Germ Warfare

The restructuring and downsizing of today's armed forces has thrown U.S. military facilities into an intensely competitive bidding war for a dwindling number of remaining programs.Aberdeen Proving Ground has held its own, losing about 200 jobs in a recent consolidation of several Army services, but gaining another 200 positions with the construction of a new $80 million materials research laboratory on post.Now APG is in hot pursuit of another 200 jobs -- and a highly controversial Army contract to mass produce germ-warfare vaccines for U.S. troops.

I sat next to Ted Stevens at a Washington dinner years ago and found him unpleasant in a raspy, cartoonish way, but I was happy to see his conviction thrown out. A muddy case, a friend doing work on the senator's house perhaps in exchange for favors in Washington, and I say, have mercy. Let him go fishing in the cold, clear rivers of Alaska and examine his conscience, as we all do in our better hours, and let us all move on to something more promising. I feel similarly about the Bush people whom some Democrats want to charge with war crimes.

An Army report addressing the environmental risks of germ warfare research at Fort Detrick is "hopelessly inadequate," a counsel for a Washington public interest group has said.The Army claims its work does not pose any significant environmental threats, but the Army has failed to go back and decide if the research was necessary in the first place, Andrew Kimbrell, of the Foundation on Economic Trends, said this week."Any risk is too high if the research is unnecessary," said Kimbrell, policy director and counsel for the foundation, which has long been concerned about the dangers of biological warfare research.

It sounds downright risky, but snacking on billions of live bacteria can actually improve digestion, support the immune system and bolster overall health. Called probiotics, these "friendly" microbes with health benefits are found naturally in breast milk and fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir, aged cheese, miso and certain pickles and sauerkraut. They work by keeping intestinal flora balanced and preventing not-so-friendly bacteria from taking over and causing disease. But during the past 50 years, the increased use of antibiotics and a changing diet low in soluble fiber and high in refined carbohydrates have produced an "invisible epidemic of insufficient probiotics," said Gary Huffnagle, professor of internal medicine and microbiology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

WASHINGTON -- Alarmed that America is ill-prepared to defend itself against terrorists with biological weapons or computer hackers bent on mass mayhem, President Clinton plans to link government and business to confront post-Cold War security threats, officials say.Clinton's proposals, which he is expected to announce in a commencement speech tomorrow at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, are intended to address potential threats in which the likelihood of...

NEW YORK - Officials at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center have failed to safeguard pathogens that could be adapted to become weapons of germ warfare, including an agent potentially as "threatening as smallpox," a federal report says. Safety concerns at the island, off the North Fork of Long Island, have long focused on the pathogens of diseases generally confined to animals, such as foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever. But the report, excerpts of which were provided by a government official concerned about safety at the island, sounded a rare alarm about the potential of hazards to people.

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland fire and rescue crews will have one less "bio-headache" when American Type Culture Collection moves to Northern Virginia this month and takes its store of germs with it.But local emergency crews cannot relax - Montgomery and Frederick counties are still home to America's foremost research institutions on diseases and germ warfare.Not only are Fort Detrick and the National Institutes of Health still around, but they will soon be home to two of the three "biosafety level 4" labs in the country.

The United States has signed an agreement with Uzbekistan to remove deadly anthrax from a remote island in the Aral Sea where the Soviet Union dumped tons of lethal spores, Bush administration and Uzbek officials said yesterday. They said the agreement reflected growing concern that terrorists or rogue states might seek to obtain the anthrax spores, which the Soviet Union secretly buried on the island in 1988. Separately, administration officials said the Pentagon had approved a project to make a potentially more potent form of anthrax bacteria to see whether the vaccine the United States intends to supply its armed forces with is effective against that strain as well.

For years, in total secrecy, they studied the black art of bioterrorism. They designed deadly, silent biological dart guns and hid them in fountain pens and walking sticks. They crunched lethal bacteria into suit buttons that could be worn unnoticed across borders. They rigged light fixtures and car tailpipes to loose an invisible spray of anthrax. They practiced germ attacks in airports and on the New York subway, tracking air currents and calculating the potential death toll. But they weren't a band of al-Qaida fanatics -- or enemies of any kind.

WASHINGTON -- Despite years of warnings from experts, the United States is poorly prepared to defend its armed forces from the rising threat of germ warfare attack and lags even more in protecting Americans at home, defense officials say.As President Clinton and other leaders have been proclaiming the dangers of biological weapons, officials acknowledge that they are taking only the first steps to develop the high-technology gear, medicine and organization needed...

