October 2003

Below is a listing of bioterrorism-related events this month, part of an ongoing bioterrorism chronology that begins with Sep 11, 2001. To see events from other months, go to the Bioterrorism Watch index page.

Oct 31

Weaknesses in TOPOFF exercise reported
The FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) TOPOFF 2 exercise held earlier this year (see CIDRAP News story) demonstrated weakensses in information sharing and in chain-of-command, reports the Wall Street Journal. The exercise involved a simulated radiological dirty-bomb attack in Seattle and a bioterror strike in Chicago. Blunders included an inability to get vital equipment to emergency-response teams because of confusion over what federal agency was responsible for them, says the report. Other negatives included misunderstandings of the Department of Homeland Security color-coded threat-warning system and inefficiency in passing along vital intelligence because of such problems as a lack of security clearance and secure phone lines.

Super mousepox virus engineered
A group of researchers from St. Louis University announce their creation of a genetically engineered mousepox virus that is not destroyed by the vaccines currently available. The federally funded work involved splicing a gene that suppresses the immune system into the mousepox gene and then injecting that into vaccinated mice. The team also developed a two-drug cocktail that can overpower the virus. (See CIDRAP News story.)

Oct 29

Olympic security questioned
Greek security forces are not ready for mass casualities caused by a biological and chemical attack, reports a Washington Post article. The Greek Public Order Ministry says its main focus is "prevention and deterrence of terrorist attacks." A 25% boost in the security budget for the games has been announced, but a confidential US Department of State analysis said that "operational Plans" were incomplete. At least 100 security agents will accompany the US team.

Oct 28

Smallpox vaccination program continues, slowly
Even though the federal smallpox immunization program has fallen far short of expectations, efforts to inoculate emergency health workers will not be abandoned, reports Global Security Newswire. The focus has changed from encouraging a widespread vaccination program to convincing local hospitals that vaccinating personnel is in their best interests. "If I were director of a hospital, I would want a good nuimber of my people immunized. I think there are going to be additional vaccinations," said D.A. Henderson, a top advisor to HHS.

Oct 24

13-year prison sentence for ricin possessor
A Washington state man who developed and possessed the deadly poison ricin (see July 17 item) is handed a sentence of 13 years in prison. Prosecutors said Kenneth Olsen had extensively researched ricin and methods of killing people with it. He kept ricin at work and may have planned to use it to kill his boss or wife, according to police.

Hamilton postal facility cleaning begins
Cleanup begins of the 280,000-square-foot Hamilton, N.J., mail sorting plant through which four anthrax-containing letters passed in the fall of 2001. The plant sorted 4 million pieces of mail a day but has been closed and sealed up for 2 years. Two workers from the plant became ill but recovered. The building is being cleaned with chlorine dioxide, as have the Brentwood postal facility outside Washington and the Hart Senate Office Building. Costs will reach about $200 million. Sorting machines and other equipment will be ruined by the corrosive gas and will have to be replaced. Operations are expected to resume at the plant in the fall of 2004.

Oct 23

Former Soviet scientist tells of smallpox-laden missiles
Ken Alibek, former senior scientist in Moscow's biological warfare research program, tells a Smallpox Biosecurity conference in Geneva, Switzerland, of the only known case of stregically deployed biological weapons. The Soviet Union, he says, armed strategic ballistic missiles with extremely potent smallpox virus in the early 1960s and made them ready for attack on the United States. He says the virus was thoroughly tested by Soviet scientists and that it was "absolutely obvious" the effect of some biological weapons "would exceed some forms of nuclear weapons," according to a Global Security Newswire story. Alibek defected to the US in 1992.

Oct 22

Rumsfeld memo to military commanders re terrorism goes public
USA Today publishes an Oct. 16 memo from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to military commanders in the Pentagon saying the Department of Defense is ill-suited to combat terrorism and suggesting the need for a new, more agile agency to handle the threat. "We have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?" asks Rumfeld in the memo. Pentagon and adminsitration officials say discussions of a new agency are only at the most informal phase.

Officials in Geneva say smallpox threat is global problem
Several health officials and experts say at a Smallpox Biosecurity conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that global biological defenses remain plagued by inattention and underfinding despite US strengthening efforts, according to a Global Security Newswire story. Ricardo Wittek, co-chair of the conference, says, "If there is an outbreak, it would become a world problem, and developing countries might not have the means" to vaccinated against smallpox. "A smallpox attack anywhere is a problem for everyone," says D.A. Henderson, principal science advisor to HHS.

Ricin letter closes South Carolina postal office
An airport postal office in Greenville, S.C., closes after a suspicious letter put aside several days earlier is found to contain ricin, a deadly poison made from castor beans. The poison was in a small metal container inside the envelope. A note I the letter said large quantities of ricin would be dumped in the nation's reservoirs if a rule requiring truckers to rest after 10 hours of driving was not reversed by the government. No one has been harmed, and officials say the letter poses no threat to public health. (See follow-up CIDRAP News story.)

FBI creates new WMD section
The FBI is creating a new weapons of mass destruction section to deal with concern that terrorists will try to detonate a irty bomb or attack the United States with a biological or chemical weapon, according to a New York Post story. Behind the push for the section is FBI counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence chief Larry Mefford. The need for the new section, which does not yet have a chief, is highlighted by the so farunsuccessful anthrax investigation.

Oct 21

Hoax responses need planning too
An emergency response official speaking at Harvard Universitys Biosecurity 2003 Conference in Washington says that emergency responders should be included in planning for hoax responses as well as true emergency responses. False incidents have the potential to overwhelm emergency response systems, notes Arlington County, Va., Fire Chief Edward Plaugher. Plans "should include measures to keep the public from overreacting and to maintain public confidence in the ability of first responders to respond to an actual incident."

Oct 17

Government officials to train on bioterrorism at Harvard
The CDC announces a $250,000 grant to fund a joint venture of two Harvard University schoolsthe Harvard School of Public Health and the Kennedy School of Governmentcalled the National Preparedness Leadership Academy. Government officials, first federal and later state and local, will take classes at the academy that focus on terror threats, specifically bioterrorism, and on general emergency preparedness. The grant covers planning and start-up costs only, with funding from the CDC expected when operations begin, which is expected to occur in April.

Antibody may prove to be anthrax prophylactic and therapeutic agent
Medarex, Inc., announces at a biodefense conference in Washington that MDX-1303, its fully human antibody against anthrax, protected against inhalational anthrax at one tenth the dose previously tested in rabbits. The agent also reduced mortality even when given 1 to 2 days after inhalation, when animals began showing symptoms. The preclinical study is a cooperative effort of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectiolus Diseases and Dartmouth Medical School. Results suggest that MDX-1303 has potential as both a prophylactic for patients at risk of anthrax exposure and a therapeutic agent for patient showing signs and symptoms of anthrax infection, according to a news release.

Oct 16

Two food-safety advances from FDA
The FDA reveals two important advances aimed at protecting the nation's food supply. First is an electronic system going live at 6 p.m. EDT for registration of domestic and foreign food facilities, required by Dec. 12 (see item below). The system is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will allow registration of 400,000 facilities in 60 days. It is available at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~furls/ovffreg.html. Second, the agency sent to Congress a report titled "Testing for Rapid Detection of Adulteration of Food," outlining progress on faster sampling methods and tests to identify food contamination. Both of today's FDA advances are in compliance with provisions of the Bioterrorism Act, which gave FDA new authority to ensure the safety of the US food supply.

Anthrax compensation bill introduced
The Anthrax Victims Compensation Act of 2003 is introduced in the US Senate to make money from the fund for victims of the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks available to those affected in the anthrax attacks that followed shortly thereafter. Only persons with laboratory-confirmed anthrax infection would be eligible to receive compensation. The bill's sponsors are Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen Tom Daschle, D-S.D., both intended recipients of anthrax-contaminated letters that fall.

Oct 15

Bioterror drill on Staten Island
The New York Fire Department holds a day-long bioterror drill on Staten Island. The focus of the drill is to simulate inoculating every firefighter and emergency worker in the borough against smallpox in a very short span of time. In reality, the workers are receiving their annual flu shots. Also being practiced is recall, in which off-duty firefighters are called in to work.

