EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS .,. `,, , `a :_ DR. LEDERBERG SPEAKS' OUT ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE HAZARDS become the most efficient means for removing man from the planet. As a student of evolu- tion, and having studied it in the micro- cosmos with bacterial cultures, I knew that man had no guaranteed place on our earth. He has faced and continu.es to fa.ce natural disasters like the infestations that have wiped out the American chestnut and the European grapevine. To these long-standing threats would now be added new ones, po- tentially of our own invention. the intentional release of an infectious par- ticle, be it a virus or bacterium, from the confines of the laboratory or of medid prac; tice must he condemned as an irresponsible threat against the whole hurnan community. HON. CLEMENT J. ZABLOCKI OF WISCONSIN IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, September 10,197O Mr. ZABLOCKI. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Joshua Lederberg, professor of genetics at Stanford University and a Nobel Prize winner for his work in biology, recently addressed the Conference of the Com- mittee on Disarmament in Geneva. In his talk he emphasized the hazards which biological wa.rfare poses to the world and urged that the Conference promptly reach agreement on a ban on the development, production, prolifera- tion or use of biological weapons. His position parallels that of the U.S. delegation, which has urged that an agreement on biological weapons be reached now, with subsequent work on a total ban on chemical weapons. This ap- proach has been opposed by the Soviet Union, its allies, and some neutrals at the Conference. It is my hope that Dr. Lederberg's mes- sage of urgency will help break down the resistance of Communist and other na- tions and allow a ban on biological wea- pons to be concluded at the next session of the Conference. In the thought that. Dr. Lederberg's . . sm . - - . . . I. These past 25 years, in the course of which the world community has reached a certain degree of familiarity with the problems of nuclear power, and has undertaken some of the steps needed to contain it as a servant for rather than against human aims, have seen a sustained, remarkable development of molecular biology. For example, Professor Gobind Khorana recently reported the syn- thetic assembly of a small gene through chemical operations on DNA components. It will be a step of another order of magnitude to extend this technical capability to the synthesis of small viruses, but this surely will be accomplished within the next decade. This procedure will allow an unlimited range of experimental variations of the gentic structure of different viruses, a process which has many important potential applications for human health. It also offers us the pros- pect of engineering the design of viruses to exquisite detail. Accomplishments like Kho- rana's have been possible in a small labora- tory on an annual research budget, which is miniscule compared to weapons hardware. A serious military investment in this area could be expected to outstrip this already breath- taking pale of advance by many fold. I could mention many other intriguing scientific advances from my own work and The Black Death, the great bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century is in fact a well documented historic ex- ample of just this process. The plague first entered Europe in 1346 via the sailors, rats, and fleas on the ships that returned to Genoa after having been expelled from Theo&&a-in the Crimea where the attack- ing Tartars had catapulted some of their corpses into the Genoese fortifications. This plague which reduced the population of Europe by at least one-third, would of course, almost surely have made its way West sooner or later, the nature of the dis- ease being quite beyond the comprehension of the medical science of that era. The Black Death iri Europe was only one of many visit&ions of the plague suffered by Europe during the last 2000 years. We do not know why this one should have been so much more disastrous than many others. The progress of a disease in any given indi- vidual is subject to many factors of which only a few are well understood. A large epi- demic, involving millions of people spread over time and space, is an immensely more complicated phenomenon about which it is very difficult to make accurate scientific pre- dictions.