WASHINGTON - The Defense Intelligence Agency plans to develop small amounts of a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes deadly anthrax, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
"We plan to proceed" once internal legal reviews have been completed and Congress has been fully informed, said Victoria Clarke, spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The existence of the project was revealed yesterday in The New York Times, which said it was part of a broader research effort to improve U.S. defenses against biological agents.
Rumsfeld has identified biological weapons as one of the most worrisome threats to national security.
Clarke said the purpose of developing a new strain of anthrax is strictly defensive: to ensure that an effective vaccine is available should a biological weapon be used against U.S. troops.
She said it was reported publicly in 1997 that Russia may have been developing the new strain. The U.S. government asked Russia for a sample so it could test vaccines, but no samples were provided.
"We have a vaccine that works against all the known anthrax strains," she told reporters at the Pentagon. "What we want to do is make sure we are prepared for any surprises.
"So in the early part of this year, the DIA started to look into ... how we could develop that modified anthrax strain so we could test our vaccines against it."
So far, the DIA has not produced any samples of the new strain, she said.
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |