Forget the Gas Masks

Stockpiling gas masks for your family and scrambling to buy anti-anthrax medication is like building a concrete bunker under the living room to be safe from an asteroid strike. Such a response is, aside from its doubtful effectiveness, out of proportion to the risk. With one death from anthrax in Florida and anthrax bacteria detected in a co-worker of the dead man, certainly thoughts of the possibility of biological terrorism strike home. But where defenses most need shoring up is at the government level.

Better protection requires both specific actions and a basic reorientation of defense scientists from physics to biology. A Senate hearing today on bioterrorism should start by urging three long-delayed steps:

* Strengthen the 1972 U.N. Biological Weapons Convention, a toothless treaty. In the 1980s, for instance, a U.S. company sent shipments of anthrax and other pathogens to Iraq without violating the pact. Earlier this year, after five years of negotiations, the United Nations’ top bioweapons negotiator announced a tentative agreement on stronger terms, including unannounced inspections of suspected bioweapons sites.

The proposal died, and who killed it? The United States. A trade official argued it might threaten U.S. national interests and commercial secrets by allowing foreign inspectors in to visit pharmaceutical plants. The United States should lift its opposition immediately.

* Improve federal supervision of biowarfare vaccine production. The Pentagon’s efforts to produce vaccines to inoculate troops have been in disarray for years.

In August, Undersecretaries of Defense E.C. “Pete” Aldridge Jr. and David S.C. Chu recommended that the federal government develop its own production facilities because of repeated contamination and quality assurance problems with the anthrax vaccine. There is no guarantee that the government would do better, but at least it should intensify supervision of private laboratories. It should also increase grants for biological defense-related research.

* Bar farmers from spiking animal feed with antibiotics. The drugs promote growth, particularly in poultry, but also create drug-resistant bacteria. These can be passed to humans, reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics that are the nation’s front line of medical defense.

The most important big-picture reform is a change of attitude. President Bush’s choice as science director, John H. Marburger III--a physicist--is scheduled to have his Senate confirmation hearing today. Bush can help balance the dominance of physics by naming biologists to the unfilled top posts at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. Only with well-regarded biologists in leadership can the United States mount a strong defense against bioweapons.