By Cliff Montgomery – Aug 21st, 2009
A top biological and chemical arms control expert called Wednesday for an immediate ban on the use of genetherapy and other life sciences for military purposes.
British academic Malcolm Dando wrote in the American journal Nature that non-military researchers in severalcountries largely appear unaware of the hazard. Dando added that lawmakers should quickly make changes toa leading arms pact to avoid a crisis.
“In the past 20 years, modern warfare has changed from predominantly large-scale clashes of armies to messycivil strife,” Dando wrote in Nature. He cited the 90’s Bosnian War and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan andIraq as prime examples.
Non-military life sciences in recent years have made great strides in everything from chemicals to gene therapy.But such scientific discoveries also “are particularly suited to this style of warfare – [hence] it is not hard to findpeople in the military world who think they would be useful” in battle, he stated.
Dando does not strike one as the alarmist type. He is Professor of International Security at Britain’s BradfordUniversity. Dando also regularly participates in U.N.-sponsored arms discussions – next week he will be inGeneva to participate in a top-level meeting on a 1972 biological weapons agreement.
And as the professor writes in Nature, an interest in the possible military use of life science discoveries hasbeen around for a while.
“In 1959, the chairman of the UK government’s secret Chemistry Committee of the Advisory Council onScientific Research and Technical Development told his colleagues that the committee was ‘looking for agentswhich would produce, not cure, psychoses’. “
“Between the early 1950s and 1970s, researchers working in laboratories that eventually became the US ArmyMedical Research Institute of Chemical Defense studied chemical agents that affect the central nervoussystem,” continued the professor in Nature.
“Indeed in 1961, the US military weaponized BZ — a drug that had originally been studied as a possibletherapy for gastrointestinal diseases,” wrote Dando.
“BZ is one of a group of chemicals that act on the brain and can cause delirium – people exposed to it may fallinto a stupor, struggle to speak, show poor coordination and have difficulty processing thoughts,” he added.
The professor wrote in Nature that such misuses of life science discoveries may be outlawed by makingchanges to the global Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), created in 1993.
“The CWC urgently needs modifying if it is to continue to help ensure that the modern life sciences are notused for hostile purposes,” wrote Dando.
The top issue may be how the CWC deals with non-lethal chemicals employed by law enforcement.
Currently the agreement, which has been signed by 188 countries, bans the use of all chemical weapons–thatis, all except those used for riot control and law enforcement.
“‘Law enforcement’ could be taken by some to cover more than domestic riot control, which in certaincircumstances would make it legal for the military to use agents such as fentanyl,” Dando stated, referring to astrong painkilling drug.
Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, was the basic ingredient of a still-undisclosed concoction used by Russianspecial military forces in 2002 to weaken Chechen rebels who had taken over a crowded Moscow theater,according to Dando.
Dousing the theater with the mixture did allow Russian commandos in protective gear to break in and shootdead the incapacitated hostage-takers. But the concoction also killed more than 120 hostages, including oneAmerican.
An agent currently being developed is oxytocin, which has been dubbed the “love and cuddle” drug. Thechemical, which induces a deep sense of trust, “opens up the possibility of a drug that could be used tomanipulate people’s emotions in a military context,” wrote Dando.
Some who back the military use of gene therapy and other life sciences argue that such a deployment maylessen the number of people killed in battles. But Dando counters that real-life applications, like the use offentanyl to end the Moscow theater siege, prove this is not so.
The professor declared a sense of alarm at the apparent lack of concern many life scientists currently show forthis issue.
“They are just not taking the problem on board,” Dando recently told Reuters.
The professor also said it was unlikely that needed changes to the CWC could be made by 2013, when theagreement again comes up for review.
“It is a long diplomatic process and it is not clear that even governments fully recognize the problem,” theprofessor told Reuters during a telephone interview.
