Arrests highlight growing threat of bioweapons

Andrew C. Revkin

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 9:52 a.m.

As federal agents continued to build a case Friday against two men charged with possessing lethal bacteria, investigators and experts on terrorism said the case - and other recent incidents - pointed to the growing threat posed by biological weapons.

Even though the FBI and federal health officials implemented new tactics and rules for tracking and controlling lethal microbes in 1996, a person with a modicum of scientific skill can still readily acquire the means to kill many people, said Frank Scafidi, an FBI spokesman.

"With a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of depravity, you have the makings of a horrendous event," Scafidi said.

The raw materials are not hard to come by. Bacillus anthracis, the lethal anthrax bacterium that the FBI feared was in vials taken from the suspects in Las Vegas, is frequently shipped between medical research laboratories and can be found in the soil after an outbreak occurs in livestock.

"People are shocked that these materials are available," Scafidi said, referring to anthrax, plague, and the many other infectious diseases that can be used as weapons. "But you're talking about a biological agent that's out there in the natural environment."

Tests continued Friday on the substances in the vials, but officials released no results.

Such tests normally take from 48 to 72 hours, with samples of a suspect substance smeared on laboratory plates of agar or blood. If anthrax bacteria are present, they will rapidly reproduce, blossoming into distinctive white colonies, said Dr. David Pegues, chief epidemiologst at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center. When cultured on blood, often the blood cells burst - just as they do during an infection, he added.

The FBI hazardous materials response unit that flew to Las Vegas to pursue the case was created in 1996, Scafidi said, in the wake of several incidents that highlighted the need for heightened vigilance.

The most dramatic incident was the 1995 sarin gas attacks in Japanese subways by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which killed 12 people and injured dozens.

Japanese investigators discovered that cult members had also obtained anthrax bacteria, apparently simply by digging up soil from a site where livestock had been infected with the disease. They apparently tested, but never perfected, a technique for dispersing the bacteria spores, according to information revealed in Senate hearings in 1996.

In addition, some cult members traveled to Zaire, possibly to try to obtain ebola virus, one of the deadliest known germs, said John F. Sopko, a longtime aide to former Sen. Sam Nunn. Sopko conducted investigations leading to the Senate hearings. "Aum Shinrikyo showed everyone what's possible," said Sopko, who now works on unrelated matters at the Commerce Department.

"They essentially opened up a terrorist's Pandora's box." Another important incident, also in 1995, involved one of the men arrested this week in Nevada, Larry Wayne Harris.

Harris, who has been linked to white supremacist groups and has training in microbiology, ordered Clostridium botulinum - which produces the botulism toxin, one of the most lethal substances known to science - through the mail from a cell culture repository in Maryland. In a plea bargain, he was convicted on some charges but served no prison time.

That highly publicized incident spurred changes in law enforcement and prompted the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to tighten rules for the handling of 40 deadly organisms that are used in basic research or to create drugs.

The new rules require laboratories studying the most deadly organisms to register with federal health officials, have a person on staff who is certified to handle shipments of the organisms, and be open to inspections.

But even with these procedures, an unscrupulous scientist or determined terrorist can obtain the makings of a biological bomb, said Amy E. Smithson, an expert in chemical and biological weapons at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in Washington studying arms issues.

"There are untold thousands of individuals around the world diligently working on biological research for the benefit of mankind," Ms. Smithson said. "And then there's this handful of bad guys who see fit to try and make mayhem."

Cultures of deadly organisms have for many years been circulating overseas. The American Type Culture Collection, the respected nonprofit research group that unwittingly sent Harris his botulism supply in 1995, legally sent anthrax bacteria to Iraq several times in the 1980s.

Adding to concerns about bio-terrorism is the fact that dozens of diseases that are not lethal enough to make the new federal list of highly controlled organisms can still pose a serious hazard and possibly be used by terrorists, public health officials said.

The most notable case occurred in Oregon in 1984, when followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh seeded salad bars at restaurants in the town of The Dalles with Salmonella bacteria, sickening 571 of the 10,500 inhabitants in hopes of disrupting local elections.

Even if the substance found in Nevada proves to be anthrax, that does not necessarily mean that it was ready to be deployed as a weapon, experts in biological warfare said.

The spores can only readily infect people if they are sprayed in an extremely fine mist that can penetrate deep in the lungs, said Dr. Matthew S. Meselson, a biologist at Harvard University who has studied chemical and biological weapons for more than 20 years.

The particles would have to be 50 times smaller than drops released by a conventional agricultural sprayer, he said.

Even so, it is probably only a matter of time before someone succeeds at using anthrax or a similar deadly agent, Sopko said. "The bottom line," he said, "is it's a realistic threat, both abroad and domestically."