Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland

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Author: search.filters.author.Harris, Elisa D.

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    The Killers in the Lab
    (2008-08-12) Harris, Elisa D.
    In order to combat the threat of biological weapons, more than $20 billion has been spent on bio-defense research since 2001.This has led to a an increase of research facilities as well as the number of people who have access to the materials. However, the 2001 anthrax mailings were conducted by a top Army bio-defense scientist, Dr Bruce Ivins and the anthrax powder originated from the Army bio-defense research center at Fort Detrick, MD. This suggest that the bio-defense program risks creating the very threat it is meant to fight. Elisa D. Harris recommends that a full public examination of all the governments evidence in the 2001 anthrax mailings should occur in order to determine what went wrong. Then the overall bio-defense research strategy must be re-examined, along with the setting of clear priorities, strengthening safety, and ensuring security and oversight of laboratories working with dangerous agents. Harris suggests that the probability of an attack on the American public is low, but any such attack would be devastating. Therefore, the US cannot meet the threat safely or effectively with a strategy that puts bio-weapons agents in more and more people’s hands.
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    Controlling Dangerous Pathogens
    (2007-03) Steinbruner, John; Harris, Elisa D.; Gallagher, Nancy; M., Stacy
    Advances in science has led to a situation where dangerous pathogens that are enormously beneficial for research can also be greatly destructive. However, scientific institutions are not prepared to handle such a burden. Proposals advanced by scientific societies are voluntary by nature but do not alone provide robust global protection. This monograph outlines an advanced oversight arrangement, provisionally labeled the Biological Research Security System (BRRS), which is designed to help prevent destructive applications of biology, whether inadvertent or deliberate. Unfortunately, in order to provide adequate protection, constraints might be necessary on freedom of action at the level of fundamental research, and infringing on autonomy of researchers. In addition a great deal of conceptual innovation, legal specification, institutional design and political accommodation would admittedly be required to establish oversight processes. The author concludes that due to the demands and burdens imposed, that human societies might accept lesser standards of protection and rather acquiesce to more limited and incremental measures.
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    Controlling Dangerous Pathogens: A Prototype Protective Oversight System
    (2005-12-01) Steinbruner, John; Harris, Elisa D.; Gallagher, Nancy; Okutani, Stacy; CISSM
    As has become increasingly evident in recent years, advances in biology are posing an acute and arguably unprecedented dilemma. The same basic science that could in principle be highly beneficial could also be enormously destructive, depending on how it is applied. Although the scope of actual consequence remains uncertain, the potential is clearly extraordinary with the health of individuals, the stability of societies and the viability of the global ecology all apparently at stake. Since compelling good and appalling harm cannot be disentangled at the level of fundamental science, a burden of management is being imposed that human institutions are not currently prepared to handle. The dilemma itself has been exemplified in several widely noted experiments1 and professionally acknowledged in reports issued by the United States National Academies of Science (NAS) and by the British Royal Society. Not surprisingly, however, and perhaps inevitably, efforts to devise an effective response are still at an embryonic stage. The proposals separately advanced by the two scientific societies are directed at their own communities and are largely voluntary in character. Those are natural initial steps but would not alone provide robust global protection. In an effort to encourage productive discussion of the problem and its implications, this monograph discusses an oversight process designed to bring independent scrutiny to bear throughout the world without exception on fundamental research activities that might plausibly generate massively destructive or otherwise highly dangerous consequences. The suggestion is that a mandatory, globally implemented process of that sort would provide the most obvious means of protecting against the dangers of advances in biology while also pursuing the benefits. The underlying principle of independent scrutiny is the central measure of protection used in other areas of major consequence, such as the handling of money, and it is reasonable to expect that principle will have to be actively applied to biology as well. The monograph outlines an advanced oversight arrangement, provisionally labeled the Biological Research Security System (BRSS), which is designed to help prevent destructive applications of biology, whether inadvertent or deliberate. The arrangement is put forward with full realization that meaningful protection can only be achieved by imposing some constraint on freedom of action at the level of fundamental research, where individual autonomy has traditionally been highly valued for the best of reasons. Constraints of any sort on research will not be intrinsically welcome and will have to demonstrate that the protection provided justifies the costs entailed. A great deal of conceptual innovation, legal specification, institutional design and political accommodation would admittedly be required to establish such an oversight process, and there is very little precedent to work with. Because of the demands imposed and the inconvenience involved, the monograph concedes that human societies after due reflection might choose at least initially to accept lesser standards of protection and it discusses more limited incremental measures that might be undertaken. The central contention, however, is that the eventual outcome should be a fully considered choice and not the default result of inertia or neglect. John Steinbruner is the Director of the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland.Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center. Nancy Gallagher is the Associate Director for Research at the Center. Stacy Okutani is a Graduate Fellow in the Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security Program.
