Preliminary statement by Joshua Lederberg for the Committee on International Security and Arms Control Moscow, 8 October 1986. This group does not need to be reminded of urgent reasons for strengthening controls on Biological Weapons. (I have brought a copy of a prior statement to this committee that reviews this issue for the benefit of those of you who did not participate in earlier meetings.) The recently concluded 5-year review conference on the BW Convention also stressed the importance of strengthening the treaty. I believe that this concurrence is an important step forward, and that our own discussion here will be very much in the spirit of implementing the strengthening measures advocated at Geneva. Even with the best of good will and mutual confidence, the control of BW poses serious difficulties, and it may not be possible to solve all of them as long as there remain unresolved sources of interstate conflict. Even while we seek progress toward broader aims of harmony, prevalent suspicions, fears and doubts about BW remain a serious obstacle to those goals. Confidence-building measures therefore remain the most important step we can take, both for BW arms control and for broader aims. Certain progress has also been made at the CD and in bilateral discussions towards advancing non-proliferation and disarmament in the CW field. My own discussion will center entirely on BW with infectious agents to the exclusion of toxins and of CW, acknowledging that progress in each arena contributes to the others. I am therefore more optimistic than has been possible for several years. The central difficulties in BW arms-control are a) verification b) definition, c) the rapid advance of biotechnology, and d) the potential for rapid breakout. a) The limitations of BWC verification by NTM have been well understood; several states were reluctant to sign a treaty that seemed to depend entirely on cooperative verification. Cooperative verification is tightly intertwined with mutual confidence: each depends on the other. It should be in the interest of each state to do all possible to reassure the others. I am pleased that a reaffirmation of this principle, and hopefully a fresh start in its practice, were signalled at Geneva. CW arms control may also show how mutually satisfactory regimes of inspection may be crafted that could later be applicable to BW as well (or even sooner, since the BWC already mandates BW-disarmament). I will return to CBM's later. b) R&D related to BW is difficult to define, so much so that definition may be a graver problem than verification. The scale of facilities needed for production (forbidden under BWC) is fairly small, and difficult to separate from the scale for R&D (allowed). Defensive work, e.g. the production of vaccines, or the testing of potential threat agents in order to refine countermeasures, is difficult to separate from work with offensive goals. The BWC is somewhat vague about the level of production that would clearly mark an effort as offensive and illegal. At the same time, biomedical research, our common war against natural enemies, requires almost identical tools, training, and knowledge as those which would have potential military application. (Conversely, work in military laboratories has played an important part in the history of the conquest of communicable diseases.) c) The growth of biotechnology will eventually enable the production of BW agents of greater precision of targetability and control, attributes that are far more important than lethality to make them more usable for military purposes. The future prospects of such military uses heighten the anxiety about the intentions of work that is kept secret. At the same time, industrial biotechnology has already greatly expanded overall investment in large scale microbiological facilities which might have dual potential (i.e. to produce BW agents.) There is also a certain international competition for economic purposes, and industrial proprietary secrecy also may complicate the effort to build confidence by the freer exchange of information. d) There is, and should be, grave concern about breakout. However effective an arms-control and confidence-building regime we may build tomorrow, ether side's accumulated knowledge, technical knowhow and industrial facilities could be rapidly converted from civilian to military purposes. -- Medical scientists in any country therefore have a complicated burden of conscience: on the one hand, to sustain their own country's security with realistic advice about vulnerability to attack with BW; on the other to do all possible to assure that biological weapons are never used, never produced, insofar as possible never developed, by anyone. My advice to my government has always been, unequivocally, to avoid BW as a military utility; and I believe any informed medical scientist will speak with the same voice to his government. Opennness may therefore have a twofold benefit: to provide reassurance building confidence as between countries; and to give medical scientists everywhere the best opportunity to advise their own governments about the wisest policies for their own national as well as global interests. Medical scientists, besides their unique ethical situation, also are uniquely qualified to work out the most feasible framework of cooperative verification, to understand its possibilies and its limits, and to take an active role in its implementation. We have a difficult task in thinking of measures that can meet the constraints of verification, definition, rapid technology and breakout well enough to promote confidence and enhance mutual security. We cannot expect perfect solutions overnight, and pragmatic advances will need the most thoughtful participation of scientists from all sides. It is therefore especially gratifying that we can have succeeded in arranging for this meeting, and its particular membership. ---- CBMs. The Geneva BWCRC suggested a number of measures, above all mutual consultation in a variety of forums and with the participation of experts. (The U.S. government has acknowledged the value of informal exchanges, and encourages them; it also insists that formal consultation within the terms of the treaty not be evaded.) A meeting is agreed to be held in Geneva, April 1987 to work out modalities of exchange. Other steps include the registration of high-hazard facilities, and the publication of research related to BW. The overall framework of scientific cooperation in biotechnology and other biomedical research should be bolstered. We should discuss all of these, and other possibilities at this meeting. I would not be candid if I overlooked what has been a major impediment in mutual confidence from a US perspective. We are also here to learn