It Still Might Be
When I first heard that Middle-Eastern terrorists had flown jets into the New York Twin Towers causing them to collapse my first reaction was relief.
Of course this was a horrible thing to have happened, but I had been anticipating much worse. When the attack made clear that the worst they could accomplish was to fly planes into a few buildings killing a few thousand people, that seemed tiny compared to the hundreds of thousands of deaths I had feared could happen. The three thousand deaths we suffered that day were bad enough. A different kind of attack could have been much worse.
Being someone who has always enjoyed following science news I had long been aware that scientists were able to genetically modify organisms. That potentially included the ability to modify pathogens to be more deadly or more unstoppable than they naturally are. This seemed like just the kind of technology terrorists would jump on.
I’m not sure when I became aware of this, probably in the 1980s in some science news about the wonderful potential for creating cures for diseases. The science of it goes back to 1971 when a scientist, Paul Berg, at a university spliced DNA from one virus into another virus making it a new and different, and potentially worse, virus. This was the start of recombinant DNA technology.
It is now remembered as a breakthrough and Berg later received a Nobel prize. But at the time he didn’t tell anyone about this for a while. When eventually another scientist in New York who studies viruses, Robert Pollack, learned of it he was immediately appalled at the danger of such work. So the fact that the technology existed, and that knowledgeable people knew how horribly dangerous it could be, was known back then. In fact how to deal with the technology in a safe way was such a hotly debated issue that they had a conference in 1975 on how to set safety standards. It was attended by most of the great minds of the time on the topic, and was a publicly reported event.
That terrorists might try to use pathogens to do great harm was known even further back. There was an attempt to put Typhoid into a water supply in 1972. In the following decades there were various attempts in the U.S. and Japan to attack the public with anthrax, botulism, salmonella, and bubonic plague. So the general method was known, and this new potentially devastating technology was known.
The whole technical field is wonderful. It has of course advanced in enormous ways since then. The odds are good that you or someone you know has had significant health benefits, directly or indirectly, from all the health science that has developed from that start. But that’s with scientists carefully attempting to make specific useful advances.
My fear at that time was that some terrorist group with money would find some smart but sick terrorist/biochemistry student, buy supplies for a lab, and let them hack away at it. A terrorist just trying to kill people wouldn’t care which virus they modify, or how it becomes more deadly or harder to stop. They could pretty much just experiment away almost randomly and see what results they get. Stumble upon something that’s deadly and that spreads quickly and is hard to stop, release it in New York and Los Angeles, and there would be an attack many times worse than what we had.
With the news of the planes being flown into buildings it was immediately clear that the terrorists focused on us were not up to that kind of attack. That was an immediate and enormous relief. A terrible thing had happened, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.
Technology has of course greatly advanced. Editing the genes of viruses is much easier, and AI can be used to try to predict exactly which changes would make a virus deadlier, quicker to spread, and harder to stop. That worse level of anxiety is back.
We can try to stop plots before they happen but that’s risky and better if we can be more proactive.
We can try to be ready for surprise outbreaks, if we fund such research. One of the best things we can do is try to make the world more peaceful and more cooperatively interdependent. With fewer impoverished or abused groups, particularly lessening or helping whole groups who become refugees into their neighboring countries because of war, or drought or other disasters of nature.
Hmm. Doesn’t seem like that’s the direction we’re going on any of that. Maybe we need a change.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is bioterrorism?
Bioterrorism is the deliberate use or release of biological agents, such as bacteria, viruses or toxins, to cause illness, death or widespread disruption.
Were there bioterrorism concerns before 9/11?
Yes. Governments and scientists were concerned about biological terrorism decades before September 11, 2001, and there had already been attempts to use biological agents against civilian populations.
Why can biotechnology create security concerns?
Biotechnology has produced enormous benefits in medicine and science, but technologies capable of modifying biological organisms can potentially be misused. That makes laboratory safeguards, oversight and biosecurity increasingly important.
Could AI increase the risk of biological terrorism?
AI could potentially make some areas of biological research faster and more accessible. That has prompted growing discussion about safeguards designed to preserve AI’s scientific benefits while reducing the possibility of misuse.
How can governments reduce the threat of bioterrorism?
Preparedness can include disease surveillance, rapid outbreak detection, medical research, strong laboratory security, emergency-response capabilities and international cooperation.
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