Principal Investigator: Lewis Duncan, Ph.D., Dean, Thayer School of Engineering

Conference Chairman & Organizer: Joseph Rosen, M.D., Dartmouth Medical School

Purpose

Assess the Present & Future Threat from the Use of Biological Weapons and Cyber Attacks by Terrorists, and to Help Better prepare for such Catastrophic Events

Scope

Broad-based Threat and Action Assessment Involving a Range of Technical and Other Professionals

Anticipated Results

Clearer Threat Assessment

Refined Key Research and Action Issues

Recommendations for Governmental, Public Health, & Other Organizations

Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed are personal and are not attributable to any group or organization unless explicitly expressed.

Conference Summary

Friday morning

Richard Scribner, Ph.D., acting director, ISTS, opened the meeting.  He welcomed the conference and briefly reviewed the history and mission of ISTS, inviting conferees to approach him for more information.  He then introduced Joseph Rosen, M.D., as the conference director.  Dr. Rosen welcomed the attendees and pointed out the significance of the conference¹s mission to peer into the future and help the United States set research priorities regarding emerging biological threats.  Dr. Rosen introduced the morning¹s first panel.

Brian Sullivan, Ph.D. (writer, consultant, former professor at the Naval War College and the National Defense University) was the first of two speakers for the Threat Panel Discussion.  Dr. Sullivan stated his belief that acts of terrorism are frequently found in history and armed conflicts.  The United States had episodes of tar and feathering British tax collectors before the Revolutionary War, a cause of painful burns meant to intimidate to accomplish a political end.  Brian reviewed how the Irish Republican Army sought to use terrorism to intimidate and to cause martyrs for the populace to revere. In response, the British sought to jail rather than kill terrorists.  The extent of the British desire for good public relations was their policy not to chase terrorists into Ireland during hot pursuit.

Brian Sullivan then discussed how coordination and commensurate response may be very complex.  He raised the issue of what level of attribution is necessary before considering retaliating on a state sponsor, asking what type of response is justifiable?  He stressed how counterterrorism could be a victim of its own success‹the need for prevention without publicity causing the unaware public to discount the need to prepare for future acts.  Why are we a target?  Brian believes it is our power, with the resentment, which it causes.

Barbara Seiders, Ph.D. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) then reviewed the nature of biothreats.  While her talk was mostly on viable organisms, she pointed out that biological toxins are potent and easily isolated.  They fall under both chemical and biological weapon conventions.  Barbara told about how she used beer-making equipment, bought at a local store, to research making these agents.  They are cheap and easy to produce.  She found that they don¹t require sophisticated equipment or expertise.  Many materials and equipment have a dual purpose, with use in the food or medical industries, making their control problematic.  First sign of attack can takes days to detect.  They can be difficult to detect in the environment in the absence of an explosive dissemination.

A couple of points were brought up in the discussion following these presentations.  There was a discussion of the differences in response to chemical and biological incidents by first responders.  The point was also made that public health personnel may be first responders to biological attacks which have delayed onset of symptoms.  There was also a discussion of how modern treaties apply to nations, but may not technically apply to unrecognized countries, such as Afghanistan.

The second threat panel combined talks on biothreats with cyberthreats. Raymond Zilinskas, Ph.D. (Monterey Institute of International Studies), reviewed his white paper, Possible Terrorist Use of Modern Biotechnology Techniques. This paper reviewed a collaborative effort of the National Defense University (NDU) and Monterey Institute to assess the impact that scientific advances may have on biological terrorism for the next five years.  This panel reviewed major areas of advances and concluded that there was no probable, practical threat over the next 5 years from these advances.  For many of the advances, the scientific concept of pleiotropism is a major obstacle.  This is the creation of unwanted side-effects when altering nature to achieve a desired effect.  A single gene may influence several distinct and seemingly unrelated phenotypic expressions, making genetic manipulation quite complicated for unexpected results.

