POISONS FROM THE PENTAGON

...At the moment, however, virtually all A II U.S...

...Hard-liners in the Reagan Administration have openly faulted the treaty...

...Overshadowed by Star Wars, overlooked by the media, biological warfare has captured the Pentagon's attention during the Reagan years...

...This type of research then serves to fuel a biological-weapons race...

...research is exclusively "defensive" in nature...

...for some departments, the Pentagon provides as much as three-quarters of the outside funding...

...And even then the prospects for actually undertaking such an initiative in time to be an effective preventative measure are slim...

...At a loss, he signed up for a summer position at Fort Detrick, the Army's biological-weapons research center in Maryland...

...The chances of defending the population against a biological-warfare attack make civil-defense plans against nuclear weapons look reasonable by comparison...

...A team at Molecular Genetics, a private biotechnology firm in Minnesota, has a Pentagon contract to study a variant of Rift Valley Fever, a rare and lethal African disease...

...While I may be idealistic," Mason says, "I hope that my research can ultimately lead to a vaccine that could benefit many in the Third World who are at risk for these diseases...

...The State Department cited reputed samples of mycotoxins from several areas in Southeast Asia as evidence the Soviets were engaged in such warfare, but Matthew Meselson, a Harvard biochemist, and Thomas Seeley, a Yale biologist, showed the samples to be made up of bee feces...

...While vaccinating an entire population for a variety of biological agents is impractical, it would be possible to vaccinate one's own troops prior to launching a biological offensive with a single agent...

...military research in the area is...

...The Army had planned to build a multimillion-dollar laboratory for aerosol testing and research on toxic biological agents at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground...

...Government has claimed the Soviets are breaching the 1972 Convention, accusing them of having a network of biological-warfare facilities and of using biological-warfare agents in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia...

...A year and a half from now, the public will be allowed to look at the DOD's environmental-impact statement and challenge its inadequacies," says Andrew Kimbrell, policy director and legal counsel for the Foundation on Economic Trends...

...Soon he discovered a way to keep his lab open...

...In quantities smaller than one ten-millionth of a gram, some of these genetically altered biological agents can kill humans...

...The MIT administration was alarmed...

...We are under the gun for R&D funding from the Army in the area of infectious disease," says Top, "and due to the large influx of money in the area of biological-warfare defense, we elected to have a small number of staff change their funding sources...

...The prevailing judgment of years ago that biological warfare is not a militarily significant weapon is now quite unsustainable...

...The reason for the secrecy is simple: The work may well be illegal...

...The settlement, says Rifkin, "makes the Department of Defense accountable for the first time for its expanded biological-warfare research...

...Biological warfare can be designed to be effective across the spectrum of combat, including special operations and engagements at the tactical level...

...To develop a vaccine against anthrax, Robertson works extensively with the anthrax bacterium itself...

...couched in terms of developing vaccines against deadly biological agents rather than developing the agents themselves...

...Nonetheless, he is disturbed by the Pentagon's taint...

...Scientists on university campuses and in private firms are pledging never to "engage knowingly in research and teaching that will further the development of biological-warfare agents...

...And I can tell you, from our point of view, it will have to be pretty convincing to assuage some of our concerns...

...The Foundation on Economic Trends won an even larger legal victory this spring when the Defense Department agreed to a court settlement requiring it to conduct a twenty-month environmental-impact study of the entire program of biological-weapons research...

...The title of such a program implies that it is possible to defend one's civilian population from biological-warfare agents...

...Little wonder that the Pentagon is so interested in Robertson's work...

...The court ruled that, in accordance with the National Environmental Protection Act, the Army must conduct an extensive review of the environmental impact of Dugway before proceeding...

...Before working on anthrax, Robertson was involved in cancer research at Brigham Young...

...He is among hundreds— maybe even thousands—of biological researchers in universities and private firms around the country who are currently receiving military funding to conduct research having applications for biological warfare...

...An outbreak of anthrax in Sverdlovsk, U.S.S.R., in 1979 convinced many that a leak must have occurred in a Soviet biological-warfare facility, a contention the Soviets have vigorously and repeatedly denied...

...Last year, the director of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., Colonel Franklin H. Top, advocated that the institute stave off pending layoffs among civilian staff scientists in their infectious-disease division by urging Activists Take On Biological Warfare This fall, biological and biomedical researchers across the country are joining together to oppose the startling increase of military-sponsored research in their fields...

...To defend the cozy relationship, the administrators threatened to cut off the biology department's in-house funding if the biologists turned down the military money...

...At the University of Kansas, scientists are cloning genes of the debilitating den-gue-2 virus...

...research into biological warfare is 'defensive' in nature, the Pentagon claims...

...Gruinard, an island off the northwest coast of Scotland, is still quarantined and contaminated because of Allied anthrax tests on herds of sheep there in the summer of 1942...

...Robertson's research focuses on anthrax, a deadly and indestructible biological agent that kills when inhaled and can contaminate soil for up to fifty years...

...What we're working on," the biochemist says, "is the development of a vaccine...

...The Defense Department maintains that accelerated research and testing—or what is officially termed "preparedness" against the prospect of biological warfare—is essential...

...The Soviets have "a veritable city" of biological-weapons researchers, Douglas Feith told Congress...

...courts have proven an effective venue for challenging the biological arms buildup...

...11 Nations must encourage the exchange of scientists involved in weapons-related biological research...

...Research on biological weapons accounts for one of the fastest growing and most dangerous sectors of the Reagan Administration's military buildup...

...There really is no defense against a biological agent short of an extremely widespread vaccination program," says Todd Tippets, a former researcher in Robertson's lab at Brigham Young University...

...Building on his research, the Pentagon could engineer a particularly virulent strain of anthrax for offensive purposes...

...The Boston-based CRG has also been involved in a legislative effort to make the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 applicable to private individuals and firms...

...When the Pentagon publishes its evaluation, the American people will have a chance to challenge the safety and the goals of this massive project...

...Biological warfare is "sophisticated savagery," says retired Admiral Gene R. LaRocque, director of the Center for Defense Information...

...military continues its research...

...Yet development of a vaccine would help the attacking nation more than the one under siege...

...Either application would be in violation of an international convention the United States has ratified...

...He and his researchers must genetically alter a strain of anthrax to create the so-called "live" vaccine he is seeking...

...Military personnel are quick to correct even a passing mention of the term "biological-warfare" research, preferring instead the official program titles: military "biotechnology" research and "biological-weapons defense" research...

...Our goal is to bring the pledge to every biological and biomedical researcher in the country...

...When I saw that the military was offering funding for work in bacteriology, I applied right away," he says...

...Squeezed, the biologists reversed their decision and once again allowed Pentagon funding...

...Despite the strengthening of the Convention, the U.S...

...As for actual military use of biological-warfare agents by the Soviets, little or no hard evidence exists...

...troops prior to launching an anthrax assault against enemy forces and population...

...This process of military involvement is relatively new to the field of biology," says Jonathan King of MIT's biology department, "but the lessons from other fields are that a large influx of military funding does begin to bias the direction of research over time...

...Overall funding for such research has quadrupled to more than $60 million since Reagan took office...

...Such an effort gained bipartisan Congressional backing last year, but never made it to the floor...

...develop a vaccine for U.S...

...S.S...

...Even some researchers taking the Pentagon's money don't approve...

...The nationwide pledge, sponsored by the Committee for Responsible Genetics (CRG) and the Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest, hopes to highlight the dangers of the Reagan Administration's biological buildup...

...In fact, the only real rationale for the development of a defense to a known agent is if one is planning to use that agent in an offensive mode...

...Mason's lack of imagination provides little comfort in the age of the sophisticated savage...

...The legislation "provides Congress with an opportunity to reaffirm U.S...

...At a review conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in Geneva last fall, the Soviets finally gave a detailed account of their version of the events leading up to the anthrax outbreak, which they maintain was caused by contaminated meat...

...Like so many other researchers, Mason backs away from the conclusion that his work could be applied to warfare...

...Maybe it should all be funded by civilian agencies like the National Institutes of Health...

...Researchers at other locations are working to clone genes of leishmania, shigella, and salmonella...

...I suppose it is unfortunate that this research is funded by the military...

...We just don't know enough about how it might spread...

...Critics of biological-warfare research contend that the entire issue of "defense" is a smokescreen...

...But the concept of successful defense against biological warfare is flawed...

...On several occasions, the U.S...

...Biological warfare's first casualty is the university...

...Some researchers are even trying to clone snake-venom genes for the Pentagon...

