Has bioterror effort made us less secure?

WASHINGTON — Until the 2001 anthrax attacks, Bruce Ivins was one of a few dozen U.S. bioterrorism researchers working with the most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military laboratories.

Today, there are hundreds of researchers in scores of laboratories at universities and other institutions around the United States, preparing for the next bioattack.

But the revelation that FBI investigators think the anthrax attacks were carried out by Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who committed suicide last week after he learned he was about to be charged with murder, has reignited a debate: Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?

"We are putting America at more risk, not less risk," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of a House panel that investigated recent safety lapses at biolabs.

FBI investigators have long speculated the motive for the attacks, if carried out by a biodefense insider such as Ivins, might have been to draw public attention to a dire threat, attracting money and prestige to a once-obscure field.

If that was the motive, it succeeded. Since anthrax-laced letters were sent to members of Congress and news organizations in late 2001, almost $50 billion in federal money has been spent to build laboratories, develop vaccines and stockpile drugs.

For example, an experimental vaccine Ivins spent years working on moved from the laboratory to a proposed billion-dollar federal contract after the attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins helped invent an anthrax vaccine that was scheduled to be added to the nation's vaccine stockpile through an $877 million contract awarded in 2004, but the deal collapsed two years later.

Ivins' lawyer and some colleagues say he was innocent.

But officials at the Justice Department and the FBI on Saturday appeared confident they had the right man, though they said they were weighing how and when to seek an end to the grand-jury investigation.

A serious decision

"That's not a decision we're going to make lightly," one Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Saturday. "There won't be a rush to judgment."

Ivins' lawyer, Paul Kemp, said by e-mail Saturday that news reports that his client had been considering a plea bargain were "entirely spurious."

Nearly seven years have passed without another biological attack, which has reduced the sense of urgency about the bioterrorist threat.

"I think it's an important risk, but frankly I'm more concerned about bombs and guns, which are easily available," said Randall Murch, a former FBI scientist who has studied ways to trace a bioterrorist attack to its source.

Federal officials said they are convinced the surge in spending has brought gains.

"Across the spectrum of biothreats we have expanded our capacity significantly," said Craig Vanderwagen, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services who oversees the biodefense effort.

Systems to detect an attack, investigate it and respond with drugs, vaccines and cleanup are hugely improved, Vanderwagen said.

Supporters of the spending surge cited studies that project apocalyptic tolls from a large-scale biological attack. One 2003 study led by a Stanford University scholar, for instance, found that just 2 pounds of anthrax spores dropped over a U.S. city could kill more than 100,000 people, even if antibiotic distribution began quickly.

There is also ample evidence that al-Qaida leaders have shown interest in using biological weapons. Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian-born al-Qaida biochemist who trained in the United States, spent several months in 2001 trying to cultivate anthrax in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Insider threats

But the proliferation of biodefense research laboratories presents threats, too, congressional investigators recently warned.

More people in more places handling toxic agents create more opportunities for an accident or intentional misuse by an insider, Keith Rhodes, an investigator with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said at a congressional hearing last fall.

Nationwide, there are an estimated 14,000 people working at about 400 laboratories who have permission to work with "select agents" — which could be used in a bioterrorism attack — although a much smaller amount of this research involves the most dangerous materials, such as anthrax.

With so many people involved, there is insufficient federal oversight of biodefense facilities to make sure the laboratories follow security rules and report accidents that might threaten lab workers or, in an extreme case, lead to a release that might endanger the public, Rhodes testified.

In effect, the government may be providing the tools that a would-be terrorist could use, said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University biochemist and vocal critic of the federal increase in biodefense spending.

"One well-placed student, technician or senior scientist — no cost, with the salary being provided courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer — and no risk, no difficulty," Ebright said. "That is all it takes."