Nextgov/FCW - Authors - Diane Barnes

DHS Shifts Nuclear-Screening Focus to 'High-Risk' Cargo

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 17:07:58 -0400

Homeland Security officials said they are moving to tighten overseas checks of U.S.-bound cargo containers deemed likely to be hiding nuclear contraband.

Federal authorities hope foreign seaports will eventually scan all cargo they consider at "high risk" of containing weapon-usable nuclear or radiological materials, according to Wednesday testimony by Kevin McAleenan, acting deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection.

About 15 percent still is not checked before reaching U.S. shores, McAleenan said at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

"We're currently ... assessing how the threats have changed" in an effort to close the screening gap, he told committee lawmakers.

"Are [there] certain strategically important ports that we can add capability? Can we work with additional countries to encourage them to take some measures before [ships are loaded]?"

McAleenan discussed the focus on "high-risk" cargo about a month after Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told lawmakers his department would not meet a July deadline set by Congress for all U.S.-bound shipping containers to undergo screening at foreign ports for smuggled nuclear and radiological materials. Officials previously postponed the statutory screening deadline by two years.

The mandate is "highly improbable, hugely expensive [and] not the best use of taxpayer resources to meet this country's port security and homeland security needs," Johnson was quoted as saying in a May 5 letter to Senator John Carper (D-Del.), the Senate Homeland Security panel's chairman.

Johnson wrote that his department would focus its efforts on increasing "the percentage of high-risk cargo scanned by prioritizing diplomatic engagement with host governments to increase their support of current [Container Security Initiative] operations."

The department would also "discuss potential expansion of the initiative to additional key ports to ensure that such deployments align with high-risk cargo," he wrote.

This article was published in Global Security Newswire, which is produced independently by National Journal Group under contract with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group working to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

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Accused Proliferator May Try to Build Ballistic-Missile Parts

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:10:30 -0400

An alleged kingpin proliferator may be moving to build his own components for guiding ballistic missiles to their targets, British-based experts say.

Newly uncovered information suggests Chinese businessman Li Fangwei has obtained substantial stakes in graphite operations and other sensitive enterprises, possibly indicating an ambition to build fiber-optic gyroscopes, says a Monday report by Daniel Salisbury and Ian Stewart of King's College London.

Li has previously faced charges for attempting to supply Iran with the systems, described by the authors as "one of the most advanced guidance technologies with potential uses in missiles."

His new apparent steps may reflect an effort to "move up the proliferation value chain," the analysts wrote. "Any move by Li to manufacture such technology in light of other concerns about his activities must be viewed as a grave threat to international peace and security."

The United States has targeted a series of Li's firms over the last decade for allegedly supplying missile components to Iran, and last month offered up to $5 million for information leading to the Chinese national's arrest or conviction.

Washington's latest steps against Li prompted strong protests from Beijing, which threatened toretaliate by reining in its coordination with the United States on nonproliferation matters.

"Not since [Abdul Qadeer] Khan has a manufacturer of proliferation-sensitive technologies so brazenly and repeatedly sold their goods for use in prohibited programs," Salisbury and Stewart wrote, referencing a former Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear-weapon technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

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Auditors Fault Pentagon Sorting of Biggest Bioweapon Threats

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 19 May 2014 13:00:00 -0400

Auditors say the Defense Department is not following its own procedures for guarding against "potentially catastrophic" biological strikes.

Pentagon rules require the agency each year to revisit its list of top biological-weapon threats, with an eye to possibly reshuffling the order of agents deemed most dangerous to its military personnel and civilians, the congressional Government Accountability Office said in a report issued on Thursday.

"Yet, [the Defense Department] does not follow its established process for updating its biological threat priorities," auditors wrote in their assessment.

Failing to regularly weigh the relative risks posed by various weapon candidates, they said, makes it unclear whether the United States is pursuing medical treatments for "the most serious and likely biological threats." The Defense Department backed the report's findings, according to a letter from Andrew Weber, the Pentagon's assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.

The Pentagon would review its biodefense directives "to ensure they align with current ... planning processes," Weber wrote last week.