For years, in total secrecy, they studied the black art of bioterrorism. They designed deadly, silent biological dart guns and hid them in fountain pens and walking sticks. They crunched lethal bacteria into suit buttons that could be worn unnoticed across borders. They rigged light fixtures and car tailpipes to loose an invisible spray of anthrax. They practiced germ attacks in airports and on the New York subway, tracking air currents and calculating the potential death toll. But they weren't a band of al-Qaida fanatics -- or enemies of any kind.

NEW YORK - Officials at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center have failed to safeguard pathogens that could be adapted to become weapons of germ warfare, including an agent potentially as "threatening as smallpox," a federal report says. Safety concerns at the island, off the North Fork of Long Island, have long focused on the pathogens of diseases generally confined to animals, such as foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever. But the report, excerpts of which were provided by a government official concerned about safety at the island, sounded a rare alarm about the potential of hazards to people.

The World China announced restrictions on the export of its missile technology, and the United States announced it would add to its list of terrorist groups an Islamic group that challenges Chinese rule in the western province of Xinjiang. Traffic accidents kill more than 1 million people a year and injure tens of millions more, costing underdeveloped countries more than they receive in international aid, according to an official of the Road Traffic Injury Research network. Israel reversed a decision to withdraw from Palestinian areas of Gaza and Bethlehem, asserting that the danger of violence had not abated.

WASHINGTON - Determined to shore up world support for a prolonged war on terrorism, the White House has adopted a new flexibility toward the kind of international agreements it once disparaged. As President Bush prepares for a summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin starting Nov. 13, senior administration officials are signaling a willingness to continue abiding by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, at least for the time being. This would be part of a deal that would allow tests of a missile defense system, which Bush has made a top priority, and deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons, which both sides favor.

The United States has signed an agreement with Uzbekistan to remove deadly anthrax from a remote island in the Aral Sea where the Soviet Union dumped tons of lethal spores, Bush administration and Uzbek officials said yesterday. They said the agreement reflected growing concern that terrorists or rogue states might seek to obtain the anthrax spores, which the Soviet Union secretly buried on the island in 1988. Separately, administration officials said the Pentagon had approved a project to make a potentially more potent form of anthrax bacteria to see whether the vaccine the United States intends to supply its armed forces with is effective against that strain as well.

WASHINGTON - The patients with the mysterious sickness began appearing at Oklahoma City hospitals in December of 2002, with fever, weakness and a nasty rash. Within days the rash blossomed into pus-filled bumps, almost like a severe case of acne. Soon the city had 20 cases, with others sprouting across the state. Identical symptoms were seen in Georgia, then Pennsylvania. Days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the diagnosis: smallpox. The highly infectious disease - with a 30 percent fatality rate - was last seen in the United States in 1949.

The World China announced restrictions on the export of its missile technology, and the United States announced it would add to its list of terrorist groups an Islamic group that challenges Chinese rule in the western province of Xinjiang. Traffic accidents kill more than 1 million people a year and injure tens of millions more, costing underdeveloped countries more than they receive in international aid, according to an official of the Road Traffic Injury Research network. Israel reversed a decision to withdraw from Palestinian areas of Gaza and Bethlehem, asserting that the danger of violence had not abated.

BALTIMORE and surrounding Army training camps 75 years ago became primary players in a horror tale that rivals a modern Stephen King plot. Soldiers at Camp Meade were dying. The body count was 60 to 90 young men and boys a day.The Sun on Oct. 9, 1918, report ed the previous 33 hours as particularly grueling, with the city recording 117 deaths, Camp Meade 64 deaths and Fort McHenry 12 deaths.The world was embroiled in World War I. At the same time, it was fighting a losing battle with a major flu epidemic.

A confidential Bush administration review has recommended that the United States not accept a draft agreement to enforce the treaty banning germ weapons, American officials said. The recommendations appear certain to distress allies, who back the draft accord and are concerned that the new administration is concentrating too much on new military programs and not enough on treaties and nonproliferation. After six years of negotiations, diplomats in Geneva have produced the draft agreement, known as a protocol, which would establish measures to monitor the ban on biological weapons.

Chesapeake Bay is a great place for wildlife, commerce, recreation -- and smuggling. From 1920 to 1933, the Prohibition Amendment years, the bay and its shores teemed with the boats and cars of bootleggers. In his exuberant account, "Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties" (Tidewater Press, 210 pages, $25.95), Eric Mills reports unconfirmed instances of bottle delivery even by small airplane. And one illicit Anne Arundel distillery had its own rail spurline. The Treasury Department and its Coast Guard strove to smash the stills, jail the lawbreakers, disrupt the shipments; but federal agents were far outnumbered and bribery flourished.