Biodefense/Biosecurity

Short- and long-term issues related to maintaining a safe and habitable environment. Biosecurity refers to steps taken by a government to ensure the safety and health of its citizens and environment. Biodefense measures are steps taken to restore biosecurity in the face of environmental threat.

Biosecurity

Biological safety may be concerned with human health or the sustainability of the environments that humans depend on for survival. Biosecurity also has more generalized environmental implications, such as efforts to maintain biodiversity, the coexistence of all living things in a given area. It can also be focused on combating and containing global epidemics such as SARS or mad cow disease. Given the ease of modern long-distance travel, monitoring imports and regulating international borders becomes a fundamental part of maintaining biosecurity. Such defense measures are also part of the preventative response to biological warfare.

Biodefense and Bioterrorism

Questions of biodefense and biosecurity have become increasingly pertinent in proportion to fears concerning the possibility of bioterrorism. Biological warfare is considered a likely strategy for terrorist organizations, which lack formal government backing and the resources to carry out more extensive military operations. Because infectious diseases are easily spread, they are an even more attractive offensive option.

A bioterrorist attack would involve the use of biological hazards (biohazards)—living organisms that can cause severe illness or even death among humans exposed to them. These organisms include bacteria and viruses such as anthrax, smallpox, and salmonella. Anthrax and smallpox are most likely to be used by bioterrorists because they are highly communicable and relatively easy to manufacture.

Because anthrax can cause infection in three ways—though the skin, by swallowing, and by inhalation—it is a particularly flexible weapon for use in a terrorist attack. The fatality rate for victims who inhale anthrax is close to 100%, but lower for those who are exposed in other ways. Anthrax spores can survive severe heat and cold and don't require special handling procedures to survive, thus presenting severe challenges to biodefense. Measures to defend against anthrax include protecting the skin from infection through contact with superficial cuts or wounds; ensuring the security of food supplies against contamination; and creating public awareness of the appearance, effects, and symptoms of anthrax infection.

The best-known terrorist attack involving anthrax came in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were sent to several U.S. government and business offices shortly after September 11. The victims were exposed through physical contact and inhalation, and several did not survive. Because of the attacks, public awareness of necessary biodefense measures increased dramatically, as did concern for biosecurity. The person or persons responsible for the anthrax attacks remains unknown.

Salmonella has the distinction of also having been recently used in a biological attack in the United States. In 1984, members of the Rajneeshee cult infected salad bars in a small town in Oregon. Some 900 persons became ill in an event that is considered the first instance of bioterrorism in U.S. history.

[Page 76]The Biological Weapons Convention, which went into force in 1975, outlaws the use of biological weapons. The convention was the first diplomatic agreement ever to ban an entire class of weapons. However, the convention failed to establish any system for verifying compliance; the lack of such a system has undermined its effectiveness. Negotiations to make the convention more comprehensive began in the 1990s, but in 2001 the Bush administration rejected the convention on the grounds that it would hamper legitimate biodefense activity.

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