GAO auditors described "progress" in related areas, including Defense Department coordination with other federal offices to prepare against biological threats.

The Health and Human Services and Defense departments "have developed interagency agreements and other tools that facilitate communication on the various stages of medical countermeasure development," auditors wrote.

In addition, the Pentagon has worked with the Homeland Security Department on measures "for identifying biological agents that pose domestic threats and risks," the report states.

The Defense Department maintains sole responsibility for preparing medical countermeasures for U.S. military personnel.

(Image via Khamidulin Sergey/Shutterstock.com)

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CDC Official Protests Federal Medical Response Cuts

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:11:48 -0400

A senior U.S. public-health official has taken a stand against his department's latest push to cut federal funds to an array of medical-readiness initiatives.

More than half a decade of reductions to spending on state and local public-health agencies has already been "extremely damaging" to capabilities across the country for responding to unconventional attacks and other disasters, Dr. Ali Khan, director of the Public Health Preparedness and Response Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Global Security Newswire in an interview.

The Health and Human Services Department's latest push would further undermine initiatives that are now "stagnant," Khan argued.

"We used to have a $1 billion public health preparedness program, [and] that is almost two-thirds to one-half that size at this point," said Khan, referring to a range of programs that received an infusion of federal dollars after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "With every new cut, that's fewer people at the state and local health departments, and fewer supports for public health systems that are keeping people safe from daily threats."

Reductions sought in the health agency's fiscal 2015 budget proposal include a $28 million cut to spending on the Public Health Emergency Preparedness grant initiative. Khan described that as a critical funding source for laboratories and specialists needed to contain disease outbreaks, including any caused intentionally.

Health and Human Services wants to maximize agency resources "in the current fiscal environment," and plans to shift the grant program's focus to "capability sustainment" after spending more than $9 billion since 2002 to upgrade medical response capacities across the country, the department said in its fiscal 2015 budget justification for the Centers for Disease Control.

Khan, though, said many of those upgraded capabilities have already withered after prior rounds of cuts.

"This money is really sliced and diced very thinly already" among thousands of local health agencies, said the veteran Center adviser on biological terrorism threats. The grant program would receive $617 million in the coming budget cycle under the Health and Human Services proposal.

Other targets of the department's spending reductions include the Strategic National Stockpile, which maintains medical treatments across the United States for responding to potential strikes involving weapons of mass destruction. Khan's office manages the program, which would see its funding drop by $8 million under the health agency's proposal for fiscal 2015.

Khan assumed his current position in August 2010, after holding a range of posts that included assistant surgeon general and deputy director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. He joined the Centers for Disease Control in 1991, after obtaining a medical degree from Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.

Khan spoke to GSN by telephone from the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta. Edited excerpts of the March 24 interview follow:

GSN: What challenges has your office faced in communicating with the public about preparing for biological and other unconventional attacks?

Khan: … Chemical and biological terrorism [is] an extant threat … but we try not to be that focused on single threats for preparedness efforts. We really need to think about an all-hazards, all-community approach.

We need to make sure our communities are prepared for pandemics, natural disasters and terrorism, whether it's chemical, biological, [radiological and nuclear] terrorism or other forms of terrorism. And all of that [should be] laid on a foundation of strong public-health and community-resilience systems that can be scaled up for these disasters.

Our challenge is to help our communities understand … that [preparedness] isn't just the role of the feds. That's the role of the state and local health departments, that's the role of the private industry, that's the role of the nonprofits, and it includes the role of an individual in their preparedness. …

If somebody … is individually prepared and their family [is] prepared, it allows the response community to focus on those people who unfortunately may not be prepared. …

GSN: Has the lack of a high-profile unconventional attack in recent years factored into CDC's communications strategy?

Khan: No, only if you think that our preparedness and readiness programs are just waiting around for something to happen -- for an improvised nuclear device or something -- but we just had a pandemic in 2009 with H1N1, we just had a number of national storms, we just had a number of extreme weather events.