Update on federal smallpox immunization program
In a routine update on the smallpox program to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Ray Stikas, director of smallpox preparedness and response at the National Immunization Program (NIP), said of the federal smallpox immunization program, "The fact is, it's ceased . . . not that anyone's issued an edict to say stop." The number of people who have been vaccinated through the program stands at 38,549 and continues at a rate of a few a week, compared with the expected number of 450,000. Walter Orenstein, director of NIP, says the immunization program is being combined with broader efforts to respond to a variety of bioterrorism weapons, according to a USA Today story. Brian Roehrkasses, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, says the program has accomplished what it set out to doinoculating enough first-responders to respond in the event of a smallpox outbreak.

Brentwood employees file suit over 2001 anthrax exposure
Employees from the Brentwood mail facility, which was closed during the 2001 anthrax attacks, file a $100 million class action suit in US District Court in Washington, claiming postal officials "falsely represented that the mail was safe" and that they kept the plant open for at least four days after they knew it was contaminated. The filing group, known as Brentwood Exposed, say they represent hundreds of current and former postal workers. The suit is similar to one filed earlier by Brentwood employee Leroy Richmond. Brentwood has been renamed the Joseph Cureen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr. Processing and Distribution Center in honor of two postal workers who died from anthrax.

Oct 14

Team to work on bioterrorism-related oral and injectable vaccines
The BioPort Corporation announces that it will team up with Therapuetic Systems Research Laboratories, Inc., and the Univerity of Michigan's Vector Core to investigate development of a new technology for DNA delivery of oral and injectible vaccines. Funded in part by a grant from the NIH that is part of the federal government's bioterrorism-related research program, the work is expected to take 2 years. BioPort is the manufacturer of the only FDA-approved anthrax vaccine.

Oct 10

Food terrorism or unintentional contamination of food supply likely, says FDA
The FDA says in a declassified report that a there is "a high likelihood, over the course of a year, that a significant number of people will be affected by an act of food terrorism or by an incident of unintentional food contamination that results in serious foodborne illness." Their conclusion is based on reports that al Qaeda is plotting to poison food and on recent foodborne disease outbreaks. Agents of special concern are Salmonella, E coli 0157:H7, and ricin because they can be easily disseminated, and anthrax and bolulism because they are most deadly. "The relative centralization of food production in the US and the global distribution of food products give food a unique susceptibility," says the FDA, and the potential for great economic loss also makes the food supply a potential target.

Initial National Response Plan announced
Tom Ridge, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announces approval of the Initial National Response Plan (INRP), according to a DHS press release. The interim plan is designed to help develop a unified approach to domestic incidents across the nation, bringing together current federal prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery plans. The INRP is aimed at integrating response plans covering terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. According to Ridge, "As this effort further evolves, our homeland seucrity effort will be guided by the concept of one plan, one team, and one fight."

Oct 9

Al Qaeda may be making anthrax
CBS News reports that top al Qaeda operative Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, has told US investigators that he had been working on an anthrax program in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and was trying to open a branch plant in the Far East before his August arrest in Thailand. Hambali is accused of masterminding the Bali bombing last year and the Jakarta hotel attack  last summer. His colleague in the anthrax work, Yazid Sufaat, also an al Qaeda member, received a degree in chemistry and laboratory science from California State University in Sacramento. Intelligence agents claim the anthrax work has been stymied by the fact that the terrorists have not been able to obtain an anthrax strain that can be spread easily, but concern remains that they are trying.

New FDA regulations to bolster safety and security of food supply
HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announces two new FDA regulations that implement key provisions of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which gave the FDA increased authority to protect the safety and security of the nation's food supply. The first requires food importers to provide the FDA, beginning on or before Dec 12, with advance notice of human and animal food shipments. This will allow more targeted inspections upon arrival and ensure the safety of imported foods. FDA expects about 25,000 notifications per day. The second regulation requires domestic and foreign food facilities that manufacture, process, package, or hold food for human or animal consumpton in the US to register with the FDA by Dec 12. The complete roster of food facilities that will result will allow quick identification and notification of affected facilities in the event of deliberate or accidental food contamination. About 420,000 facilities are expected to register.

