit about pharmaceutical companies in the US not wanting inspectors to examine their procedures and their facilities..that's interesting. Is it
just me, or are we becoming, more and more every day, the kind of rogue nation G.W. has been so adamant against? Is it just me, or are we becoming,
more by the minute, like the monster we set out to slay? Do as I say but not as I do may be efficient and profitable, but it's a dangerous precident
to set for the world.
new topics
-
Judge rules president-elect Donald Trump must be sentenced in 'hush money' trial
US Political Madness: 7 hours ago -
Farmers wife
Music: 8 hours ago -
NJ Drones tied to Tesla explosion at Trump Las vegas
General Conspiracies: 9 hours ago
0