The possibility of agricultural terrorism, whether it is the poisoning livestock or propositions that terrorists could steal crop dusters to wreak some sort of havoc, has long been considered. In February, 2001, Janes Defense wrote about potential agricultural threats and the increase of anti-terrorism budget by the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
"One somewhat surprising addition to the 2001 budget..a line-item for $39.8 million to be apportioned to the U.S> Department of Agriculture (USDA), a federal body that has not in the past received much attention in U.S. national security contingencies."
The article dealt primarily with the possibility of weaponizing biological pathogens against livestock, but pointed out:
"The capability requirements for carrying out a foodborne attack are rudimentary, and certainly more so [sic] than those necessary for an airborne assault. There are a myriad of possible agents and vectors that could be used, most of which are either readily available or do not require any substantial scientific knowledge to isolate and develop."
Following the attacks on September 11th, various research entities and government agencies scrambled to establish guidelines to curb the dissemination of research which could be used for malicious purposes. The Fink committee issued a report October 2003 on steps to prevent the application of "dual-use" research, and in light of the report, the Bush administration established a National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), as part of the National Institute of Health (NIH).
A separate effort in 2003, established a group of top life science journal editors, research university and foundation scientists, as well as agencies like the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, who met and established their own guidelines that would guide science research publication with consideration of national defense issues. Many other organizations did the same, as researchers would rather be self-monitoring, than censored by government agencies.
Despite these efforts this issue seemed unresolved when it was brought to the fore recently in a brouhaha surrounding a Stanford scientist's paper on the capability of terrorists to poison the milk supply. The publication of the paper; "Analyzing a Bioterror Attack on the Food Supply: The Case of Botulinum Toxin in Milk" by Dr. Lawrence M. Wein, was postponed by the department of Health and Human Services because the agency considered it a blueprint for terrorists. Wein then published an editorial about the event in the New York Times; "Got Toxic Milk", May 30, 2005, that summarized the findings of his full length paper. Last week, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the full research report.
There are diverse opinions about whether the article should have been published. Those who defend publishing the article argue that the article serves as a warning to protect largely unguarded agricultural resources. Those who oppose the publication of the article claim that the article presented specific data and calculations that would be useful to someone with malicious intent, therefore the article threatens national security.
There were also those who strongly opposed the article on a factual basis. Authors at Global Security criticized the article for being; "flawed in its understanding of terrorist capabilities, [the author's] other assumptions in error, and the conclusion therefore erroneous and inflammatory." In short, they maintain that:
- Terrorists couldn't procure the toxin necessary. The Global Security authors provide evidence which they say shows the citations used by the paper's authors were flimsy.
- They assert that Wein's assumptions about the degree of lethality were potentially flawed, as were assumptions about the inability of the pasteurization process to kill biological toxins. Pasteurization processes have been thoroughly scrutinized by the government and the International Dairy Foods Association and improved - the paper ignores this.
- Lastly GlobalSecurity.org criticized the publication of the paper, considering the amount of uncertainty that was built into the paper's risk calculations.
GlobalSecurity.org concluded that:
..[T]oo often, in our opinion, have the debates on securing the country against the threat of bioterrorism degenerated into worst case scenarios which assume an easy and accomplished technical capability for mass killing already or soon to be in the hands of terrorists. Our assessment is that the possible variability in the three key assumptions means that, taken together, they could result in a difference of nine orders of magnitude from the numbers presented by Dr. Wein, that is produce a result only one-billionth as much.
Was Wein's Stanford paper fear-mongering based on faulty assumptions? Or was it critical information being suppressed by government agencies, but imperative information for the public? It is unclear how future rounds of similar arguments will be resolved. On one hand, there is a lot of information published in research journals that could be useful to those with malicious intent. On the other, is secrecy our best way forward?
The argument that it is irrelevant if the research is published because most of the information is available on the internet seems specious - random publishers of sites on the internet that post items of variable accuracy do not garner the same authority, nor (usually) inherit the same responsibilities that academic publishers do. Those who defend publishing such papers, certainly Wein claim that this type of paper is meant as a "warning", to the public, meant to frighten people into action. Pardon the lame analogy, but this rhetorical tack sounds a bit like the film director who claims that his extremely violent film is a "commentary" on violence. If an author or director gains notoriety from this type of production or publication decision, how can we possible judge their true intent?
Moreover, since most of these security assessments involve calculating the statistical likelihood ("nine orders of magnitude", says Global Security) of many individual events occurring at once, one could argue that any particular threat involves a degree of uncertainty. Wein's paper proposes the worse case scenario. In their rebuttal, GlobalSecurity.org uses another set of uncertainty assumptions to make the opposing case - that terrorists could not easily poison the population by poisoning the milk supply. Is it even possible to gather the information necessary to assess who is right? Government officials had information that could have led them to tighten up airline security before September 11th. They assumed a level of uncertainty that turned out to be tragic.
Intellectual freedom and freedom of the press are critical to democracy, as is battening down security by identifying lapses. Balancing the tension between the two critical goals is difficult.
There is seemingly no central authority overseeing these decisions. Since the Wein's paper was originally vetted by the journal editors, editors and NSABB(?), how did the Department of Health and Human Services (which is also part of NSABB) only now become involved? As for Wein's response, published by New York Times - is the mainstream press the appropriate venue to do end runs around decisions concerning national defense and the appropriateness of a scientific publication? How much secrecy is productive? How much is counterproductive? I don't know.
And what about the organization NSABB, which was chartered as a result of decisions in 2003, was formed in 2004, but still hadn't met mid-2005? The National Arms Control Center reports that NSABB just held it's first meeting. How biosecure do you feel?
