Bioterror research questions resurface

Since the 2001 anthrax attacks, hundreds of researchers have gained access to dangerous agents

WASHINGTON -- Until the anthrax attacks of 2001, Bruce E. Ivins was one of just a few dozen U.S. bioterrorism researchers working with the most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military laboratories.

Today, there are hundreds of such researchers in scores of laboratories at universities and other institutions around the United States.

But the revelation that FBI investigators think that the anthrax attacks were carried out by Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who committed suicide last week after he learned he was about to be indicted for murder, has re-ignited a debate: Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?

"We are putting America at more risk, not less risk," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of a House panel that has investigated recent safety lapses at biolabs.

The safety of biolabs is at the heart of the current debate about whether to put a federal defense lab in Butner, about 25 miles north of Raleigh. Nearby residents have rallied in opposition to the 520,000-square-foot lab, known formally as the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility.

Among the concerns raised by opponents is that deadly pathogens such as anthrax or Ebola could escape from the lab into the surrounding area.

The Butner laboratory would handle a wide range of pathogens that could be used as biological threats. About 10 percent of the lab would be specifically set aside for viruses with no known cures.

Spending leaps

FBI investigators have long speculated that the motive for the attacks, if carried out by a biodefense insider such as Ivins, might have been to draw public attention to a dire threat, attracting money and prestige to a once-obscure field.

If that was the motive, it succeeded. In the years since anthrax-laced letters were sent to members of Congress and news organizations in late 2001, almost $50 billion in federal money has been spent to build new laboratories, develop vaccines and stockpile drugs. For example, an experimental vaccine Ivins had spent years working on moved from the laboratory to a proposed billion-dollar federal contract after the attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins helped invent an anthrax vaccine that was slated to be added to the nation's vaccine stockpile through an $877 million contract awarded in 2004, but the deal collapsed two years later.

Ivins' lawyer and some of the scientist's colleagues say he was innocent. But officials at the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Saturday appeared confident that they had the right man, though they said they were still weighing how and when to seek an end to the grand jury investigation.

Ivins' lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, said by e-mail Saturday that news reports that his client had been considering a plea bargain were "entirely spurious."

Nearly seven years have passed without another biological attack, which has reduced the sense of urgency about the bioterrorist threat, even among some specialists.

"I think it's an important risk, but frankly I'm more concerned about bombs and guns, which are easily available and can be very destructive," said Randall S. Murch, a former FBI scientist who has studied ways to trace a bioterrorist attack to its source.

Federal officials say they are convinced that the surge in spending has brought real gains.

"Across the spectrum of biothreats we have expanded our capacity significantly," said Craig Vanderwagen, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services who oversees the biodefense effort. Systems to detect an attack, investigate it and respond with drugs, vaccines and cleanup are all hugely improved, Vanderwagen said.