Biohazard

  • Ken Alibek
Random House: 1999. 319pp $24.95, £17.99<

In his well-known history, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present (HarperCollins), Roy Porter argued: “⃛ the latter part of the nineteenth century brought one of medicines's few true revolutions: bacteriology [emphasis added]. Seemingly resolving age-old controversies over pathogenesis, a new and immensely powerful aetiological doctrine rapidly established itself ⃛”. Porter went on to point out that, very unusually for medicine, this revolution brought dramatic and rapid benefits to the human population in new preventative measures and remedies. Unfortunately, the demonstration — by scientists of the standing of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch — that specific diseases were caused by specific microorganisms, also raised the possibility that the new knowledge might be misused in offensive biological-warfare programmes. We know now that, during the First World War, both sides attempted to use biological weapons to sabotage the other side's valuable animal stocks.

Subsequently, during the middle of the twentieth century, other advances in biology and medicine — such as in aerobiology and production microbiology — were used in major offensive biological-warfare programmes by countries such as the United Kingdom and United States. For some years it appeared that such misuse of science had been halted by agreement of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) in the early 1970s. But the convention lacked any effective verification conditions, and it has recently become clear that the former Soviet Union embarked on a vast expansion of its biological-weapons programme at the very time the convention was agreed.

A proper description of the full extent of this modern programme is not available in the public domain. From a variety of sources, however, we know some of its characteristics. First, we know that it was carried out on a massive scale, with numerous institutes and many thousands of people involved. Second, it involved the large-scale creation of weapons involving a range of agents, and so implied a willingness to use biological weapons in major military operations. Finally, it is clear that recent advances in genetic engineering were being used — for example to increase the antibiotic resistance of plague.

Ken Alibek was one of the leading scientists and organizers of this offensive biological-weapons programme and, through a series of interviews on television and in newspapers and magazines, he has been a principal source of public knowledge about what was done. Alibek's book, Biohazard, ghost written by Stephen Handelman, gives a readable account of what can reasonably be called a ‘chilling true story’ in the form of an autobiography.

I feel strongly that this book should be compulsory reading for everyone involved in the dramatic biotechnology/genomics revolution today. Many other scientific advances have been applied in new weapons systems, and we will be fortunate indeed if modern biology is not misused in the same way.

Although Alibek's account may be fallible in parts, enough has been confirmed by other sources for the whole to be taken very seriously. Different readers will be struck by different parts of this story. For me, the account of project ‘Bonfire’ was particularly alarming. Alibek describes being in a long, boring review meeting in 1989. One of the last speakers was due to report on this project, which was a long-running attempt to genetically engineer a human pathogen to produce an additional toxin or bioregulator. Alibek recounts: “The test was a success. A single genetically engineered agent had produced symptoms of two different diseases, one of which could not be traced. The room was absolutely silent. We all recognized the implications ⃛ A new class of weapons had been found ⃛”

He goes on to describe how such new weaponry might be used to damage heart function or to target the nervous system and behaviour. Today's neuroscientists, striving to find means of helping those afflicted by mental problems, might also be concerned by the related ‘Flute’ programme, which was devoted to developing psychotropic agents to induce mood and behavioural changes in people for malign purposes.

Nevertheless, Alibek comes over in the book as a thoughtful and decent man. We could all perhaps learn from his experience. In his final paragraph he states: “⃛ I cannot unmake the weapons I manufactured or undo the research I authorized as scientific chief of the Soviet Union's biological weapons programme ⃛”

He continues: “⃛ but every day I do what I can to mitigate their effects. The realization that even today, in Iraq or China, another father of three may be sitting down at a conference table to plot the murder of millions of people is what spurs me on ⃛”

We should all ask ourselves whether we have done enough to help secure the agreement of the BTWC Verification Protocol now being negotiated in Geneva, for this is surely the best way available to us of preventing such misuse of biology and medicine.