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A plan that would give teeth to the Biological Weapons Convention seems to be doomed. US negotiators will tell this week's talks on the convention in Geneva that they still strongly object to the inclusion of a verification procedure in the treaty.

In all, 140 countries have ratified the convention since it was hammered out almost 30 years ago. But the treaty contains no provision for verification, a loophole that allowed the Soviet Union to operate dozens of germ-warfare facilities in the 1970s and 80s.

Attempts to develop a verification plan began in 1995. It was hoped that the latest draft, released in March, would address the concerns of many participants, including the United States. But as Nature went to press, US representatives were set to announce that they would not sign it in its current form.

Behind the mask: the United States is wary of revealing the secrets of its biological defences. Credit: AP

The United States has said in the past that the convention's inspections could threaten trade secrets in its biotechnology industry. A more sensitive issue may be the US biological defence programme, says Amy Rossi of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “We don't like the idea that someone could inspect our national labs.”

China and Iran both made objections to the draft text in May, mainly over export restrictions. But as the current series of talks got under way on 23 July, both countries said they hoped the protocol would be finalized this year.

They and others may be waiting for the United States to kill the protocol to save themselves the embarrassment, says bioweapons expert Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland in College Park. “The Americans and the Chinese are playing this awful game of who's going to get the blame.”

The United States is developing a range of measures to counter bioweapons and seems intent on relying on these defences rather than backing the convention. But Matthew Meselson, a molecular geneticist at Harvard University and an adviser to the US government on chemical and biological weapons issues, warns that such an approach could augment suspicions that the United States has something to hide. “There is a huge cost if we just walk away and say we'll look out for ourselves,” he says.