27 
Mr. Rifkin called the attention of the ccmnittee to the letter fran 
Dr. Jay Sanford, President of the USUHS (Attachment III), vhich states 
that the Department of Defense (DOD) does not believe these experiments 
will have a significant impact on arms control and disarmament. Mr. Rifkin 
said that the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is the agency which has 
to deal with it, not the DOD. 
Mr. Rifkin suggested that RAC discuss setting up a RAC subgroup to: 
"...take a look at this whole area of convertibility of toxins from 
peaceful uses to military uses and to initiate a very exhaustive study, 
complete with recarmendations and findings, to bring back to this 
committee for discussion at a future date." 
Mr. Rifkin also suggested that the subgroup: 
"...look at all of the ways that we might deal with controls, regulations, 
protocols, and procedures dealing with this whole question of toxins 
used for domestic purposes versus military." 
Dr. Levine said he wished to offer a few clarifications. He explained that: 
"Shiga toxin was originally isolated from a serotype of Shigella called 
Shigella dysenteriae-1 , or Shiga. That particular organism caused 
pandemic dysentery in Central America from 1968-1970. There no longer 
is a pandemic in Central America. There hasn't been for many years. 
In feet, it's an uncommon endemic organism in Central America. Shigella 
dysenteriae-1 , amongst all Shigella , amongst all bacteria, is one of 
only a handful of organisms that are capable of exhibiting pandemic 
spread, and that occurs every couple of generations interspersed 
widely throughout the world. One does not really knew vhy it turns 
up. There was a similar large epidemic in Bangladesh in the 1970s, 
for example; there was one 15 years earlier in East Africa. There is 
no Shiga dysentery pandemic in Central America new. . . . 
"The genes, however, that Shigella dysenteriae-1 have, we now recognize 
are in all Shigella , or apparently all Shigella , because all Shigella 
serotypes that have been looked at are now found to produce this toxin. 
And what's much more important, EL_ coli vhich everybody in this rocm 
has in their intestine, some JL_ coli can produce lots of Shiga toxin.... 
"The last point I would make, Mr. Chairman, is that it bothers me,, as a 
health worker and health professional interested in geographic medicine 
and tropical pediatrics, to have such great emphasis put on one aspect 
of warfare when there's another war out there and it's a war that I'm 
involved in fighting in a different way and that is a war against dis- 
ease, and that’s also a real war, and that's taking place now, that's 
not hypothetical. Shiga dysentery does cause disease, cholera causes 
disease. There are many, many — there are millions of children — that 
die of these diseases throughout the war Id. That's war, and we need 
[ 480 ] 
