Genetic Engineering & Biowar

http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/bk/bk12.html

Emerging Technologies
Genetic Engineering and Biological Weapons

The Sunshine Project
Background Paper #12
November 2003

Emerging diseases are often discussed as a global
public health threat; but the threat of these diseases
is paralleled by another, that posed by emerging
technologies. Rapid developments in biotechnology,
genetics and genomics pose a variety of environmental,
ethical, political, and social questions. And because
they open up tremendous new possibilities for
biological warfare, these technological developments
have grave implications for peace and security.

In this report, we give a systematic overview of the
impact of biotechnology on biological weapons (BW)
development, focussing on existing technologies and
recent discoveries whose implications are still poorly
understood. Much of what we present may sound like
science fiction, but in fact it is far more science
than fiction - and in some cases it is already a
reality. The most frightening developments can
currently be witnessed in the US, where new technology
is being exploited to create new types of biological
and biochemical weapons, including material degrading
microorganisms and psychoactive chemicals, raising the
spectre of a new biological and chemical arms race.

Genetic engineering can contribute to offensive BW
programs in a variety of ways. With genetic
manipulation, classical biowarfare agents such as
anthrax or plague may be made more efficient weapons.
Barriers to access to agents such as smallpox, Ebola
or the Spanish flu [1] are being lowered by genetic
and genomic techniques.

Completely new types of weapons are also becoming
possible, including the use of food crops as tools for
biological warfare. Even ethnically specific weapons,
hitherto thought to be impossible, have become a real
possibility. We present data here showing that ethnic
specific genetic sequences do exist in considerable
high numbers.

Alarmed by the rapidly increasing technical
possibilities, the International Committee of the Red
Cross recently appealed to governments to take
concrete steps to avert the hostile use of
biotechnology. A broad array of political measures
will be needed to counter the threat of hostile
exploitation of biotechnology. First and foremost, the
Biological Weapons Convention needs to be strengthened
through multilaterally agreed, legally binding
verification measures.

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"Un pueblo que no logra producir sus propios alimentos es un pueblo esclavo,
dependiente. política, económica e ideológicamente".

- Joao Pedro Stedile, Movimiento de los Sin Tierra, Brasil