One of our germs is missing

Two months ago it emerged that a US company had inadvertently sent vials of a 1957 pandemic flu strain to laboratories around the world. The accident is only the latest outrage committed by the billion-dollar cash cow that is the US federal biological weapons programme. As you might recall, the Bush administration started its 'bio-defence' spending spree following the September 2001 deadly anthrax attacks in the US, and one of its first projects was to genetically engineer a super-resistant, even more deadly version of the anthrax virus.

Our leaders are nuts. Unfortunately, Project Jefferson, to give the anthrax programme its offi cial name, is not an isolated experiment. A US Army scientist in Maryland is currently trying to bring back elements of the 1918 Spanish flu, a virus that killed 40 million people. Meanwhile, a virologist in the Missouri city St Louis has been working on a more lethal form of mousepox (related to smallpox) - just to try stopping
the virus once it's been created. Furthermore, a lack of controls and runaway spending in the US bio-warfare programme are exacerbated by the Bush administration's bellicose disrespectn  for the internationally recognised Biological Weapons Convention.

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login