Oct 8

NATO stages terrorist crisis to test new force
A fictional island attack with chemical and biological weapons is played out at Schreiver Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, in which NATO forces test the ability of a new rapid-reaction force. The 54-year-old, 19-member NATO held the exercise during a 2-day gathering to get member nations thinking about how to react to such an attack. NATO military personnel number almost 3 million, and it is feared the organization is too large and sluggish to respond quickly to the types of challenges posed by terrorists and other modern threats to peace, according to a Washington Post story. The "war game" was the first in which civilian and military chiefs of defense worked together on a hypothetical war. The NATO Reaction Force (NRF), a new unit for which speed of reaction is of the essence, will be begin with about 6,000 soldiers and grow to about 20,000 from all member nations in 3 or 4 years.

NRC calls for National Science Advisory Board for Biodefense
The National Research Council of the National Academies issues a report titled "Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism: Confronting the "Dual Use" Dilemma." The report focuses on the need for balance between the nation's biosecurity needs and the scientific community's need for openness to foster research, according to a press release. As the US pushes for advances in biotechnology research, the potential grows for its misuse by hostile nations or terrorists. The council recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services convene an independent National Science Advisory Board for Biodefense that would screen certain biotech research projects before they were embarked upon and oversee various other aspects of such research to mitigate the risks of bioterrorism. The board would also promote ongoing dialogue between scientists and security advisors. (See CIDRAP News story.)

A vacuum for anthrax spores
A device called ThraxVac has been developed by the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory that is capable of collecting and killing anthrax and other bacterial spores. It works by vacuuming up spores and tricking them into germinating by use of heat and moisture, which makes them vulnerable to injury, according to a story in e4, an engineering newsletter. Use of the device, which can be portable or retrofitted to a building's ventilation system for continuous cleaning is being touted as a better alternative to harsh chemicals for clean up of spores.

Oct 7

Interagency Biodefense Campus at Ft. Detrick
US Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., announces that as part of a Homeland Defense Appropriations bill that became law Oct 1, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md., will receive $88 million to build a bioterrorism defense campus. Called the Interagency Biodefense Campus, the facility will be the Department of Homeland Security's primary center for development of defenses against biological and chemical terrorist attack.

Oct 6

Turf battles between HHS and DHS?
Today's issue of Newsweek reports that turf battles between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security have "seriously hindered" preparations for a bioterror attack, although HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and DHS Secretary Tom Ridge deny it and both claim the United States is far better prepared now than 2 years ago. Critics say the dispute is taking attention away from the real problemdrastic underfunding of the healthcare system as homeland security money is funneled toward emergency responders who are trained to tackle disasters, but not those caused by spreading disease.

Oct 2

Iraq Survey Group head gives interim progress report
David Kay, leader of the Iraq Survey Group of weapons inspectors, presents the Interim Progress Report to the Congressional intelligence committees. Although no stocks of weapons have been found by his team, they have found evidence of a "clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses with the Iraqi Intelligence Service" that may have been used for prohibited biological/chemical weapons research. Also found, he said, was evidence of concealment of research and development work on such weapons. He emphasized that the lack of weapons does not mean they did not exist and that there is far more work to be done. His 1,200-member team has been working in Iraq for 4 months.

Oct 1

Tufts and U Mass to study botulism
Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine receives a $25 million, 7-year contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to establish a microbiology research unit for the study of diseases that could contaminate the US food and water supply, according to a story in the Boston Business Journal. A major focus of research will be diagnosis and treatment of botulism, on which the University of Massachusetts will collaborate.

$80.3 million goes to VaxGen for anthrax vaccine development
VaxGen, a California company that has been working on an improved anthrax vaccine, receives $80.3 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund animal studies, phase II clinical trials, the scale-up and validation of the vaccine manufacturing process, and production of 3 million doses of the finished product to go to the national stockpile. The vaccine, rPA102, is composed of alum adjuvant and a purified protein (rPA) designed to induce antibodies that neutralize anthrax toxins, according to a company press release.

NIAID funding for smallpox, VHF antiviral agents
ViroPharma announces that it has received $2.26 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support the advancement of the company's work on antiviral agents to treat high priority bioterrorism threats. The award is in two parts, one for work on smallpox and one for work on viral hemorrhagic fever viruses.

For other months' installments, go to the Bioterrorism Watch index page