There are numerous routine public-health threats [such as] measles and mumps outbreaks in New York City [and] hepatitis outbreaks. … So it's important for us to remind our community of those and use those as the fulcrum to get people to be prepared.

GSN: What emerging public health threats should the U.S. public be more aware of?

Khan: From an infectious-disease standpoint … a new flu strain always remains a threat. So [do] other easily spread respiratory viral diseases, such as coronaviruses. There's a new one currently in the Middle East. And just knocking on our door is chikungunya virus out of the Caribbean right now that potentially could be spread through the United States.

From a [deliberate-use] standpoint, there's a couple of pathogens that worry us. … At the top of that list [are] anthrax and smallpox, but it also includes other agents such as plague and tularemia and botulism. [And] some of the viral hemorrhagic fevers are usually in the top list of agents that we worry about and have taken significant preparedness steps [against]. …

GSN: Is the CDC considering any new options for use of stockpiled anthrax vaccine nearing expiration, given the slow progress of an initiative to distribute such vaccine to first responders?

Khan: …We are working with our colleagues in [the Homeland Security Department] who are putting together a program to think about how do they potentially vaccinate an interested first responder, but that's independent of the concern about expired vaccine.

They're trying to do the right thing, and we're trying to help them … to provide vaccine for those who may be interested. …

GSN: How do you expect public health preparedness to be affected by cuts sought in the fiscal 2015 budget to the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Grant Program?

Khan: There are significant cuts to public health preparedness moving forward. This is not new; there have been ongoing cuts for the last six or seven years. We used to have a $1 billion public health preparedness program, [and] that is almost two-thirds to one-half that size at this point. And the data is pretty clear already, even without new cuts.

People are always worried what are the next set of cuts going to do to you, and I would rather talk about what the current set of cuts have already done to us as a nation. If you look at objective, quantitative measures of preparedness, we can say unequivocally that preparedness efforts in the United States are stagnant, [or] are on the decline. …

The [National Health Security Preparedness Index] is the first novel measurement scheme in the United States to give you a composite measure of what preparedness looks like at a state level. …

You can go look at those ratings between 6.9 and 8.2 [on a scale of 10] of where our various states … are within five domains [health surveillance; community planning and engagement; incident and information management; surge management; and countermeasure management] to make the point that we don't think we're fully prepared in the United States. …

The state and local readiness program … is about making sure that states and local public health departments have the tools, the people, the systems, the boots on the ground that they need … to respond to their daily public health threats and to be able to scale up for unpredictable or large threats. …

We have very good data on [15 preparedness capabilities] to show you that those are stagnant also.

This is with current cuts, so don't even begin to ask me [about] the impact [of] additional cuts on our state and local health departments, where we take this small amount of money, we divvy it out between the states, the cities and territories, and they in turn divvy it out between anywhere between 2,000 to 3,000 local health departments or county health departments. This money is really sliced and diced very thinly already. …

At its height, we had unique things happen in public health that we had never seen, and I have the advantage of helping to put this program together back in 1999 to see how far we'd come. You know, local health departments didn't even have computers, and we had this wonderful thing 10 years ago called the fax machine that we were trying to purchase for many local health departments. …

But county health departments all of a sudden had epidemiologists to investigate outbreaks that they otherwise wouldn't have had. We have state health departments that built … laboratory systems and their disease-detection systems on these dollars.

And these dollars are used … every day in our public health communities to keep Americans safe from public health threats, so these are the routine set of resources they're using for their disease detection and response efforts and even some of our specialized resources. …

[This includes] the work we do with the Strategic National Stockpile to make sure that we have points of dispensing for something like an anthrax attack, and they use these points of dispensingfor vaccine campaigns across the United States. …

Botulism occurs all the time in the United States, and when they need antitoxin it comes from the Strategic National Stockpile. That's another little example.

We've [also] provided federal medical stations from the Strategic National Stockpile to various … natural disaster responses over the years. …

[The cuts] have been extremely damaging to date. … With every new cut, that's fewer people at the state and local health departments, and fewer supports for public health systems that are keeping people safe from daily threats. …

In addition to cuts to the state and local programs … we're cutting [fiscal 2015 funds] to academic centers, so we're cutting a lot of the work that looks at [how] to use the limited dollars we have to get the most out of our communities from a preparedness standpoint and from a response-and-recovery standpoint.

