Attachment II - Page 3 
A good case in point is the experiment to clone diptheria toxin that was 
considered at the RAC meeting of October 25 , 1982. In reviewing the 
proposed diptheria experiment proposal, Dr. Michael Gill, a consultant to the 
RAC, predicted two possible outcomes of the experiment to inject diptheria 
toxin into test animals. According to the minutes of the RAC meeting, Dr. 
Gill observed that either "no effect is observed or the animal dies. The 
experiment is structured so that if no effect is observed, no information will 
be gained. If, on the other hand, the animal dies, a biological weapon will 
have been constructed according to Dr. Gill." 
The DOD points out that many of the DNA related experiments it is engaged 
in are designed to produce useful vaccines. Yet even here, many scientists 
working in the field agree that much of this type of experimentation ad- 
vances the knowledge that could be easily used for weapons development. 
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 
exhaustive study on chemical and biological warfare, while "the typical 
vaccine plant is inadequate for the production of a fully military capability 
it would be adequate for the production of quantities (of biological warfare 
agents) required for a sabotage attack. ..Some common forms of vaccine 
production are very close technically to production of CBW agents and so 
offer easy opportunities for conversion." Col. Richard Barquist, who heads 
the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases apparently 
:oncurs with this assessment. In a recent interview with the Associated 
Press, Col. Barquist said "as far as (recombinant DNA) research goes, there's 
no difference (between offense and defense)." 
Former RAC member Dr. Richard Goldstein, professor of microbiology of 
Harvard Medical School, sums up the nature of these kinds of biological 
experiments currently being conducted by the DOD. Under the banner of 
defensive purposes, the DOD "can justify working with the super pathogens 
of the world — producing altered and more virulent strains, producing 
vaccines for protection of their troops against such agents.. .and likewise for 
the development of dispersal systems since DOD must be able to defend 
against any such dispersal system. Under this quise, what DOD ends up with 
is a new biological weapon system ~ a virulant organism, a vaccine against 
it, and a dispersal system. As you can gather from this, there is but a very 
thin line — if any -- between such a defensive system (allowed by the 
convention) and any prohibited offensive system." 
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