Homeland Security Watch

Last week the FBI outlined its new “theory of the case” regarding the 2001 anthrax attack. So far, almost all of the focus has remained on the whodunit, a scientist named Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, who committed suicide late last month as the FBI was closing in on him. Far less attention has been given to whatdunit, the United States Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases or USAMRIID, and whether sufficient institutional security measures have been developed within government laboratories and government-sponsored research programs to ensure that we can detect the next bio-bomber.

Lingering questions from the Ivins case, particularly the reaction of his co-workers at Fort Detrick, suggest that we have a lot of work to do to build an effective security system to monitor the potential misuse of the world’s most deadly substances. And it is possible that our actions since 2001 have expanded the danger.

Based on new scientific tools used in the investigation, the FBI is certain that the agent used in the attack came from a specific flask used in research at the Army lab. That flask was “effectively the murder weapon” according to U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor. So, whether or not Dr. Ivins did it, the FBI is convinced that someone at USAMRIID did. At least one government scientist weaponized an agent, removed it from the facility and used it to kill five people without being detected. The combination of background checks, peer observation and physical security at Fort Detrick in place in 2001 was inadequate.

Even now, many of Dr. Ivins’ co-workers are not convinced he did it because they believe they would have seen him do it. These doubts should sound an alarm about the state of bio-security today. Seven years after the incident, no one associated with Fort Detrick has yet explained what has been done to make a repeat incident less likely.

Let’s compare aviation and bio-security. Aviation security is far from perfect, but we have responded aggressively and systematically to the 9/11 failure. We know a lot more about passengers before they arrive at the airport. We inspect them and their baggage thoroughly before they are allowed to board an airplane. Once on board, a potential hijacker faces a locked cockpit door, an air marshal, a better trained crew and a plane-full of inquisitive eyes. There remains a residual threat to aviation, most likely from air cargo, but at least we have done as much as we can to prevent another suicide hijacking.

Unfortunately, it is possible our response to the other 2001 terror attack has been backwards. We have spent many billions of dollars developing vaccines and deploying detection equipment based on the belief that the threat was external – a terrorist organization would develop and deploy a biological weapon against the United States.

That danger certainly exists, but we now know that this was an insider job. Someone working for a secretive agency and in control of the most dangerous technologies that exist used them against the society they were charged to protect. And, because the scope of research on bio-defenses has expanded exponentially since 2001, the insider threat now could be even greater.

In the coming days, it will be imperative for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to come forward and tell us what has been done at government labs across the country and within government-sponsored research programs in light of the USAMRIID case to strengthen bio-security. What new research protocols have been established? What kind of peer review system is now in place? What kind of detection equipment has been installed as workers exit labs? How have background checks been strengthened? If Dr. Ivins was suffering from declining mental health, to what extent are labs monitoring scientists and looking for danger signs?

We now know that in 2001 we were attacked not just by al Qaeda but also by a government agency. Significant questions linger as to whether the government’s biological security is keeping pace with biological research. The government cannot retreat behind a veil of secrecy. The American people deserve to know that government bio-defense programs now have more effective security measures in place so that we are sufficiently protected from both internal and external threats.

The case should be far from closed.

P.J. Crowley is a Senior Fellow and Director of Homeland Security at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. He served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and then as Special Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Affairs, serving as Senior Director of Public Affairs for the National Security Council.

The LA Times is reporting the suicide death of the bioweapons scientist employed at Ft. Detrick who was considered by the FBI to be the suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and severely sickened 17 others. Steven Hatfill? Nope.

The LA Times report said the Feds ruled out Hatfill and settled on Bruce E. Ivins, a different bioweapons expert at Ft. Detrick, as the culprit. Hatfill had been under investigation for years and publicly proclaimed “a person of interest” by then Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In June, the Justice Department reached a settlement valued at $5.85 million with Steven Hatfill, who sued them for trashing his name in the media.

The Washington Post tells that FBI Director Robert Mueller changed leadership of the anthrax investigation in 2006, instructing the new investigators to re-examine leads and reconsider potential suspects. Turns out that Ivins had an impressive record for his research on behalf of the Defense Department in the area of anthrax decontamination. Ivins also is reported to have conducted extra-curricular research that tipped the investigation in his direction. What is odd is that the following information was public for years:

Ivins was one of the nation’s leading biodefense researchers, according to the Times report, and co-author of numerous anthrax studies, including one on a treatment for inhalation anthrax published in the July 7 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

In the six months following the anthrax mailings, Ivins conducted unauthorized testing for anthrax spores outside containment areas at USAMRIID and found some, according to an internal report by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, which oversees the lab.

In December 2001, after conducting tests triggered by a technician’s fears that she had been exposed, Ivins found evidence of anthrax and decontaminated the woman’s desk, computer, keypad and monitor, but didn’t notify his superiors, the Times reported. The report says Ivins performed more unauthorized sampling on April 15, 2002.

This information was reported by USAToday in 2004.

“I swabbed approximately 20 areas of (her) desk, including the telephone computer and desktop,” Ivins told Army investigators. Half of the samples, he found, “were suspicious for anthrax.”

Rather than report the contamination, Ivins said, he disinfected the desk. “I had no desire to cry wolf.”

Ivins also helped the FBI analyze one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to Senator Daschle’s Washington office.

It is unclear if anything Ivins did before the attacks in September and October 2001 was suspicious. We’ll never know whether Bruce Ivins was indeed the perpetrator among the 20-30 scientists at Ft. Detrick under investigation. Ivins had been told about the impending prosecution and apparently committed suicide by overdosing on Tylenol with Codeine.

Barack Obama today delivered remarks at Purdue University in which he laid out a set of national security priorities. He specifically identified “nuclear, biological, and cyber threats – three 21st century threats that have been neglected for the last eight years.”

He explains in the speech — in so many words — that by “neglected” he means underinvested in and deserving of greater priority. It can be said that when everything’s a priority, nothing is. But if you read the whole speech Senator Obama makes the case that its wiser to focus on the ways in which we are vulnerable as opposed to focusing on the specific enemies. Sounds weird, but it makes sense to suggest that, while national security is broadly defined, we must focus on the threats that can be presented, regardless of the adversary.

For example, while it may be al Qaeda that seeks to use bio-terrorism, we need to focus on defeating that threat if it is employed by any enemy. Same goes for nucs and cyber. And since I’m still here at Maxwell AFB for the Air Force Cybersecurity Symposium, following are Obama’s proposals on addressing cyber threats:

Every American depends – directly or indirectly – on our system of information networks. They are increasingly the backbone of our economy and our infrastructure; our national security and our personal well-being. But it’s no secret that terrorists could use our computer networks to deal us a crippling blow. We know that cyber-espionage and common crime is already on the rise. And yet while countries like China have been quick to recognize this change, for the last eight years we have been dragging our feet.

As President, I’ll make cyber security the top priority that it should be in the 21st century. I’ll declare our cyber-infrastructure a strategic asset, and appoint a National Cyber Advisor who will report directly to me. We’ll coordinate efforts across the federal government, implement a truly national cyber-security policy, and tighten standards to secure information – from the networks that power the federal government, to the networks that you use in your personal lives.

To protect our national security, I’ll bring together government, industry, and academia to determine the best ways to guard the infrastructure that supports our power. Fortunately, right here at Purdue we have one of the country’s leading cyber programs. We need to prevent terrorists or spies from hacking into our national security networks. We need to build the capacity to identify, isolate, and respond to any cyber-attack. And we need to develop new standards for the cyber security that protects our most important infrastructure – from electrical grids to sewage systems; from air traffic control to our markets.

For a brief speech, this was about as much detail as we can expect from a candidate. However, the next president is going to have to delve into such challenges as how effectively to draw the line between monitoring, detecting, dissuading, deterring, and defeating cyber threats. And should we actually endure an attack, we’ve yet to carve out our conops for response, recovery, and retaliation. What does it mean to retaliate for a cyber attack that steals secrets? Or one that shuts down an electrical grid, leading to actual casualties? Or one that isolates our armed services from its chain of command?

Cyber security ought to be a presidential priority and it is positive to see Senator Obama call it out as a strategic concern. We’ll see if John McCain is focused on cyber should his campaign offer a counter-speech.

A National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, or NBAF, is proposed in HR 1717, which is scheduled for a mark up this afternoon by the Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. 

As the Department of Homeland Security continues to grow organizationally, it would seem that a good portion of its mission also continues to be shared among other agencies previously in charge of addressing certain threats.  The NBAF will be led by a director appointed by the Homeland Security Secretary, but it also will serve both the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture “in defending against the threat of potential acts of agroterrorism and natural-occurring incidents related to agriculture with the potential to adversely impact public health, animal health, and the economy, or may otherwise impact homeland security” according to the bill.  HR 1717 may reflect an emerging trend in DHS reorganization of the S&T missions. 

The proposed National Bio and Agro-defense Facility represents something not unlike the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.  Both the NBAF and DNDO are responsible for “directing basic, applied, and advanced research, development, testing, and evaluation.”  In fact the authorizing language for the DNDO and NBAF look very similar in scope and structure. 

Could this be the beginning of an over all trend to reshape DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate into threat-oriented Offices or Facilities?  Will there next be an organization focused solely on bio-terrorism (there almost was)?  And another on just chemical threats?  Or MANPADS?

This story sounds like something out of an ancient Incan ritual:

If terrorists ever unleashed a biological weapon, unusual molecules normally found in the blood of llamas could quickly help warn of the attack, scientists now report.

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington and their colleagues experimented with antibodies, which act as the red flags and magic bullets of the body’s personal defense arsenal.

….The researchers generated more than a billion kinds of antibody binding regions in the laboratory based on genes taken from small blood samples from llamas. After testing their antibodies against various biological threats, the researchers found they could within days successfully identify antibodies targeting cholera toxin, a smallpox virus surrogate and ricin, among other known menaces.

The article should be appearing here in the next day or so.

The Trust for America’s Health released an annual report yesterday on the nation’s public health preparedness, giving each of the 50 states grades on their level of preparedness. Oklahoma and Kansas come away with the highest grade, and the four states tied for the lowest ranking are California, Iowa, Maryland, and New Jersey. The complete report is available here.

Federal Times had a story yesterday that surveyed the one piece of homeland security-related legislation to emerge from the lame duck session of Congress this past month: the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (S. 3678). From the article:

In its final days, the 109th Congress passed a bill creating a new $1 billion agency to fight bioterror threats.

Called the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), it will fund research into cures for infectious diseases and other biological threats, a field that has drawn limited research from pharmaceutical companies due to its low profit potential. The new agency, to be located in the Health and Human Services Department, is intended to centralize federal efforts against bioterrorism.

The legislation updates the Project Bioshield Act of 2004 (S.15), with the objective of making it easier to fund mid-stage research that bridges the gap between existing biodefense capabilities and long-term biodefense R&D.

The final bill also makes HHS the lead federal agency for medical response in emergencies, taking the National Disaster Medical System out of FEMA and bringing it over to HHS.

This story in Government Health IT provides additional info on the legislation, and the industry association BIO comments on the passage of the legislation in this press release.

GovExec reports today on remarks by DHS WMD adviser Maureen McCarthy at a conference last Friday on the possibility that foot-and-mouth disease could be used by terrorists:

The Homeland Security Department’s senior adviser for weapons of mass destruction said late last week that the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease on American soil would have a tremendous effect on the U.S. economy, whether the outbreak is intentional or accidental.

Maureen McCarthy, the weapons adviser, on Friday told attendees of the Association for Intelligence Officers’ annual convention that such an outbreak would cost the American agriculture economy “hundreds of billions” of dollars and could shutter some trade borders for “years” if officials deem it necessary.

“It will happen instantly,” she said of the financial and trade impact, “even if there are no deaths.”

During a discussion that in part focused on how biological agents might be used against the United States, McCarthy said foot-and-mouth disease could be used by terrorists. However, she told Government Executive after the discussion that there is no existing intelligence indicating such a plot.

This statement comports with the theory of a recent unclassified/FOUO DHS “Red Cell Report” entitled “Weaponizing Avian Influenza” dated February 2006, which I stumbled across on a Google search a few days ago. (Screen shot of the search result available here.) The document wasn’t still online when I came across the search result, but it clearly suggests that DHS is looking at the possibility that terrorists could leverage a pandemic influenza outbreak to enhance or multiply its effects.

Are these types of scenarios realistic? I’d argue they’re within the realm of possibility, but not among the most likely terrorist plots. But this possibility provides a slightly greater rationale to pay attention to these naturally-occurring threats. And it suggests that strategies focused foot-and-mouth and pandemic influenza need to consider the possibility of manmade outbreaks.

The AP reports today on positive news in the race to develop a vaccine for H5N1 viruses:

Human trials indicate an H5N1 bird flu vaccine developed using a virus isolated in Vietnam can neutralize antibodies from H5N1 viruses found in other countries, the vaccine’s manufacturer said Wednesday.

The preliminary trial results raised hopes that vaccines based on older H5N1 bird flu strains might prove effective against future variants of the virus in the event of a pandemic.

In Sanofi Pasteur’s trial, 300 volunteers were vaccinated with a strain of the virus isolated in Vietnam in 2004. Antibodies were then examined from their blood, and tests were done using H5N1 viruses from Turkey and Indonesia. The results indicated that the volunteers’ antibodies were able to neutralize the other H5N1 viruses, proving that some measure of cross-protection is possible.

“This is a milestone for vaccine development,” said Dr. Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization’s top official on pandemic influenza vaccines.

This could turn out to be very good news, and deliver a solution to an ominous challenge. We aren’t out of the woods yet, but the world’s leaders and scientists deserve a lot of credit for their effective and timely response to this challenge over the last twelve months.

CQ breaks a story today (available by subscription only) that I haven’t seen reported elsewhere yet (it’s not on the wires or reported by the St. Louis media):

An air monitoring system in St. Louis picked up particles of a biological agent on Monday that can be deadly in large doses.

Tularemia — also known as rabbit fever — is naturally found in the St. Louis region. But officials have been working since last night to determine whether the detection is a threat after a BioWatch sensor near Busch Stadium picked up the bacteria, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Local officials have the lead on the investigation, but the Department of Homeland Security is closely monitoring the progress. Testing is on-going.

This is reminiscent of a similar incident on the National Mall in DC last year. Game five of the NLCS is scheduled to take place at Busch Stadium in St. Louis tonight.

Update (10/17): The AP now has the story.

From today’s New York Times, a story surveying the problems in which Project BioShield is currently mired:

The last of the anthrax-laced letters was still making its way through the mail in late 2001 when top Bush administration officials reached an obvious conclusion: the nation desperately needed to expand its medical stockpile to prepare for another biological attack.

The result was Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion effort to exploit the country’s top medical and scientific brains and fill an emergency medical cabinet with new drugs and vaccines for a host of threats. “We will rally the great promise of American science and innovation to confront the greatest danger of our time,” President Bush said in starting the program.

But the project, critics say, has largely failed to deliver.

So far, only a small fraction of the anticipated remedies are available. Drug companies have waited months, if not years, for government agencies to decide which treatments they want and in what quantities. Unable to attract large pharmaceutical corporations to join the endeavor, the government is instead relying on small start-up companies that often have no proven track record.

The article builds off the excellent piece in Time Magazine back in January on BioShield and goes into great detail on the nasty fight between VaxGen and Emergent BioSolutions (formerly BioPort) over anthrax vaccine contracts.

The September issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases includes a policy review that assesses variability in state plans to contain pandemic influenza. The report reviewed 49 of 50 states’ pandemic influenza plans (Lousiana was the only state without one on the web), and focused on three key areas: vaccination, surveillance & detection, and containment measures. Although the report describes variability in the first two areas, containment strategies–such as legal and practical plans for quarantine–showed the most marked heterogeneity:

…confusion and lack of specificity exist in these posted state plans in proposing practical containment measures in the community.

The authors, all from the Research Triangle Institute International (RTII), make helpful recommendations to fill this gap:

Several practical nonpharmaceutical containment steps need to be considered. For example, only approximately one third of the state plans are explicitly considering recommending self-isolation of adults with influenzalike symptoms and keeping children with such symptoms home from school and daycare. Even in this increasingly computer-based economy, in which a considerable percentage of persons can work from home most of the time, this simple stratagem is not addressed in most state plans. Other simple recommendations for use in the community, such as avoiding mass gatherings; shopping on off hours; and household and workplace strategies such as frequent hand washing, avoiding handshaking, and keeping towels separate, are often neglected in state plans.

We should remember that health officials who fought against the spread of SARS in 2003 used extensive exposure control measures, including restrictions on mass gatherings and voluntary home quarantines. Many officials credited such measures as important to slowing disease spread, including CDC director Julie Gerberding. And a Harvard survey of Toronto citizens impacted by SARS demonstrates that the public is not as allergic to the idea as many think. Creative solutions, such as Singapore attention to workforce issues and Hong Kong’s guidance for business and special needs groups, should be thoughtfully considered.

The RTII researchers suggest lack of federal guidance and gaps in epidemiological knowledge as primary reasons for variable state plans, and recommend a revision of the national pandemic influenza plan. Such a revised plan should pay close attention to exposure controls like isolation, quarantine, community restrictions, and other practical containment measures.

The Washington Post published two long, excellent pieces on bioterrorism yesterday and today, the first story focused on the controversial creation of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), and today’s story focused on the disturbing threats could arise out of the development of synthetic biology. Together, the two stories provide a solid precis of the key issues in bioterrorism today, and raise important questions:

• The work of the NBACC is intended to defeat new bioterror threats, but could it also help create them?
• Will there be enough accountability and oversight at the NBACC, given the shroud of secrecy in which it is covered? (See this link for some of the scraps of info on it.)
• Does the creation of the NBACC help create a de facto bioterror arms race in the world?
• Will synthetic biology become a terrorist tool, or a tool used by rogue nations?
• What’s the best way to counter these threats?
• Does the Select Agent rule need to be expanded to account for synthetic biology-related risks?

Overall, two very interesting stories, worth reading in full.

Update (8/1): David Stephenson weighs in on the stories.

Update (8/2): A good post from Jason Sigger at Armchair Generalist on the two stories.

Some good news on the pandemic flu front:

A British company reported Wednesday it had achieved the best results ever seen on an experimental human vaccine for bird flu and said mass production might be possible by 2007.

A global health official called GlaxoSmithKline’s early results “an exciting piece of science.” If future tests are as promising, it would be a major step in the frustrating campaign to protect people from a possible deadly flu pandemic.

The U.S. government’s chief infectious disease scientist also was very optimistic.

“The data are really very impressive,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “It changes the whole complexion of the issue that we have to face of getting enough vaccine for people who might need it in a pandemic.”

There are still risks that the virus could mutate into forms that the vaccine would not contain, but this is certainly a positive development for the scientific community’s effort to combat this potential global threat.

This press release from CBP today makes me nostalgic for my childhood, and hours spent in the morning, while waiting for the school bus, pouring a salt shaker over the hapless creatures:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists here recently intercepted a slug in a shipment of fresh mushrooms from Bulgaria. The slug, identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as Lehmannia nyctelia, is established throughout Europe, north and south Africa, Australia and New Zealand and could potentially pose a tremendous threat to agriculture in the United States.

The shipment of mushrooms arrived at Sea-Tac Airport from Bulgaria via London on Monday, July 10th, and was examined by CBP agriculture specialists. As the numerous (62) cartons of mushrooms were being unloaded from the air cargo container, an agriculture specialist crawled into the container to check for pests. The slug was found on the floor of the container, apparently after crawling out of the mushroom shipment. The shipment was bound for an importer in California.

The live slug was captured and sent to the USDA National Identification Services located in Philadelphia. If a sample is “actionable,” that is, not known to exist in the United States, or is an exotic invasive species detrimental to American agriculture, the shipment is ordered for fumigation, destruction, or reexport. On July 12th, scientists there dissected and identified the slug and verified that it was the first positive identification of this species intercepted at any U.S. port of entry. The shipment of mushrooms was destroyed.

The Lehmannia nyctelia species of slug is a voracious feeder on a variety of trees, shrubs, crop and greenhouse plants. It can also transmit the tobacco mosaic virus to some plants, which unchecked can have devastating effects on several crops including tomatoes, peppers, other vegetables, flowers and weeds.

What I can say? It’s been a slow news week.

The National Governors Association released a report this week intended to serve as a guide for governors and state officials to prepare for the pandemic flu. The press release is here, and notes four key principles to guide state-level activity that are stressed in the report:

• The effects of a pandemic flu will be broad, deep and simultaneous, and states must focus resources to ensure continuation of essential services.
• Medical response capability in a pandemic will be limited, strained and potentially depleted during a pandemic.
• Government must work closely with the private sector to ensure critical operations and services are maintained.
• A pandemic will force many key decisions to be made in a dynamic environment of shifting events, and partnerships must be built now and tested to ensure appropriate and rapid action.

It’s a solid report, the latest in a gathering wave of pandemic flu preparedness guides. A worthwhile read for state officials.

DHS yesterday broke ground on the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) at Fort Detrick, MD, as noted in a press release from the Department. The Frederick (MD) News Post reported on the ground-breaking, and the Baltimore Sun ran a story that considered some of the security-related and ethical issues surrounding the work of the NBACC.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report entitled “Biosecurity: A Comprehensive Action Plan” at an event in DC today. The well-written report argues for an integrated approach to biosecurity (combating both natural and mandate threats), surveys the state of biosecurity today, and offers a number of recommendations on how to improve the system on a global basis.

The report discusses a number of interesting issues; for example, I found this passage on pages 42-43 particularly interesting:

Since 9/11, for example, the Bush administration has placed a new emphasis on “laboratory threat characterization,” which includes the development and study of known and putative biowarfare agents to guide the development of medical countermeasures. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), currently being built at Fort Detrick, Md., will include a Biological Threat Characterization Program (BTCP) to examine how bioterrorists might use genetic engineering and other advanced techniques to convert viruses andbacteria into more deadly and effective weapons. Such defensive research includes creating and assessing genetically modified pathogens that an enemy might in theory develop.

This type of research does more harm than good. Given the vast genetic diversity of microorganisms, it is extremely unlikely that the United States could anticipate the specific organisms that an enemy might create. Instead, the genetically engineered pathogens would simply be potential offensive weapons in their own right. Thus, even though the research is for defensive purposes, other countries may not take us at our word. Instead, they may view such experiments as possible cover for offensive activities — in part because many U.S. biodefense projects are shrouded in secrecy.

This is a difficult issue. A journal article published in 2005, Biological Threat Characterization Research: A Critical Component of National Biodefense, makes the opposite argument: that focusing only on known pathogens is shortsighted, and threat characterization research can link intelligence with biosecurity and make it possible to anticipate and develop countermeasures against future threats. But the authors of this paper also argue that super-strong safeguards are necessary - an acknowledge of sorts that there are real risks created by this kind of research. But all it would take is one malcontent working at Fort Detrick to circumvent security and take a bioengineered pathogen out of the lab and release or sell it. Is that a risk that we’re willing to take? Or is the alternative risk - not being prepared to face future threats - a worse outcome? This is a difficult call, and something that needs more debate and consideration that it’s received to date.

Overall, a good report by CAP - and a useful set of recommendations that should be carefully weighed and considered.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission led by Hans Blix (not to be confused with the Silberman-Robb WMD Commission) released its final report yesterday, “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Arms.” The release of the report was covered in stories by The Guardian, UPI, and the AP. From the latter story:

A study led by former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix called Thursday for outlawing nuclear weapons and reviving global cooperation on disarmament, including security guarantees to curb the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

As long as any nuclear, chemical and biological arms remain in any country’s arsenal, “there is a high risk that they will one day be used by design or accident,” the two-year probe by the independent Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission concluded.

Despite the end of the Cold War, the stocks of such weapons remain “extraordinarily high” including 27,000 nuclear weapons, about 12,000 of them still actively deployed, the commission said.

The commission made 60 recommendations to free the world from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Other media commentary focused on comments by Blix criticizing the United States for its missile defense system and its general lack of leadership on counterproliferation.

Pages 154-55 of the report are the most relevant to homeland security, discussing the impact of efforts related to the “control of movement of goods”:

The difficulties of preventing proliferation-related activities hiding under the cover of legitimate commerce led the United States in May 2003 to launch the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which focuses on interdicting and seizing illicit shipments while in transit. By September 2003, the United States had assembled a coalition consisting of 10 additional states (Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom), which agreed to a Statement of Interdiction Principles. Since then, many additional countries have joined this initiative, including all members of the EU and the G8.

Described by one of its architects as an ‘activity’ rather than a ‘treaty-based bureaucracy’, the PSI has encouraged greater international cooperation in undertaking interdictions, including joint participation in a number of exercises organized in different regions. Its participants have stressed that the interdiction activities will be undertaken in a manner that is consistent with international law.

It is difficult, however, and perhaps somewhat premature to assess the value of the PSI, as little concrete information has so far been made available to the public about its application, beyond press releases about interdiction exercises and official claims that it has been a great success. Although the initiative has gained the support of a large number of states, it has also generated concerns among critics who prefer a more multilateral approach, tied more closely to the treaty regimes and the UN Security Council.

The launch of the PSI marks the first time that states and organizations have cooperated to improve the security of the full supply chain for goods in international trade. Efforts have also been made in recent years to control the movement of thousands of large shipping containers that travel through world commerce each day. Such efforts have led to new capacities and cooperation for outbound inspection (for export control enforcement), and inbound inspection (for threat reduction), and control of goods and individuals at borders. Technology is being sought to make this process as nonintrusive as possible. The World Customs Organization (WCO) is also working to secure and protect the international trade supply chain from being used for acts of terrorism or other criminal activity.

I’m glad that the report includes this finding; too often these “homeland security” concerns are ignored by the counter-proliferation community. I disagree with the concern about the fact that the PSI is not multilateral, but Blix is correct to demand more transparency into the PSI so that its performance can be publicly gauged. The report then makes the following recommendation in response to this finding:

All states should conduct audits of their export control enforcement agencies (customs, police, coast guard, border control and military) to ensure that they can carry out their tasks effectively. States should seek to establish a universal system of export controls providing harmonized standards, enhanced transparency and practical support for implementation. Members of the five export control regimes should promote a widening of their membership and improve implementation in view of current security challenges, without impeding legitimate trade and economic development.

That sounds like an appropriate long-term goal for export control and cargo security.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Pan American Health Organization held an event this week on “Responding to an Influenza Pandemic in the Americas.” A rich spate of content from the event - audio files, remarks, presentations - is now available online at the link above, and is worth browsing by those who are focused on this issue.

Government Computer News writes today about plans to move forward on the National Biosurveillance Integration System:

The Homeland Security Department expects to award a contract in mid-summer to develop the National Biosurveillance Integration System, a critical piece of the administration’s strategy to handle a pandemic, such as avian flu.

DHS plans for an initial version of the biosurveillance information management system six months after the award, said Kimothy Smith, DHS chief veterinarian, chief scientist and acting deputy chief medical officer.

The biosurveillance system will aggregate and integrate information from food, agricultural, public health and environmental monitoring and the intelligence community from federal and state agencies and private sources to provide an early warning system for an outbreak or possible bioterrorism attack.

“By integrating and fusing this large amount of available information, we can begin to develop a baseline or background against which we can recognize anomalies and changes of significance indicating potential biological events,” he told the House Homeland Security Committee’s prevention of nuclear and biological attack subcommittee yesterday.

DHS will combine the biosurveillance patterns and trends with threat information and include the completed product in its Common Operating Picture, which DHS distributes through the Homeland Security Information Network. The biosurveillance system will also send back to its system partner agencies completed situational awareness in real-time streams.

This could become an important tool in the biosecurity toolbelt, and it’s good to see it moving forward. Implementing it will involve real challenges, especially in terms of getting the various federal, state and private stakeholders to cooperate with each other and share accurate information in real-time. And given the potential limitations discussed in this story, it also makes sense to think about how public, open-source information (blogs, web diairies, etc.) can augment these capabilities.

For more on the system, see this DHS presentation from 2004 and the multiple references to the NBIS in the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan released last week.