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    Controlling Dangerous Pathogens
    (2003-08-18) Harris, Elisa D.; CISSM
    At the 5th Review Conference for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in November 2002, BWC States Parties agreed to "discuss and promote common understanding and effective action" on five specific issues, including "national mechanisms to establish and maintain the security and oversight of pathogenic microorganisms and toxins." Pathogenic microorganisms and toxins can be used for purposes prohibited by the BWC, such as the development or production of biological or toxin weapons. The reason for addressing the security and oversight of such materials is thus clear. In recent years, bioterrorism concerns have led a number of countries to tighten the security of pathogens and toxins under their control through the adoption of new restrictions on access to such materials. National oversight of work with pathogens and toxins has a longer history, but has focused largely on safety issues, particularly the safety of those carrying out the work, or of the surrounding environment. Little attention has been given to the actual work that is being undertaken with pathogens or toxins, including the possible creation of disease agents more dangerous than those that currently exist. This is not a theoretical problem. A summary is available here. Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland.
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    Testimony on The Biological Weapons Convention: Rethinking Our Priorities After September 11th
    (2001-11-15) Harris, Elisa D.; CISSM
    The biological weapons threat to the United States is fundamentally different today than in the period during and after the completion of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. At that time, only four countries -- the Soviet Union, North Korea, Egypt, and probably Israel -- had biological weapons programs. Among those countries, the Soviet biological weapons program posed the most direct and serious threat to the security of the United States. Based on defector and other information, we now know that the Soviet program was the largest in the world, eventually employing upwards of 60,000 personnel. R&D and production of biological weapons was undertaken at secret facilities run by the Soviet military and, beginning in the 1970s, also at civilian facilities under the management of an organization known as Biopreparat. The Soviet program explored the full-spectrum of traditional biological agents, ranging from lethal agents such as anthrax, smallpox and plague to incapacitating agents such as tularemia, glanders and Venezuelan equine encephalitis. It also used genetic engineering techniques to modify traditional agents, for example by imparting antibiotic resistance, and to explore possible cocktails or combinations of agents. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered the termination of this illegal biological weapons program. In the years that followed, some research and production facilities were deactivated and many others underwent severe personnel and funding cuts. Although the U.S government continues to be concerned that some elements of the former Soviet program remain, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Russia would use this residual capability deliberately against the United States. Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland.
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    Testimony on "Russia, Iraq, and Other Potential Sources of Anthrax, Smallpox, and other Terrorist Weapons"
    (2001-12-05) Harris, Elisa D.; CISSM
    The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and subsequent anthrax attacks in Florida, New York and Washington have focused renewed attention on the threat of biological weapons use by terrorists or other sub-national groups. In a statement on November 1, President Bush declared: "... the threat is growing. Since September 11, America and others have been confronted by the evils these weapons can inflict. This threat is real and extremely dangerous. Rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them." It is certainly the case that, over the past two months, America has had a glimpse of what it can mean to use disease for hostile purposes. Before October, no American ever died as a consequence of a terrorist attack with biological agents, although some 750 people were poisoned with salmonella by the Rajneeshee cult in Oregon in 1984. Today, five people are dead from inhalation anthrax. Six others have been treated for the inhalation form of the disease and another seven are recovering from the cutaneous or skin form. In addition, tens of thousands of media, postal and government employees have been prescribed powerful antibiotics prophylactically because of possible anthrax exposure. Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland.
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    Testimony on "Multilateral Non-Proliferation Regimes, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the War on Terrorism"
    (2002-02-12) Harris, Elisa D.; CISSM
    Prior to September 11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the threat of national and terrorist acquisition of chemical and biological weapons often were seen as separate problems, requiring separate solutions. Now, however, we must recognize, that these two proliferation problems are closely linked, in that assistance from national programs is likely to be critical to terrorist efforts to acquire and use chemical or biological weapons successfully. According to U.S. government officials, about a dozen countries are believed to have chemical weapons programs and at least thirteen are said to be pursuing biological weapons. These national chemical and biological weapons programs pose a direct threat to U.S. military forces and to our friends and allies in the two regions where most of this proliferation has occurred " Northeast Asia and the Middle East. They also pose an indirect threat, because of their potential to serve as a source of chemical and biological weapons expertise or materials to other national or terrorist programs. Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland.
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    A Last Chance for Saddam Hussein
    (2002-03-24) Harris, Elisa D.; Daalder, Ivo H.; CISSM
    As the Bush administration considers how to proceed on Iraq, it has to confront a growing contradiction in its public pronouncements. For months, President Bush has insisted that Baghdad allow United Nations inspectors complete and unfettered access to sites where they suspect weapons are being stored or produced. At the same time, American officials have made clear that Mr. Hussein's regime represents an unacceptable threat that must be removed, by force if necessary. But what if Mr. Hussein lets United Nations inspectors back in and gives them complete access? Would the administration still insist on his removal? Yes, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "Even then," he told CNN last month, "the United States believes the Iraqi people would still be better off with a new kind of leadership that is not trying to hide this sort of development activity on weapons of mass destruction and is not of the despotic nature that the Saddam Hussein regime is." Recently, President Bush was even more direct in putting the focus on Saddam Hussein himself, rather than on his weapons. "He is a problem," Mr. Bush said, "and we're going to deal with him." Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo H. Daalder is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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