Bio-Terror or Bio-Error?
Bio-Terror or Bio-Error?
Jett Li
Mr. Heugh
3/12/15
6th Hour
Thesis: Bioterrorism laboratories in the U.S. are much more hazardous than
the threat of bioterrorism and must be controlled.
I. Biological Weapons
completed about 30 more notecards and decided not to use the poll
questions that did not work. Now with everything set up, I began writing.
My Poll Process
When deciding between an interview or a poll, I determined that a poll
would be a better choice in my case because I wanted to see what people
believed was true about bioterrorism and if it matched my view of it before
delving deeper into the topic. More importantly, I wanted to know their
opinions about the topic. All my questions were statements in which the
person being polled would answer agree, disagree, or neutral.
I polled a wide range of people to get every opinion: three Larson
students, my family, two Larson teachers, an Athens teacher, and an Athens
student. Three of my statements popped out in particular. When given the
statement Bioweapons are more dangerous than nuclear or chemical
weapons, 20% of people polled agreed. This let me understand that many
people did not believe bioweapons were as dangerous as other large-scale
weapons. Then, when given There have been bioterrorist attacks since
2001, 80% of those polled said agree. The truth was that there were not and
this made me realize that majority of people thought bioterrorism was a
bigger threat than it truly was in the past decade. Finally, when given the
statement Biolabs are needed to protect us from the threat of bioterrorism,
90% [FIX] of those polled agreed. This confirmed my belief that people
believed they needed laboratories to continue research on biodefense.
My Search Findings
Biological weapons are very powerful killing agents. They are defined
as live, disease-causing agents with the intent to harm or kill. They are also
classified as weapons of mass destruction alongside chemical and nuclear
weapons (Bioterrorism). This implies that people take this very seriously as a
very dangerous weapon. In fact, they have been banned by most nations in
the world (Bioterrorism). The reason for this is because they are extremely
powerful and unique. They can have long-term effects (compared to i.e. an
explosion) and can be invisible, odorless, and/or tasteless. Furthermore,
under the right conditions, bioweapons can be 100-1,000 times more
effective than chemical weapons of the same weight (Bioterrorism). This can
make a bioweapon a more superior and very alarming weapon.
In addition, bioweapons have a broad range of categories, including
bacteria, viruses, fungi, and toxins. Bacteria are single-celled organisms that
cause diseases including anthrax, dysentery, and bubonic plague. Viruses
are 100 times smaller than a bacteria and work by copying itself onto a host
cell (Bioterrorism). This can make a virus very hard to detect or stop. Some
examples are smallpox, influenza, and Ebola virus. Fungi generally live in the
ground and decompose organic matter, so they can be used to destroy food
crops (Bioterrorism). This can make fungi an indirect bioweapon because
they can starve out large areas of people. Finally, toxins are powerful poisons
produced from biological agents, such as botulinum and ricin. Each one of
these bioweapons has its unique properties and uses.
There have been early uses of bioweapons as well as recent
bioterrorist attacks. Bioterrorism has been traced as far back as 6th century
B.C. when Assyrians used fungi to poison enemy wells (chemical). This
highlights that bioweapons have had a very long history. In 1347, Tatars
catapulted plague-infected corpses over city walls in Kaffa (present day
Ukraine). This act is what some historians believe to be the cause of Black
Death (chemical). This shows how a small infection can lead to a massive
outbreak. Other instances of biowarfare include British giving out smallpoxinfected blankets to enemy Native Americans and France and Germany
contaminating food exported to enemy countries (chemical).
After World War I in 1925, the Geneva Protocol was initiated, banning
bio and chemical weapons in war. Later in 1969, President Nixon announced
that the U.S. would terminate all offensive bioweapons program. However,
they would continue biodefense research (Bioterrorism). This confirmed that
the U.S. would not use bioweapons ever again in war. More restraints were
placed on bioweapons in the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
170 countries signed the BWC, which bans producing or using bioweapons
(Bioterrorism).
Despite the efforts, use of bioweapons continued. In 1984 a cult
contaminated a salad bar in Oregon with salmonella, infecting over 750
(chemical). Most recently, letters with anthrax spores were mailed to media
companies and two senators in October 2001, infecting 17 and killing five.
The mailings were traced to biodefense researcher Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, who
killed himself in 2008 (Bioterrorism). This attack underlined a hole in national
security and most likely turned Americas attention to bioweapons. The
history of biowarfare and recent attacks set the stage.
The U.S. is heading the wrong way with biodefense by going too far to
fund and protect dangerous laboratories, lower safety tests, and keep agents
that are much too dangerous to be on American soil. Through perilous acts
such as Project BioShield Act and the Public Readiness and Emergency
Preparedness Act, the U.S. government is pushing the U.S. closer and closer
to a deadly outbreak. There are thousands of bioweapons labs scattered all
over the country, each with dangerous biological materials (Scutti). How did
they get there? After the frenzy to raise biodefense following 9/11, Congress
passed the BioShield Act in 2003, raising the funding for biodefense from
$576 million to over $8 billion by 2005. These funds go to the Department of
Human Health Services (HHS) to develop medicines (Scutti). This new
funding dipped deeply into Americans tax dollars and began the creation of
reckless labs. Before, the FDA would approve a medicine with extensive
tests, but now BioShield lets a new medicine be sped up in review and even
possibly be used in emergencies without any tests (Scutti). This indicates
that with fewer tests, a new medicine could be flawed and make many in the
public sick from it. Later in 2010, he Public Readiness and Emergency
Ironically, despite all the accidents that occurred in recent years, there
has not been a single bioterrorist attack since 2001 (Scutti). The truth is that
many people believe the risk of bioterror is very high, yet they fail to notice
the risk of bio-error. In fact, bioweapons can be so uncontrollable that they
are rarely used (Scutti). For example, in World War II, Japan used many
bioweapons against the Chinese, however they were eventually halted when
hundreds of their own troops died (Bioterrorism). Even so, in 2013 Congress
reauthorized BioShield for another $2.8 billion (Scutti) and since 2001, the
U.S. has spent over $60 billion on biosecurity programs (Congressional). Still,
Congress will continue funding new labs, like the 574,000 square foot
biodefense lab near Kansas State University. A tenth of that space will be set
aside for BSL-4 labs handling fatal, air-transmissible pathogens with no
known cure (Scutti). Would you like your child to go to Kansas State
University? A long record of laboratory accidents combined with low safety
standards are very prevalent in laboratories in the U.S.
Bioterrorism laboratories in the U.S. are too dangerous to be trusted
and must be controlled. The United States is a country ruled by the people
and for the people. So, unless we open our minds, realize the dangers of
biodefense laboratories, and voice against continuing the acts that boost
them, we are putting our country in a dangerous hole that we dug ourselves.
Works Cited
"Bioterrorism." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale, 2015. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.
"Chemical and Biological Terrorism." ELibrary. ProQuest, 27 Jan. 2009. Web. 29 Jan.
2015.
McNeil, Donald G., Jr. "Leader of Troubled Lab Steps Down, C.D.C. Says." ELibrary.
ProQuest, 24 July 2014. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Scutti, Susan. "The Only Thing Scarier Than Bio-Warfare Is the Antidote." General
Reference Center Gold. Gale, 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.
Testimony, Congressional. "THREAT OF BIOTERRORISM:LEONARD A. COLE,
PHD." ELibrary. ProQuest, 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.