ON 2 OCTOBER 2001, with the US still reeling from the 11 September attacks, 59-year-old Robert Stevens, a photo editor at a Florida newspaper, was admitted to hospital. He died three days later, the first victim of a series of anthrax mailings that caused widespread disruption and fear.
The perpetrator of the anthrax attacks has yet to be identified. But genetic tests on the strain mailed to media outlets and politicians have shown it was identical to one held by the US military. One theory is that the attacker was a US researcher who felt a higher priority needed to be given to the threat from bioterrorism.
If so, he or she succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Since the anthrax attacks, the US government has spent $14.5 billion on civilian biodefence, and has requested another $7.6 billion. The money has gone on improving food safety, making vaccines and on scientific research, mainly into the bacteria and viruses that biodefence experts say are most likely to be used as weapons.
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Yet despite this bioterror bonanza, many top scientists claimed this week that the emphasis on biodefence is diverting resources from more valuable research and actually preventing breakthroughs. Are they right?
There has been no shortage of controversy over the various biodefence programmes. Some experts ask whether the threat posed by bioterrorists really justifies the level of spending. Others question how the money is being spent. The Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank, reported in January that the US government鈥檚 investment in public health services since 2001 鈥� the biggest since the second world war 鈥� may have made things worse, partly by concentrating on bioweapons at the expense of building defences against disease in general.
The government has had to abandon a plan to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of health workers against smallpox, after widespread opposition. And late last year, a court ruled that licensing irregularities meant the US military could no longer enforce anthrax vaccination.
The one aspect of biodefence investment that seemed a sure winner was research. The US government has poured money into investigating potential bioweapons such as the bacteria that cause anthrax, plague and tularemia, and viruses such as Ebola, Marburg and smallpox. Annual biodefence funding at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that deals with pathogens, jumped from $53 million in 2001 to $1.4 billion in 2004 and a projected $1.5 billion this year. Surely, those receiving this bonanza must be delighted.
鈥淪ince the anthrax attacks, the US has spent $14.5 billion on civilian biodefence, and requested another $7.6 billion鈥�
It seems not. This week, more than half the leading scientists in the US studying bacterial diseases sent an open letter to the head of the NIH 鈥� the largest public funder of medical research in the world. The letter claims that, despite the extra money, the emphasis on biodefence is draining resources from more valuable, basic research, and from diseases that pose a greater threat.
鈥淭he diversion of research funds is a misdirection of NIH priorities and a crisis for NIH-supported microbiological research鈥�
鈥淭he diversion of research funds from projects of high public-health importance to projects of high biodefense but low public-health importance represents a misdirection of NIH priorities and a crisis for NIH-supported microbiological research,鈥� the letter states. It goes on to claim that, as a result, anticipated breakthroughs in our understanding of disease 鈥渆ither may not occur, or may occur only outside the United States鈥�.
Only scientists who receive NIAID funding to study bacterial and fungal pathogens were asked to sign, and 750 of the 1143 eligible scientists did sign. 鈥淲e got the majority of the nation鈥檚 top microbiologists,鈥� says Richard Ebright of Rutgers University in New Jersey. The signatories include the president of the American Society for Microbiology, and five past presidents. They even include the heads of biodefence research centres at New Jersey Medical School and the University of Tennessee, and leading anthrax researchers.
The letter claims that while the number of biodefence grants awarded by the NIAID jumped 15-fold between 1998 and 2005, the number of grants for work on non-biodefence pathogens fell by 27 per cent. Grants for studying how model bacteria such as E. coli work fell 41 per cent. 鈥淲e are staging a no-confidence vote,鈥� Ebright, who helped organise the open letter, told 快猫短视频.
The head of the NIAID, Anthony Fauci, rejects the claims. 鈥淔unding has been steady for all non-biodefence-related research from 2000 through to 2004,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ot only that, but the funding increases each year have been the same as, or better than, the funding increases for all research across NIH, including all kinds of disease.鈥�
Richard Gourse of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, another organiser of the letter, tells why some people think otherwise. He cites one colleague who got a high rating for her research proposal last year, yet lost her funding after 15 years of studying how bacteria thrive without oxygen, as most infections do. Another can鈥檛 get funding for studying antibiotic-resistant bacteria because this is classed as basic research 鈥� though it is also relevant to biodefence.
The cutback in work on basic research is causing particular concern. 鈥淓veryone agrees we are just on the point of making significant breakthroughs in basic research on bacteria, because we can now analyse gene expression patterns and complex biomolecular networks,鈥� Gourse says. That can be done much more easily in well-studied microbes, then transferred to obscure ones.
鈥淚t will be much more difficult to make the same basic discoveries working on the biothreat agents than with model systems,鈥� says Stanley Falkow of Stanford University in California, a prominent biodefence researcher. Researchers cannot find new vaccines and treatments for bioweapons as Congress demands unless they understand the basic biology, he says.
Yet part of the NIAID biodefence funding is spent on basic research, responds Fauci, but using potential bioweapons. 鈥淲hat people don鈥檛 understand is that that money would have gone for biodefence anyway, whether we got it or not,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. The decision to spend an extra $1.5 billion on weapons-related organisms was taken by the White House in 2002. The military might have taken it, he says, and delivered specific vaccines and drugs without doing any basic research at all.
Defenders of the government also point out that some of the organisers of the protest are opposed to working with bioweapons agents in principle. Ebright has argued, for instance, that the research might help breed the next bioterror attacker.
鈥淭he letter claims that grants for work on non-biodefence pathogens fell by 27 per cent between 1998 and 2005鈥�
