I came across an interesting article the other day that posted that the Obama administration's response to the threat of bioterrorism relies heavily on prevention. This, of course, is consistent with the "World at Risk" report earlier this year from the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, whose thesis is that we are at significant risk of a biological attack in the next 4 to 5 years. According to the report, it's a near certainty.

Don't get me wrong, the Commission is undoubtedly staffed by bright men and women. Moreover, it would be illogical to argue that limiting proliferation of weapons is ineffective. For sixty-plus years nonproliferation efforts have prevented the whole world from going nuclear, which surely would have resulted in accidental or intentional use of these horrible weapons. Still, we are not talking the same game here. Nuclear weapons are not easy to acquire. The raw materials (uranium and plutonium) leave bright traces of their origins and travels. Additionally, they exist in finite quantities. Put a kilo of uranium in a lead bottle and over time you'll actually have less uranium due to radioisotopic decay. Radionuclides aren't just lying around, they have to be dug up from fairly well-defined locations, and processing them is labor- and resource-intensive. They have to be stored just so or they'll be obvious to someone looking for them. Nuclear engineering, while not an exotic specialty, is limited enough that we know who could be enlisted in an offensive program. And so on and so on.

None of this applies to biological weapons. While it's true that the days are long past when Iraq could purchase pathogens "for study" from ATCC without raising eyebrows, the world is literally awash in bugs. Much has been written - some of it accurate - about how pathogens are readily available to those who know where to look. How are we to prevent our enemies from collecting environmental samples for scientific study? How can we prevent the disappearance of a swab or vial or material from a clinic treating a farmer with anthrax, or a pet with plague? Unlike radionuclides, biological samples continue to make more of themselves...that's what they're programmed to do. Once stored away, they give no signals of what horrors lie frozen.

The Biological Weapons Convention is a good thing. However, we cannot presume that a treaty between nations of goodwill will keep dedicated amateurs from pursuing their goals. Nuclear nonproliferation may have kept Russia from toasting us wholesale, but it appears to be completely ineffective against North Korea and Iran. How much more ineffective will attemps at preventing the spread of offensive biology be?

--R.V. House