Bioterror Threat Creates Push For More U.S. Labs

March 31, 2003
By Paul Elias, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- There's never been a better time to be a microbiologist. The field is suddenly awash with billions of dollars to combat bioterrorism, and much more is promised under President Bush's Project BioShield plan.

The money will fund a building boom of at least three new airtight laboratories where scientists in spacesuits handle the world's deadliest diseases.

At least six universities and the New York State Department of Health are competing for contracts to build one or two labs where scientists can infect research monkeys and other animals with such lethal agents as the Ebola, Marburg and Lassa viruses. Those African hemorrhagic diseases are often fatal and always painful, marked by severe bleeding.

The plans have raised concerns over the welfare of research monkeys or their possible escape -- as happened recently -- and the risk that killer germs could be otherwise mishandled. They've also raised the prospect that even more U.S. researchers will be trained in the black art of bioterrorism.

Because researchers must first construct the weapons they want to defeat, they will likely create new classes of toxins, including genetically engineered ones, for which it might take years to develop antidotes or vaccines.

Many fear the proliferation of labs that once seemed the exclusive domain of such medical thrillers as "Outbreak" will increase the chances of germ attacks.

"It's perversely increasing the risk of exposure," said Richard Ebright, a chemistry professor and bioweapons expert at Rutgers University who believes one additional lab is all that is needed. "They're throwing money at problems that don't exist."

NIH budget soars

Ebright and others believe labs managed by universities could prove less secure than government facilities, which have had their own documented security lapses.

Many believe the anthrax attacks that killed five people and paralyzed Capitol Hill briefly in 2001 were launched by a scientist with access to one of the U.S. government's high-security facilities -- called Biosafety Level 4 labs, or BSL-4 for short.

Federal investigators searched the apartment of one such microbiologist, Steven Hatfill, but never stated publicly that he was a suspect. Hatfill has denied involvement.

In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush called for nearly $6 billion to make vaccines and treatments against potential bioterror pathogens.

The National Institutes of Health bioterrorism budget, meanwhile, has increased 500 percent this year to $1.3 billion, a large part of which will be used to build at least three BSL-4 labs.

Government officials and leaders of universities vying for the bioterrorism largess are unapologetic about their desire to build more super-contained laboratories.

NIH officials say that only two of the five U.S. facilities equipped to do such work are effectively in use today, and they're overburdened.

One is at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the only place in the United States that handles live smallpox.

The other full-scale lab is the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. The government already is going ahead with additional labs at Fort Detrick and in Hamilton, Mont.

"What we have is not adequate to meet the current biodefense efforts," said Rona Hirschberg of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the NIH branch funding the new BSL-4 labs.

Government officials say creating vaccines, antidotes and rapid diagnostic tools against biological weapons are high priorities.

Officials say they don't know how many scientists work in BSL-4 labs but that the number is tiny and many more trained researchers are needed.

One of the byproducts of such endeavors will be the study of emerging diseases like the West Nile virus, which has infected 4,000 people and killed 274.

"The emerging diseases that we have to deal with are intense," said Virginia Hinshaw, provost of the University of California, Davis, which hopes to build a BSL-4 lab. "The public health need is very large for this."

But mistrust runs deep, especially in the California college town of Davis. Lobbied intensely by vocal residents, the City Council voted to oppose the school's application.

The Davis protests reached a crescendo in February with the escape of a lab monkey, which is still missing. Davis officials said it was disease-free and probably now dead. Still, the school's $200 million bid for a BSL-4 lab has been jeopardized.

For military use, too?

Government officials insist that the labs will be secure and serve only defensive purposes.

But the U.S. military has a history of dabbling in biological agent programs that push up against a 30-year-old international treaty banning them.

Examples include the construction of a Soviet-style germ bomb in a CIA project called Clear Vision and research into how to genetically engineer anthrax to be vaccine-resistant, said a former Clinton administration national security official who insisted on anonymity.

Most recently it was revealed that researchers at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have been developing anthrax for use in testing biological defense systems.

All of which make some neighbors of the proposed labs nervous.

"This is bioterrorism research and it's inappropriate in a university setting," said Samantha McCarthy, a Davis environmental lawyer. "The lab will also be a terrorist target, which makes our community a target."

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