` This combination of very grave potential hazard with a high degree of unpredictability is a peculiar attribute of biological weaponry at its present stage of development. This has a great deal to do with the rational doctrine that so far has placed a relatively low value on its military utility. sr;ar;emenr; wowa De 01 mterest u) tine Members of the House, I am placing it in the RECORD at this point : REMARKS BY JOSHUA L~ERBERC,PROFFSSOR OF GENETXCB, STANFORD UNIVERS ITY, MB In- FORMALDISCUSSIONS ATTHE CONFERENCEOF THE COMMITTEE ONDISARMAMENT,GENEVA, AUGUST 6, 1970 This is the first occasion at which I have been invited %o attend a meeting of this kind- It is a&o a 24th anniversary of another occasion when I was a young medical stu- dent attending my first scientific conference. This was an international meeting at Cold Spring Harbor, near New York, and it could be truly labeled as the birthdate af a new sdentific field, the genetics of bacteria and of viruses. My fist published work ~88 presented at that meeting and it concerned the discovery, contrary to decades of pre- vioua supposition to the contrary, that bac- teria were indeed possessed of a mechanism like sexual reproduction w!hich made it pos- sible to crossbreed different bacterial strains, These observations, together with related ones by many other colleagues have gone Into the emergence of the most powerful of new methods a.nd insights in experimental biology, going generally under the name of molecular biology. From the very beginning it was inescap- able to me that these new approaches for the understanding and manipulation of llv- ing organisms had potential implications for human progress of very great significance. On the one hand molecular biology could in- crease man's knowledge about himself anq lead to revolutionary changes in medicine in such flelds as cancer, aging, congenital disease, and virus infections. It might also play a vital role in industry and in agricul- ture. On the other side it might be exploited for nlilibry purproses and eventuate in a biological weapons race whose aim could well tnat of OtherS, &nd i3%P only tnat `my"enfhii- siasm in discussing these details might out- run yoy patience in hearing about them. I will be glad to engage later in informal discussions on any aspect of molecular biol- ogy that may be of interest to you. I will just mention the discoveries cvi three methods of modifying the genetic structure of mi- crobes: 1) cross-breeding them through what is, essentially, sexual reproduction; 2) in- serting new genes carried by a virus, a process called "fra.nsduction," and 3) direct manip- ulation of DNA as a chemical substance, and reintnoduci,ng this into microbial cells. I deeply appreciate the gravity and im- portance of the work of this Committee. Iti principal significance is, of course, for the security of all the people of the world; and ti that it is only a small addition to mention my own moral pre-occupation with whether my own career will have been labeled a bless- ing or a curse to the humanity from which I spring. This comment may have more force if I offer it as not only a personal testi- mony but as typical of the dilemma that faces my entire generation of biological re- search scientists and our younger students' at this very moment. I am therefore many times indebted to you not only for your present labors but also for having offered me the privilege of a more personal participation %n a process that may yet result in civilizing this branch of science. For many years BW has been given only incidental attention as a subject of diplo- matic discussion; for it seemed to have little bearing on the adjustments of power that were the ma.in work of specialists in foreign affairs. However, BW does have something %o do with efforts to reduce the barbarity of warfare. BW stands apart from all other de- vices in the actual threat that it poses to the health and life-expectancy of every hu- man being whether or not he is politically involved in belligerent actions. In a word, `I-ne present slzuation tnus mignt proviae the most favorable opportunity for inter- national action to regulate the further de- velopment and proliferation of BW. I am convinced we know enough about it to have legitimate concern about its futtie pros- pects. Until now no nation appears to have staked its security to any significant degree on BW armaments. I would therefore hope this provides a basis for accord. I3 we wait until BW has been developed into a reliable armament for use under a range of military doctrine, we must aill fear that it could then be too late to disengage important powers from their commitment to it. If I may return to `the Black Death, the main barriers that may today keep bubonic plague from being a great threat in advanced countries. are: 1) understanding ti. and the use of quarantine, 2) the suppression of rats and fleas by general urban hygiene, and 3) the use of modern therapy, especially antibiotics, to control the disease. Each one of these barriers could be breached by further technical developments if a sub-` stantial effort were to be applied during the next decade to making the plague bacillus into a wea.pon. Other infectious agents might be even more adaptable. Soame of man's deadliest enemies are viruses which, like yellow fever, are transmitted by mosquitos or other ar- thropods. These have the advantage, from a military standpoint, that they may not start a potentially retroactive epidemic in areas where the vector insect does not normally abound. It is already evident that such in- sect-borne viruses could be applied in the first instance by direct aerial dissemination, with little or no further spread from the first wave of infected targets. Recent reports of airborne or pneumonic rabies, a terrible d&ease, which 8s you know is normally spread by the bite of an infected dog or other animal, Illustrate this possibility.