what the USSR's concerns may be. But I am glad to acknowledge a major positive step on the USSR's part in opening up discussion about the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk in 1979. I was delighted to learn from Dr. Matthew Meselson about his visit in August this year with Moscow public health officials who were directly involved in managing that outbreak. He has briefed our delegation about what he learned. I have also received notes of Dr. Antonov's report to the BWCRC on the same subject. These reports have provided detail that was not hitherto available; and above all the opening of clear channels for further discussion with the relevant public health authorities is a very large an positive step that we all commend. The epidemic is a subject of considerable scientific interest, and I hope we will have time for some informal discussion with the principals to learn more from that perspective, as well as to advance the publication of detail in a way that can overcome the accumulated speculation of the past six or seven years. A more difficult problem, because it must touch on the policies of controlled disclosure that are the privilege of each country, is wider exchange of information about facilities that work on BW-related matters. The US already publishes some information on these subjects. I am not authorized to speak on behalf of the US government but I am confident that many still larger steps could be agreed to on a reciprocal basis. Without broader disclosure, many biotechnology- related facilities in the USSR rumored to be BW-related are candidates for anxiety, and motivate initiatives to match them in the US: a tacit BW-technology race within the latitude of the treaty. If these anxieties are groundless, it is not in the USSR's interest that they be sustained by a refusal to discuss them; and needless to say, vice versa. Third party and terrorist use of BW should be a matter of equal concern to the US and the USSR. Similar concerns about CW have been discussed bilaterally at Berne. If we can achieve higher mutual confidence about BW, we will be better able to advance our mutual stance about BW proliferation and terrorism. --- An important objective, as well as instrumentality, of CBMs is enhanced scientific cooperation. It is unrealistic to expect striking progress in cooperation so long as fear about the other side's technology is the dominant emotion in the relationship. The US can benefit from USSR experience and skills in many aspects of epidemic disease; the converse is true, I believe, for industrial and pharmaceutical biotechnology. Most important, perhaps, the third world is legitimately demanding that both superpowers mitigate the bilateral problems, and devote attention and resources to its needs. ---- .bp As an appendix, Excerpts from Articles V and X of agreed conference report, BWC review conference, Geneva, Sept 1986. ARTICLE V The Conference notes the importance of Article V and reaffirms the obligation assumed by States Parties to consult and co-operate with one another in solving any problems which may arise in relation to the objective of, or in the application of the provisions of, the Convention. ... The Conference, taking into account views expressed concerning the need to strengthen the implementation of the provisions of Article V, has agreed: - that a consultative meeting shall be promptly convened when requested by a State Party, The Conference ... agrees that the States Parties are to implement, on the basis of mutual cco-operation, the following measures, in order to prevent or reduce the occurrence of ambiguities, doubts and suspicions, and in order to improve international co-operation in the field of peaceful bacteriological (biological) activities. 1. Exchange of data, including name, location, scope and general description of activities, on research centres and laboratories that meet very high national or international safety standards established for handling, for permitted purposes, biological materials that pose a high individual and community risk, or specialize in permitted biological activities directly related to the Convention. 2. Exchange of information on all outbreaks of infectious diseases ... that seem to deviate from the normal pattern as regards type, development, place, or time of occurrence. 3. Encouragement of publication of results of biological research directly related to the Convention, in scientific journals generally available to States Parties, as well as promotion of use for permitted purposes of knowledge gained in this research. 4. Active promotion of contacts between scientists engaged in biological research directly related to the Convention, including exchanges for joint research on a mutually agreed basis. The Conference decides to hold an Ad Hoc meeting of scientific and technical experts from States Parties, to finalize the modalities for the exchange of information .... The group shall meet in Geneva for the period of 31 March-15 April 1987 and shall communicate the results of the work to the States Parties immediately thereafter. ARTICLE X The Conference emphasizes the increasing importance of the provisions of Article X, especially in the light of recent scientific and technological developments in the field of bio-technology.... Conference accordingly urges States Parties to provide wider access to and share their scientific and technological knowledge in this field, on an equal and non-discriminatory basis, in particular with the developing countries, for the benefit of all mankind. The Conference urges that States Parties take specific measures within their competence for the promotion of the fullest possible international co-operation in this field through their active intervention. Such measures could include inter alia: - transfer and exchange of information concerning research programmes in bio-sciences; - wider transfer and exchange of information, materials and equipment among States on a systematic and long-term basis; - active promotion of contacts between scientists and technical personnel on a reciprocal basis, in relevant fields; - increased technical co-operation including training opportunities to developing countries in the use of bio-sciences and genetic engineering for peaceful purposes; - facilitating the conclusion of bilateral, regional and multiregional agreements providing on a mutually advantageous, equal and non-discriminatory basis, for their participation in the development and application of biotechnology; - encouraging the co-ordination of national and regional programmes and working out in an appropriate manner the ways and means of co-operation in this field. The Conference calls for greater co-operation in international public health and disease control.