The Killers in the Lab
The government’s charge that Dr. Bruce Ivins, a top Army biodefense scientist, was responsible for the 2001 anthrax mailings has focused renewed attention on the important question of whether we are adequately prepared to protect against a future bioweapons attack. More than $20 billion has been spent on biodefense research since 2001. But the genetic analysis demonstrating that the anthrax powder used in the 2001 letters was a formulation first made at the Army biodefense research center at Fort Detrick, Md., suggests that our biodefense program risks creating the very threat it is meant to fight.
Spending on biodefense research began to edge up after the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo’s failed attempts to develop and use bioweapons in Tokyo in the 1990s.… Seguir leyendo »