Post by Mech on Nov 18, 2003 0:48:54 GMT -5
US scientists warn CIA on new generation of biological weapons
Sun Nov 16, 7:43 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of US scientists has warned the Central Intelligence Agency that recent advances in biotechnology could give life to "designer" biological weapons able to target selected groups of people, act with a delay and turn deadly in reaction to medicine, according to a CIA document made public here.
The warning came during a closed-door seminar organized at the request of the CIA by the National Academy of Sciences to devise strategies for dealing with the dangerous by-products of the so-called genomic revolution.
The spy agency would not disclose when and where the meeting occurred. But its unclassified account of the seminar was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit organization here, and dated November 3.
"The effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse that any disease known to man," the CIA report warned.
Scientists have cautioned that explosive growth in knowledge about genes and their functions could make traditional means of monitoring weapons of mass destruction obsolete, according to the document.
This could make weapons that currently exist only in science fiction novels real over the next decade.
These new tools of war were likely to include binary biological agents made up of two components that are relatively harmless separately but that become deadly when combined, according to the CIA account.
"A particularly insidious example would be a mild pathogen that when combined with its antidote becomes virulent," the report said.
It may well be possible in the future, experts explained, to design a virus that, acting alone, would cause just flu-like symptoms but that would turn deadly when its target takes an aspirin in the hopes of relieving a headache.
Other "designer" biological weapons could be taught to resist antibiotics, evade an immune response and permanently wreck a person's genetic make-up, the panelists told the CIA.
Sun Nov 16, 7:43 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of US scientists has warned the Central Intelligence Agency that recent advances in biotechnology could give life to "designer" biological weapons able to target selected groups of people, act with a delay and turn deadly in reaction to medicine, according to a CIA document made public here.
The warning came during a closed-door seminar organized at the request of the CIA by the National Academy of Sciences to devise strategies for dealing with the dangerous by-products of the so-called genomic revolution.
The spy agency would not disclose when and where the meeting occurred. But its unclassified account of the seminar was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit organization here, and dated November 3.
"The effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse that any disease known to man," the CIA report warned.
Scientists have cautioned that explosive growth in knowledge about genes and their functions could make traditional means of monitoring weapons of mass destruction obsolete, according to the document.
This could make weapons that currently exist only in science fiction novels real over the next decade.
These new tools of war were likely to include binary biological agents made up of two components that are relatively harmless separately but that become deadly when combined, according to the CIA account.
"A particularly insidious example would be a mild pathogen that when combined with its antidote becomes virulent," the report said.
It may well be possible in the future, experts explained, to design a virus that, acting alone, would cause just flu-like symptoms but that would turn deadly when its target takes an aspirin in the hopes of relieving a headache.
Other "designer" biological weapons could be taught to resist antibiotics, evade an immune response and permanently wreck a person's genetic make-up, the panelists told the CIA.