Originally published October 9 2005
Bioterror research could do more harm than good
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, 300 institutes and 12,000 individuals have access to deadly pathogens for research purposes. Analysts fear the increase in bioterror could increase the chance of occurring and endanger public health.
To this day, nobody knows who mailed the envelopes laced with anthrax that infected 22 people and killed five in 2001.
Well-aware that such an attack could happen again, the federal government poured money into research on "priority" biological weapons agents--pathogens categorized as posing the greatest threat to national security.
The number of grants to study these bugs ballooned, as did the number of facilities and researchers conducting biodefense work.
From one perspective, this is good news: More research on bioweapons agents, in theory, will lead to a better biodefense.
But critics argue that putting this work in the hands of inexperienced researchers--so-called bug jockeys--not only increases the risk of bioterrorism and of accidental release of deadly pathogens, but also shortchanges public health.
Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project's U.S. office, worries that the lack of pathogen-handling experience among "NIAID newbies" may make accidents more likely.
On February 11, a scientist at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a NIAID research facility in Hamilton, Montana, was exposed to the bacterium that causes Q fever while working in a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) lab.
According to NIAID, early detection of Q fever infection is difficult, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Q fever "probably presents the greatest risk of laboratory infection" among its family of diseases.
"The influx of large numbers of institutions and individuals with no prior experience into bioweapons agents research" was partly to blame for the accidents, he said.
More biodefense research is needed because scientists "can't learn about anthrax by studying E. coli," she argues.
The biodefense funding jump could have other deleterious side effects.
As money pours into research on the "bad bugs" of potential biowarfare, it may be draining funds from research on more widespread diseases that affect many more people than those caused by bioweapons agents.
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