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Attachment II - Pac?e 14 
The Nation. 
nuke a vaccine against anything, and if you have a vaccine, 
it nukes use of these weapons more feasible.” 
In scores of laboratories, D.O.D.- financed researchers 
are seeking vaccines against the deadliest potential B.VV. 
agents, including those that cause Rift Valley Fever, 
dcsiftie-2 (“breakbone fever”), anthrax and rickettsia 
(**Q- fever”). Military spokesmen freely acknowledge that 
the research on hybridoma and recombinant DNA technol- 
ogies will be expanded. According to the National Science 
Foundation, expenditures on all biological research by the 
Defense Department have increased 54 percent since 1980, 
reaching $100 million in 1983. 
After recombinant DNA technology has created a new or 
better vaccine, hybridoma technology can purify the vaccine 
faster and more efficiently than earlier methods could. The 
vaodne can then be mass-produced. The next step is mass in- 
Doculation. Here a problem crises. U.S. troops are routinely 
bmoculated for a wide variety of diseases, and even large- 
scale civilian vaccination is nothing new (the most recent, 
during the swine- flu epidemic in 1976). However, mass vac- 
cination for rare or exotic diseases would touch off a public 
ftiror, so the Army apparently has another idea. It is studying 
the effectiveness of aerosol immunization, in which the vac- 
dne, against such potential B.W. agents as anthrax and tula- 
remia, is inhaled rather than swallowed or taken by injection. 
The Army describes its aerosol -vaccination research as 
routine. According to the 1980 ‘‘Annual Report on Chemical 
Warfare and Biological Research Programs” it presented to 
Congress, studies are targeted -toward “stimulating protec- 
tive immunity on mucosal surfaces throughout the respira- 
tory tract.” Theoretically, aerosol vaccines would make oral 
and nasal passages resistant to specific germs, which would 
die or become benign upon touching the mucous mem- 
branes. But Girish Vy&s, a leading immunologist at the 
University of California at San Francisco, told me, “There 
is no published, scientific evidence that such local stimula- 
tion is practical or beneficial.” 
Although aerosol vaccines have produced immunity, they 
an much more dangerous and less effective than standard 
methods. They are more likely to spread disease, the result 
of releasing germs into the air. Then why is the D.O.D. even 
considering aerosols? The answer is that they could be used 
clandestinely. An entire civilian population could be covert- 
ly Inooculated against B.W. agents by spraying a vaccine 
over wide areas. 
In the 1950s, the Army sprayed “simulants” — supposedly 
innocuous germs — over 117'square miles of the San Fran- 
cisco Bay area to test this technique’s feasibility in biological 
warfare. Similar tests were conducted in the New York City 
subways (see Leonard A. Cole, “The Army’s Secret Germ- 
War Testing," TheNation, October 23. 1982], Details of the 
experiment were not revealed until the late 1970s, so millions 
of unwitting civilians had been exposed to the germs w ithout 
knowing it. Some may have suffered adverse effects. 
It is highly unlikely that the D.O.D. 's current aerosol 
research is for civilian defense purposes, since the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Depart- 
ment of Health and Human Services, rather than the mili- 
[304] 
December iO, 1983 
tary, are responsible for protecting civilians against chemi- 
cal and biological warfare (C.B.W.). FEMA docs not con- 
sider it “a major strategic threat to the U.S. population at 
this time,” and therefore docs not even have a program to 
deal with it: Neither agency is conducting research on 
vaccination against biological agents; nor, say their 
spokesmen, has either agency ever asked the D.O.D. 
for assistance. 
Although the idea of covert mass vaccination may seem 
farfetched, the stuff of science fiction, the Yrmy disagrees. 
As long ago as 1963, an article in the Army’s Military 
Medicine noted that “a plan for large-scale immunopro- 
phylaxis of the civilian population should be prepared. This 
would include standby legislation for compulsory immuni- 
zation if required.” A separate article cites aerosol vaccina- 
tion as a means to accomplish that goal. 
The Defensive-Offensive Tautology 
Although the 1972 B.W. treaty makes a distinction be- 
tween “defensive” and “offensive” research, even the 
military acknowledges that the difference is extremely hazy. 
Last year. Col. Richard Barquist, who head s the U.S. Army 
Medical Research Institut e of Infe ctious Diseases^ where 
most BTWrd efense rese arch is c onduc ted ,_told _thc_ Assocr- 
atedTPress, “ As far as [recombinant DNA] research goes, 
there’s n<T3ifferencc [between offense and defense). But th e 
U.S. is out of t he BW business. What we don't do are ma ss 
cultures or deliverable weapons sys tems .” 
'“^HougR'Ttls true that actuaT B.W. agents and missiles 
are not being manufactured in the United States, the Army’s 
annual C.B.W. reports indicate that extensive research is be- 
ing carried out on nearly every aspect of biological warfare, 
from the lethality of various germs to the efficacy of dif- 
ferent delivery systems. 
Indeed, almost any kind of vaccine research, however hu- 
manitarian its~blijecflvcs, produces Knowledge that can be ~ 
us ed in offensive B.W. research— including the develop- 
ment of new germs. According to the Stockholm Interna- 
tional Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) definitive study on 
chemical and biological warfare, “The typical vaccine plant 
is inadequate for the production of a fully military capabili- 
ty, [but] it would be adequate for the production of quan- 
tities [of biological warfare agents] required for a sabotage 
attack. . . . Some common forms of vaccine produ ctio n are 
very close technically to production ofCBW agents and jo 
offer easy opportunities for conversion/’ SIPRI finds little 
difference between offensive and defensive C.B.W. research. 
By coming perilously close to authorizing the production 
of binary nerve gas in October, Congress has provoked 
serious questions about another aspect of military DNA 
research. At least six experiments arc being conducted to 
clone the gene that regulates the body’s production of 
acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme which is essential to the 
transmission of neural impulses. Nerve gases block the ac- 
tion of this substance, causing a total breakdown of nerve 
function followed by agonizing muscle paralysis, respiratory 
failure and death. Only tiny quantities of the enzyme are 
present in the body. 
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