...The Navy is providing open-ended funding in biology for post-doctoral fellows, and faculty members are lining up their military contracts...

...them to switch over to biological-warfare research...

...U.S...

...I cannot fathom even the most warped military mind using our research for the development of a biological weapon...

...For all their remonstrations, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed last year to strengthen the ban on biological weapons and lift some of the secrecy surrounding biological-warfare research...

...commitment to the treaty," says Barbara Rosenberg, a research scientist at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, who is leading the effort...

...In at least twenty-one states around the country, from labs shielded by little or no security, scientists like Robertson are working with organisms that are among the world's most exotic and deadly...

...Robertson's case is not an isolated one...

...The notion of a biological-weapons defense research-and-de-velopment program is a fundamental misrepresentation," says Jonathan King, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

...We'd like more money in civilian infectious-disease research, but even these researchers who have switched over are still doing pretty basic research...

...Or it could Seth Shulman is a free-lance writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

...It's good, sound science...

...Government...

...currently, it applies only to the U.S...

...We'd be negligent if we weren't in a defensive posture," says Joel Dalrymple, chief of the department of viral biology at the Army's Institute for Infectious Diseases, which oversees the Army's biological-research program...

...Pentagon officials cling to the notion that all U.S...

...The military has long been interested in anthrax...

...Jeremy Rifkin's Foundation on Economic Trends successfully brought suit against the Defense Department, temporarily halting the construction of the proposed Dug-way laboratory in 1985...

...Delegates from sixty-seven nations participating in a review conference of the 1972 Convention strengthened the accord: 11 Nations now must report to the international community any outbreaks of unusual, toxin-related disease...

...Signed by 103 nations, it banned not only the production of biological weapons but also their development...

...The U.S...

...But even more significantly, funding for what the military calls "basic research" in this area has grown from $300,000 in fiscal 1981 to $20 million in fiscal 1986, a sixty-fold increase...

...It also ordered the destruction of all existing stockpiles...

...Not only would the entire population have to be vaccinated, but every person would have to be vaccinated for a myriad of biological-warfare agents...

...Robertson has personally seen "no indication of any offensive plans of the sort," he says...

...But when his grant from the National Science Foundation expired, he had difficulty obtaining funding for his research...

...The pledge campaign can help to reverse these trends that threaten to unleash a biological arms race," says CRG's director, Nachama Wilker...

...Some say they see clear signs of this bias already...

...11 Nations must share the location and principal activities of all high-containment laboratories where genetic-engineering research is under way...

...Even so-called defensive biological-weapons research really serves to give a country a usable offensive capability, because that country can vaccinate its own troops in advance of an attack," says Susan Wright of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor...

...They are vowing to refuse funds that use biological research for military purposes...

...Thomas Mason, a biochemist at the University of Massachusetts, has a hefty $ 1 million Army contract to research dengue-1 and Japanese encephalitis and develop vaccines for the diseases...

...Much of the effort is cloaked behind the veil of "basic research" or "defensive development," making the push toward biological warfare one of the Administration's best-kept secrets...

...The large increase in Pentagon funding in this area has biased the direction of scientific research, not only for Brigham Young's Donald Robertson but for many other members of the academic community...

...The environmental-impact statement is expected soon, but Dugway was just the first battle...

...Distressed by this distorting effect, the faculty of MIT's biology department voted earlier this year to refuse Pentagon funds altogether...

...By one estimate, in the first term of the Reagan Administration, some $50 million in funds for biological studies were transferred from the civilian to the military sector...

...Pentagon strategists say the race is already on...

...The United States is a party to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which it ratified in 1975...

...In my lab, we've cloned and characterized three toxic genes in anthrax," Robertson says...

...This research is purely defensive in nature...

...I wouldn't be working on this particular project if it weren't funded by the military...

...officials as a major and convenient argument for bolstering domestic biological-warfare efforts...

...And the Pentagon is investing in sophistication these days...

...I'd never seen so many uniforms at a biology conference in my life," says one geneticist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, after attending a recent gathering of microbiologists...

...Despite the lack of firm evidence, Sverdlovsk continues to be used by many U.S...

...He concedes, however, that the anthrax project is not his first love...

...The Biological Weapons Convention must be recognized as critically deficient and un-fixable," Douglas Feith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, testified before Congress last year...