Yesterday the White House Homeland Security Council released the Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. This fact sheet summarizes the 233-page document, and stories in the Boston Globe, CIDRAP, GovExec, and the Los Angeles Times provide perspective on it. From the LA Times story:

The White House on Wednesday unveiled a foreboding report on the nation’s lack of preparedness for a bird flu pandemic, warning that such an outbreak could kill as many as 2 million people and deal a war-like blow to the country’s economic and social fabric. It urged state and local governments to make their own preparations beyond the federal efforts.

In the government’s first detailed look at the potential effects on public health and U.S. society as a whole, the report said a full-blown pandemic could lead to travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines, massive absenteeism, an economic slowdown “and civil disturbances and breakdowns in public order.”

It warned that the healthcare system — including doctors, nurses and suppliers of pharmaceuticals — was inadequate to meet the country’s needs in a flu pandemic. “In the event of multiple simultaneous outbreaks, there may be insufficient medical resources or personnel to augment local capabilities,” the report warned.

More broadly, state, local and tribal governments should “anticipate that all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic,” it said, meaning that “local communities will have to address the medical and non-medical effects of the pandemic with available resources.”

While warning that as a last resort, mandatory travel restrictions may be necessary, such limits alone “are unlikely to reduce the total number of people who become ill or the impact the pandemic will have on any one community.”

It’s good to see that the report doesn’t sugarcoat the potential outcomes from a pandemic flu outbreak. Now comes the hard part - providing funding for the plan, and implementing it.

Update (5/5): A good post by David Stephenson on the plan. Also, be sure to check out the Daily Show’s segment on the plan, either on Friday’s reruns or after it’s posted online here in the next few days.

The Washington Post writes today about contingency plans among businesses for the pandemic flu:

More than half of U.S. companies think there will be a global flu epidemic in the next two years. Two-thirds think it will seriously disrupt their operations as well as foment social unrest. But two-thirds also say they aren’t prepared. One-third of executives surveyed say nobody in their organization has been appointed to plan for a pandemic; another one-quarter couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the question.

“Corporations are looking at this like deer at headlights,” said Tommy G. Thompson, who spent much of his last two years as secretary of health and human services sounding the pandemic alarm and is now doing the same as a private consultant. “They are very skittish. They don’t know which way to go. They are hoping the car is not going to hit them.”

Pandemic influenza is the latest imponderable facing U.S. business, a form of unwanted globalization that threatens the life and health of even the smallest companies in the most literal way.

Several surveys show that a small but growing number of corporations is convinced — as many epidemiologists have been for a while — that a global flu outbreak is inevitable. The uncertainty about whether it will be the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has spread from Asia into Europe, or some other strain is not stopping them from getting ready.

But how ready they are — and the readiness of the business world as a whole — is difficult to assess. The government does not require companies to have pandemic response plans, customers don’t demand them, and many boards of directors doubt they are necessary.

It’s critical for private sector leaders to move forward to develop plans for how they would operate in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. I think that the federal government is doing its part, creating a planning checklist for businesses and reaching out to spur the private sector to action. If companies don’t prepare and there’s a debilitating outbreak, they won’t be able to say that they weren’t warned.

The AP provides an update today on the CDC’s plans to develop a system to track people entering the country for the purposes of detecting and tracking pandemic flu, a plan announced last fall and described in these regulations. From the AP story:

Concerned about bird flu, federal health officials want airlines to collect personal information about domestic and international passengers to help track a potential epidemic.

Financially strapped airlines say creating such a database would impose staggering new costs.

“What we’re asking for is the authority to collect the information in the context of modern travel on airlines,” Dr. Marty Cetron, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s director of global migration and quarantine, said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

“There’s just a number of conditions where acting quickly with electronic access to passenger information is going to make a lot of difference,” Cetron said.

The story goes on to note airline industry’s general opposition to this plan:

The Air Transport Association, which represents major airlines, said the plan “represents an unwarranted and insupportable burden on an industry sector that can ill afford it.”

ATA lawyer Katherine Andrus said in an interview that the CDC plan wouldn’t work because of cost, technological difficulty and the time needed to fill out the forms.

“We don’t think that, as proposed, this is a workable approach,” Andrus said.

In the event of a pandemic flu outbreak, this type of system could be a critical and powerful line of defense. Given its potential benefits, I think that the affected stakeholders (primarily the airlines) need to accept that it has to happen, and work with the government to move it forward, in a way that acknowledges their legitimate concerns about implementation, and perhaps partially reimburses them for their efforts, but also leaves no doubt that this has to move forward expeditiously. If we don’t have this sort of system in place in the event of a serious pandemic, the costs to our economy will be much greater that the costs of this system, possibly by a 100x or greater factor.

The AP reported today on the fact that agricultural inspectors at airports feel that they don’t have sufficient resources to keep bird flu out of the country:

Homeland Security Department inspectors at U.S. airports don’t have enough training to keep a deadly strain of bird flu from getting into the country, a union official is charging, citing the handling of live birds found in the luggage of a passenger from Vietnam.

Gaps in front-line protections were on display this week when a customs official at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was confused about how to properly quarantine the three cages of birds, Alejandra Scaffa, vice president of the National Association of Agriculture Employees, said Friday. Vietnam is among the nations that have been hit the hardest by the deadly disease….

Scaffa, a Homeland Security agriculture specialist at JFK, said inspectors have gotten only scant training on how to handle possible bird flu carriers. Official guidance generally consists of updates on where the flu has spread, and a 30-minute video that advises wearing protective masks and gloves when dealing with risky passengers or cargo, she said.

“Otherwise, DHS has not done a thing,” Scaffa said.

You know what? The avian flu is going to hit the bird population in the United States soon, irrespective of any improvements to point-of-entry inspections - most likely via the normal migratory paths of wild birds. It’s a waste of scarce resources to take extraordinary measures to try to stop it. Instead, we need to be focusing our resources on preparing for a mutated strain that facilitates human-to-human transmission. Such a straing would be spread globally in days due to modern air travel, irrespective of the current presence of bird-to-human transmission. That’s the real threat, and inspectors should be focusing their training today on the detection of sick people entering the country.

An interesting idea for combating airborne pathogens such as SARS and (potentially) pandemic flu, or bioterror attacks, via the AP:

What Huston wandered into was an emerging technology called UVGI, or “Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation,” something with gigantic potential to curb potential outbreaks.

Modern air-conditioning equipment is an extremely efficient way to spread bacteria and viruses. Huston’s technology puts beefed-up germ killing UV lamps next to air handlers to kill germs and mold as they fly by.

The gear is only now making its way out of the hospitals that pioneered its use and into office buildings, homes and even vehicles.

Both the departments of Defense and Homeland Security are beginning to sniff around UVGI, and a top bioterrorism researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa has a key piece of the action.

For more information, see this list of UVGI-related links.

The Washington Post reports today on a House hearing held yesterday on Project BioShield:

The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it still lacks a strategic plan for countering bioterror threats two years after Congress created a special program and appropriated billions of dollars for the purpose, and it pledged fresh efforts to speed up and streamline the troubled Project BioShield.

Under sharp questioning on Capitol Hill from members of both parties, the administration conceded many of the criticisms that have been leveled against Project BioShield by the drug and biotechnology industries in recent months. That $5.6 billion program is meant to build an elaborate national stockpile of drugs and other measures to counter biological and radioactive weapons, but corporate executives have complained of delays, bureaucratic inertia, and other problems in the way the program is being run.

There’s really no excuse for this. Project BioShield was announced during the State of Union Address in 2003. There’s no legitimate reason why the government should still be struggling to develop a plan more than three years later. This puts existing biosecurity-related investments at risk of being wasteful, and it hampers the development of new vaccines and stockpiles.

The AP reported yesterday on the submission of bids to build the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), which is being established as a result of HSPD-9 to augment and probably replace the capabilities of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. From the story:

Kentucky and Florida are among the states bidding for a proposed $450 million bioterrorism lab, a 500,000-square-foot facility at which scientists would study potential bioterrorism threats to the U.S. food supply and humans.

Along with Kentucky, which wants to put the center in rural Pulaski County, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas filed proposals with The Department of Homeland Security by Friday’s deadline.

Larry Orluskie, spokesman for DHS, said the more proposals may be added in the coming weeks as mail passes through a screening facility and is received. A short list of finalists will be announced in the fall, then environmental assessments will take place next year, Orluskie said.

I take the agroterrorism and animal disease threat seriously, but this is one planned expenditure where I’m very skeptical that the marginal benefit outweighs the marginal cost. $450 million is a lot of money for a new facility, and that doesn’t even factor in the operational costs after it is built, nor does it factor in the costs of decommissioning Plum Island, which I imagine could be significant. The effort seems inadequately coordinated with other investments in bioterror and agroterror-related facilities that are on the drawing board right now. And are there enough scientists out there in this field (or in graduate school today) who aren’t already fully occupied by work in another lab, and can staff this new facility at the requisite level of professional competence? I’m very concerned that this new facility is inconsistent with the “risk-based approach” that Sec. Chertoff has rightfully argued should inform DHS investment decisions.

Also, a few random questions:

1. Why are all of the bids from southern (or near-southern) states? Is it because of a NIMBY-ite counterreaction elsewhere in the country?
2. The article notes that bid submissions are perhaps delayed due to DHS mail screening. Shouldn’t the Department move away from a reliance on snail mail for time-sensitive submissions such as this one?
3. Given that Plum Island might be decommissioned after the NBAF is built, why are they buying a brand-new 120-foot boat?