US-Swiss panel discusses bio-terror threat

Daniel Vasella and Pascal Couchepin were among those taking part in the discussion Keystone

With the terrorist threat high on the agenda of the World Economic Forum in New York, representatives from Switzerland and the US have been discussing ways to counter the use of chemical and biological weapons.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon last September were accompanied by the anthrax outbreak that killed five people. The source of that outbreak is still unknown, although investigations so far tend to point away from international terrorists.

The panel, which included the Swiss economics minister, Pascal Couchepin, the American health secretary, Tommy Thompson and the chairman of Novartis, Daniel Vasella, all agreed that the threat of bio-terrorism had to be taken seriously.

“We’ve concluded that this could happen again and we want to be much better prepared for it,” Thompson told swissinfo. “That’s why the President has requested extra resources to build a strong prevention effort and a wonderful health system that will prevent this kind of anthrax outbreak in the future.”

The research budget for new vaccines has been increased to $1.8 billion. The total annual budget to counter bio-terrorism is ten times more this year than last.

Smallpox vaccine

And the US government has also been stockpiling the smallpox vaccine so that by the end of the year there will be 286 million doses available – enough for every man, woman and child in the country.

Governments only began to take the threat of bio-terrorism seriously in the last decade. The watershed was 1995 when the Japanese cult, Aum Shinri, released the nerve gas, Sarin, on the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring hundreds more.

The global nature of the threat has led to calls for increased international collaboration. Thompson said that he had held talks with counterparts in Europe and Canada to try to coordinate their response, develop new vaccines and swap intelligence.

What was remarkable about the Japanese experience, Thompson said, was how little was known about the Aum Shinri cult despite the fact they were internationally active.

Biological weapons convention

But what many say is needed is a beefed up biological weapons convention – a response that the US opposes.

“International treaties are very difficult to negotiate,” says Dr Bernhard Brunner, the head of Chem-Bio Laboratory at the Swiss Department of Defence. “In the chemical field, there is a very good treaty with a verification regime.”

“In the biological field there is a treaty, but without a verification process it is almost worthless. That’s why we in Switzerland are for an additional protocol that ensures verification.”

The Bush administration has been staunch in its rejection of this approach, but Brunner says he believes the American attitude may change after the anthrax scare.

Private sector

Panellists also raised the question of the role the private sector has to play in ensuring that technology does not fall into the wrong hands. Mr Couchepin pleaded for closer cooperation between governments and industry, and an internationally applied code of conduct.

He said Switzerland had been engaged in the fight against terror from day one. And, he said, just as terrorists must be prevented from abusing the Swiss financial system, they must also be prevented from getting access to scientific expertise.

Representatives from the sector, including Daniel Vasella, the head of the Basel-based life sciences group, Novartis, argued that industry standards were already high and said more attention had to be focused on rogue states such as Iraq.

But Vasella did not go as far as other industry representatives such as Fred Hassan, the CEO of Pharmacia Group, in opposing government regulation outright.

Self-regulation

“Nobody is stopping us from regulating ourselves,” Vasella told swissinfo. “If self-regulation is efficient then there will be no need to go further. But I am not opposed to regulation, because the government has a duty to ensure the security of its citizens and it needs to take every necessary step to ensure that.”

Vasella said the industry already took the threat of bio-terrorism very seriously, both in making sure there was no diversion of products or technology and in contributing to solutions and prevention.

Bio-terrorism evokes great fear partly because it is such a new threat and partly because all of us are terrified of disease. But the panel said that much good could come out of the bio-terror threat. New vaccines and treatments might be found for some of the world’s biggest killers, helping people across the world, not least in developing countries.

The discussion on bio-terrorism was organised by the Swiss-US Joint Economic Commission, set up two years ago during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

by Michael Hollingdale, New York