The new DHS, NIH and Army facilities at Detrick alone will house approximately 60,000 square feet of BSL-4 laboratory space, specifically designed to accommodate work with germs for which there is neither vaccine nor cure. This amount of space is four times the total amount of BSL-4 space that existed in the entire country as of 2004.
Q: How have you attempted to slow or stop the expansion of these laboratories?
A: Since 2003, I and others in the community have been participating in proceedings under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) designed to examine the environmental impacts posed by new bio-warfare related facilities at Ft. Detrick. Though NEPA treats as a priority the consideration of public input, our input has essentially been ignored as one facility after the other has been approved. I and others have also been conducting demonstrations in downtown Frederick against the expansion.
Q: In some ways the community’s activism has paid off, has it not?
A: In August, 2007, for the first time in history, an elected official, namely a Frederick County Commissioner, publicly expressed concerns about what was going on at Ft. Detrick . This opened a floodgate. Unprecedented columns and editorials in the local newspapers appeared questioning what was going on at Ft. Detrick . And in November, 2007, upon the occasion of a public meeting hosted by the County Commissioners , more than 150 members of the community filled Frederick City Hall to express their many concerns.
Under much pressure, both of Maryland ’s U.S. Senators----Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin---got behind the demand for a review by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the public health and environmental hazards posed by the new facilities being built at Ft. Detrick . Though the appropriation for this NAS review was passed by Congress in September, 2008, we continue to wait for the Army to fulfill its obligation to enter into a contract with the NAS for this review.
Q: Are you a member of any citizen groups concerned about research underway at Ft. Detrick ?
A: Frederick Citizens for Bio-lab Safety; Frederick Progressive Action Coalition (FredPAC); Frederick County Peace Resource Center (PRC). There are also national organizations concerned about our national “biodefense” program, a central part of which is being implemented at Ft. Detrick . A most important example of such an organization was the “Sunshine Project” based in Austin , Texas . This non-profit organization was instrumental in procuring the Congressional hearing in October, 2007, regarding the alarming (if not reckless) proliferation of high-security bio-laboratories in the U.S. Unfortunately, the Sunshine Project has since ceased its operation for lack of funding.
Q: As I understand it, with most of the rest of the world on record as opposed to a new bioweapons arms race, the United States is setting a terrible example by its research at Ft. Detrick .
A: In 2004, Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland, James Leonard, head of the U.S. delegation that negotiated the international arms control treaty known as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that bans the development of bio-weapons, and Richard Spertzel, former deputy Commander of USAMRIID and Senior Biologist on the United Nations inspection team in Iraq, co-authored a commentary containing the following statements:
“The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are startling. . . . [The Deputy Director of DHS’s NBACC himself] noted that one NBACC objective, the creation of genetically engineered agents, might raise BWC compliance questions. . . Reportedly, the US intelligence community is under orders to carry out studies. . . . Surely, the ‘intelligence community’ is the least appropriate place in the US government to ‘carry out’ such work — and the most likely to lack adequate oversight.”
Q: According to some critics, “biodefense” activity at Ft. Detrick will violate Federal criminal law, is that correct?
A: In 2007, International Law Professor Francis Boyle, who drafted the “Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989” that criminalizes violations of the BWC, stated:
“The proposed construction and operation of new facilities at Fort Detrick is an integral part of the program that is referred to as ‘Biodefense for the 21st Century’ in Homeland Security Presidential Directive - HSPD-10, released on April 28, 2004. In my expert opinion, said program constitutes clear violations of the [BWC]. . . . [This] so-called ‘biodefense’ program . . . [has the] unmistakable hallmarks of an offensive weapons program. . . . In my expert opinion, participants in this so-called ‘biodefense’ program are subject to criminal liability [under the Act that I drafted.]”
Q: Have you been inside Ft. Detrick ?
A: Numerous times. As an attorney, I have represented before the Magistrate’s Court at Ft. Detrick individuals charged with misdemeanors committed on post. More to the point, I have attended various “community meetings” on post hosted by the Army for the purpose of answering questions about the expansion. Furthermore, on March 5, 2008, I personally was given a three-hour-long tour of the USAMRIID facility by then USAMRIID Commander Colonel George W. Korch, which included an inspection (through windows) of the “biological containment” laboratories [like the ones portrayed in the Dustin Hoffman film, “Outbreak” (1995)].
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