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Supplement to The Magic Virus Theory

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COMMENT: As dis­cussed in FTR #1124–among oth­er programs–it is now pos­si­ble to cre­ate ANY virus from scratch, using “mail-order” or “design­er” genes. Sad­ly pre­dictable jour­nal­is­tic bro­mides that the Covid-19 coro­n­avirus could not have been/was not made in a lab­o­ra­to­ry fly in the face of bio-tech­nol­o­gy that has exist­ed for 20 years.

In FTR #282–record­ed in May of 2001–we not­ed the ter­ri­ble sig­nif­i­cance of the devel­op­ment of such “Design­er Gene” tech­nol­o­gy.

A BBC sto­ry from 1999 high­lights the fears of experts that the advent of such tech­nol­o­gy could enable the devel­op­ment of eth­no-spe­cif­ic bio­log­i­cal weapons.

” . . . . Advances in genet­ic knowl­edge could be mis­used to devel­op pow­er­ful bio­log­i­cal weapons that could be tai­lored to strike at spe­cif­ic eth­nic groups, the British Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion has warned. A BMA report Biotech­nol­o­gy, Weapons and Human­i­ty says that con­cert­ed inter­na­tion­al action is nec­es­sary to block the devel­op­ment of new, bio­log­i­cal weapons. It warns the win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so is very nar­row as tech­nol­o­gy is devel­op­ing rapid­ly and becom­ing ever more acces­si­ble. ‘Recipes’ for devel­op­ing bio­log­i­cal agents are freely avail­able on the Inter­net, the report warns. . . . The BMA report warns that legit­i­mate research into micro­bi­o­log­i­cal agents and genet­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed ther­a­peu­tic agents could be dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish from research geared towards devel­op­ing more effec­tive weapons. . . . Dr Vivi­enne Nathanson, BMA Head of Health Pol­i­cy Research said: . . . ‘Biotech­nol­o­gy and genet­ic knowl­edge are equal­ly open to this type of malign use. Doc­tors and oth­er sci­en­tists have an impor­tant role in pre­ven­tion. They have a duty to per­suade politi­cians and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies such as the UN to take this threat seri­ous­ly and to take action to pre­vent the pro­duc­tion of such weapons.’ . . . ”

1.   Health: Genet­ic Weapons Alert”; BBC; 1/21/1999.

Advances in genet­ic knowl­edge could be mis­used to devel­op pow­er­ful bio­log­i­cal weapons that could be tai­lored to strike at spe­cif­ic eth­nic groups, the British Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion has warned.

A BMA report Biotech­nol­o­gy, Weapons and Human­i­ty says that con­cert­ed inter­na­tion­al action is nec­es­sary to block the devel­op­ment of new, bio­log­i­cal weapons.

It warns the win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so is very nar­row as tech­nol­o­gy is devel­op­ing rapid­ly and becom­ing ever more acces­si­ble.

“Recipes” for devel­op­ing bio­log­i­cal agents are freely avail­able on the Inter­net, the report warns.

As genet­ic manip­u­la­tion becomes a stan­dard lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nique, there is a risk that this new infor­ma­tion will also become wide­ly avail­able.

Pro­ce­dures to mon­i­tor against the mis­use of this new knowl­edge are urgent­ly need­ed, the BMA says.

Abuse of knowl­edge

The report iden­ti­fies two prin­ci­pal ways in which advanc­ing genet­ic knowl­edge could be mis­used for weapons devel­op­ment:

  • Genet­ic infor­ma­tion is already being used to “improve” ele­ments of bio­log­i­cal weapons, for exam­ple by increas­ing their antibi­ot­ic resis­tance. These devel­op­ments raise the spec­tre of high­ly tar­get­ed bio­log­i­cal weapons being used on the bat­tle­field.
  • Weapons could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be devel­oped which affect par­tic­u­lar ver­sions of genes clus­tered in spe­cif­ic eth­nic or fam­i­ly groups.

Although genet­ic weapons which tar­get a par­tic­u­lar eth­nic group are not cur­rent­ly a prac­ti­cal pos­si­bil­i­ty, the report con­cludes it would be com­pla­cent to assume that they could nev­er be devel­oped in the future.

Humans from appar­ent­ly wide­ly diver­gent social groups actu­al­ly have more sim­i­lar­i­ties than dif­fer­ences in their genet­ic make up. But dif­fer­ences do exist and as the Human Genome Project advances, these dif­fer­ences can increas­ing­ly be iden­ti­fied.

The BMA report warns that legit­i­mate research into micro­bi­o­log­i­cal agents and genet­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed ther­a­peu­tic agents could be dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish from research geared towards devel­op­ing more effec­tive weapons.

The BMA says that urgent action is need­ed to strength­en the Bio­log­i­cal and Tox­in Weapons Con­ven­tion.

This has not been effec­tive in pro­hibit­ing the devel­op­ment of bio­log­i­cal weapons, the BMA says, because it does not have ade­quate ver­i­fi­ca­tion pro­vi­sions.

The BMA has called on doc­tors and med­ical organ­i­sa­tions to cam­paign against the devel­op­ment of bio­log­i­cal weapons.

Seri­ous threat

Dr Vivi­enne Nathanson, BMA Head of Health Pol­i­cy Research said: “The his­to­ry of human­i­ty is a his­to­ry of war.

“Sci­en­tif­ic advances quick­ly lead to devel­op­ments in weapons tech­nol­o­gy.

“Biotech­nol­o­gy and genet­ic knowl­edge are equal­ly open to this type of malign use.

“Doc­tors and oth­er sci­en­tists have an impor­tant role in pre­ven­tion. They have a duty to per­suade politi­cians and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies such as the UN to take this threat seri­ous­ly and to take action to pre­vent the pro­duc­tion of such weapons.”

Dr Nathanson warned that get­ting rid of weapons once they are pro­duced is dif­fi­cult.

“Sci­en­tif­ic advances quick­ly lead to devel­op­ments in weapons tech­nol­o­gy.

“Biotech­nol­o­gy and genet­ic knowl­edge are equal­ly open to this type of malign use.

“Doc­tors and oth­er sci­en­tists have an impor­tant role in pre­ven­tion. They have a duty to per­suade politi­cians and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies such as the UN to take this threat seri­ous­ly and to take action to pre­vent the pro­duc­tion of such weapons.”

Dr Nathanson warned that get­ting rid of weapons once they are pro­duced is dif­fi­cult.

“Gov­ern­ments may be reluc­tant to give up weapons that the rest of the world finds unac­cept­able. Ter­ror­ists cer­tain­ly will be. We still have the chance to strength­en the ban on these weapons. We must do so now and we must make sure the ban is policed effec­tive­ly.”

Biotech­nol­o­gy, Weapons and Human­i­ty traces the his­to­ry of chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons, and high­lights their poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing poten­tial for destruc­tion.

On a clear, calm night, one to three mil­lion peo­ple could become infect­ed by the release of 100 kg of anthrax spores over a major city, and the major­i­ty would die.

A For­eign Office spokesman said: “We would accept the threat posed by bio­log­i­cal weapons is a very grave one.

“Not only is the UK one of the sig­na­to­ries to the inter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion on bio­log­i­cal weapons, it is argu­ing for that con­ven­tion to be strength­ened.

“It is the only inter­na­tion­al arms con­ven­tion not to include ver­i­fi­ca­tion regimes, and the UK believes that it should be giv­en those teeth.”

 

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