Another point that many books and Dr. Zilinskas make is that the manufacture of dry powder aerosol is the main barrier to using a biological organism to kill many people.  Meteorological factors are also a complicating factor, which for example, causes 80% of scientific tests attempting to study this to be scrubbed.  A second issue that Ray raised in his paper regarded how terrorists might be hindered by limited ability to field test their discoveries but also asking whether we would detect failed attacks as such?

Ray¹s presentation stimulated some discussion.  Milton Leitenberg believes that it is misleading to overestimate the scientific capabilities of terrorist groups.  In the many studies in which he has participated, or reviewed, there is no evidence that expertise in biological weapons has been obtained by terrorists.  However, Leitenberg did concur that, if biological terrorism did happen, it would be catastrophic.  He also argued that the conference keeps slipping into assumptions about what international states can do, rather than terrorists.  Dr. Rosen wished to emphasize the question ³Is it possible?² not, ³Is it likely, or probable?¹  The mission of this conference is to help better prepare for such catastrophic events.  Leitenberg insists that it is essential for the United States to take a strong stance to discourage terrorist acts.  From a public relations perspective, overstating risks will not contribute to constructive changes.   He reiterated his perspective later, serving on the public discussion panel.

Dennis Klinman, M.D., Ph.D., called genetic engineering ³child¹s play,² in today¹s modern lab.  Dennis points to incredible advances over past ten years and the good number of graduate students familiar with them.  When challenged about the practicality, he replied with this example: take the animal host of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), infect the animals to select the most virulent mutants, repeat this process every three months with the selected organisms, and, quite soon, one will have a biological WMD.

Michael Ascher, M.D. (Chief, Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory, California Department of Health Services) stood up and made the following pints.  While he was aware of historical evidence of the difficulty the U.S. had researching biological weapons, modern medicine and recent public health outbreaks illustrate the danger which we face.  Mike emphasized the importance of preparing the public health infrastructure to be prepared.  Mother nature can accomplish many tricks.  HIV and other recent infections demonstrate new threats and evolution to avoid the body¹s natural defense.  Looking into the future, may one day be able to vaccinate through breakfast cereal.  Could foresee the release of drug resistant infections to challenge health system.  Pneumococcus and TB are examples.  Other recent viruses, Ebola, yellow fever, hantavirus, etc., raise concern as biological threats.  Imported cases from abroad demonstrate the importance of a vigilant, prepared public health structure to detect and fight disease.

Mike is a proponent of strengthening public health systems to fight natural and terrorist acts (dual purpose use).  He pointed out little bit of flu can close all hospital beds in San Diego.  Dr. Asher mentioned the difficulty of differentiating background from emerging infections or even terrorist acts, using E. coli as an example.  Smallpox is the major threat for spreading serious illness, in his opinion. Mike stated that imported food is not inspected for pathogens, and has had associated outbreaks.  An agricultural terrorist act, such as foot and mouth disease, could be economic disaster.

Dr. Roger Breeze, USDA, spoke about two recent instances that his agency was asked to investigate abroad to determine if an outbreak was natural or possibly terrorist.  Through genetic analysis and other research techniques, they were reasonably certain that one was natural and the other man-made.  There was further discussion about the importance of determining origin so that attribution could be determined and then retaliation planned.

George Cybenko, Ph.D., ISTS, lectured the audience in his breezily, entertaining fashion, using PowerPoint presentations to show internet cable systems across the world.  He discussed how one might overload the system and may need to lay down new cable to meet demand.  There was some discussion over comments by Bill Zinnikas (FBI), regarding the NYC World Trade Center bombing which nearly severed the ATT cable lines for the east coast.  There was also some talk about the need to shut off cable access for news media to free up broadband for emergency response.  Andy Ogielski, Ph.D. (ISTS) pointed out that there were current networking challenges and that the people involved in running some of the telecommunication networks were inexperienced.  Reliability and capacity could be easily attacked.

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