Are we safer?

Iran has also opened its doors to a British pharmaceutical company to conduct clinical trials on a product containing botulinum toxin. The company's decision to conduct trials may have involved the sharing of critical dual-use information. The willingness of legitimate foreign companies to share sensitive data with state sponsors of terrorism raises serious questions about our capacities to control sensitive biological agents, toxins and know-how.

In large part, we are not safer since 9/11 because of governments' inability to effectively compete with the rapid pace of emerging biotechnologies, especially in separating their peaceful from their potentially hostile uses. This challenge cannot be addressed solely by increased government funding. Today, the threat is increasingly diffuse, ranging from small-scale, moderately sophisticated terrorist cells to legitimate biopharmaceutical companies that may unwittingly provide processes or materials for offensive bioweapons research.

The critical convergence of biotechnology and the rise of catastrophic terrorist intent highlights the need for greater cooperation between the public and private sectors in the areas of public health and national security. We need to incorporate industry and government into a coordinated strategy to monitor and regulate the proliferation of the most sensitive biological technologies. This means that the Food and Drug Administration and the rest of the Department of Health and Human Services must realize that decisions made in the name of public health could well have an impact on U.S. national security.

For example, the FDA is considering the approval of drugs by foreign companies whose dual-use research is prohibited by U.S. law for U.S. companies on national security and other grounds. The proliferation of high-security biosafety laboratories has occurred without any apparent consideration of the added risk of dangerous biological substances being handled at more locations and by more researchers.

Similarly, the biotech and pharmaceutical industries should appreciate that they too have a stake in the nonproliferation of dual-use technologies - certainly for reasons of national security, but also as it impacts their bottom line if their technology becomes a security risk.

All parties need to begin exercising stricter control over their technologies and inculcate security concerns into their decision-making by taking the threat of biological weapons as seriously as the threat from nuclear weapons. Until that happens, we will all remain more susceptible than we should be to the next bioterrorist attack.

Brian D. Finlay, senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, is an expert on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. His e-mail is

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