GSN: Last year's federal government shutdown resulted in a suspension of CDC inspections at Biosafety Level 3 and 4 facilities. What level of risk did you see in that suspension? Have there been other concerning impacts from fluctuations in funding availability?

Khan: Our program was extremely responsible during the furlough [because] this was a national-security issue. … They did suspend a large number of inspections they'll have to make up at this point, but they were still available for any active consultation that labs needed around biosafety and biosecurity issues. …

This is the critical program of the United States that makes sure that anybody that has, uses or transfers some of the most deadly pathogens in the world is under regulatory oversight … [and it] continues to evolve all the time. …

GSN: A recent Newsweek article made the case that the proliferation of biological-defense labs over the last decade poses a greater public health threat than the danger of deliberate and natural outbreaks that such facilities are intended to counter. Speaking broadly, what is your argument against the idea that the cure is more potentially destructive than the problem it was designed to address?

Khan: There's probably nothing more safe -- or few things safer in the United States -- than research on these pathogens, thanks to the joint [U.S. Agriculture Department-Food and Drug Administration] Select Agent Program that monitors these laboratories. …

If you have the pathogen -- if you use it, or if you transfer it -- that's all currently regulated by the USDA and FDA. These are facilities that are monitored, individuals who work on these pathogens are monitored, the nature of the work that they do is very closely monitored. Every year … they have concrete measures of how well they've done. …

So there's really great data on … how effective these programs have been in making sure that all of this research is done very, very responsibly. [The] Newsweek article didn't pick up ... how responsible this work currently is.

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Algorithm May Enable Common X-Rays to Identify Tiny Amounts of Uranium and Plutonium

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:16:15 -0400

Scientists may have discovered how they can reprogram X-ray scanners to more effectively spot bomb-usable nuclear materials in airline bags.

Common X-ray systems might become more capable of identifying tiny amounts of uranium and plutonium with help from a new computer algorithm written in the United States, the American Institute of Physics announced on Tuesday.

The code is based on a close examination of how radiation passes through various substances and how the resultant X-ray image should look, according to a development team at University of Texas-Austin and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.

"With that in hand, we applied an 'inverse algorithm,' varying the composition of the object until the predicted image matched the measured one," according to Mark Deinert, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas-Austin. He and his team then "regularized" the algorithm "to adaptively enhance its ability to discriminate materials," according to the news release.

The group now plans to try scaling up the technique, possibly for use in "high-energy X-ray systems" to monitor compliance with arms-control agreements, said Deinert, who co-authored the study.

The team's full findings are scheduled for release this week in the Journal of Applied Physics.

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Boston Considers Banning Deadliest Pathogens From New Biolab

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 16:47:19 -0400

Boston is set this week to debate whether to ban a new, downtown biodefense laboratory from studying some of the world's deadliest disease agents.

A Wednesday city council hearing is expected to consider a proposed citywide prohibition on so-called "Biosafety Level 4" research, which can involve diseases for which there are no known cures. The initiative marks the latest local pushback against Boston University's effort to pursue the sensitive pathogen studies at its recently completed National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.

In his draft ordinance, Councilor Charles Yancey said conducting such research at the site could enable an agent such as Ebola or Marburg to escape into the city, either by accident or deliberate action.

"I am not convinced we really need to invite that possibility to the city of Boston," Yancey told the Boston Globe in remarks published in a Sunday editorial.

Boston University has criticized the rationale behind the council measure, arguing that the laboratory's security is stringent and any sensitive research justified by the need to prepare against lethal disease agents.

A four-year risk study "considered hundreds of possible scenarios that could potentially result in an exposure of a worker to a pathogen, or the release of a biological agent [and] demonstrated conclusively that BSL-4 laboratories -- built with multiple backup redundancies for its operations systems -- are extremely safe," the university said in a statement last month.

Sunday's Globe editorial sides with the school, and argues that the site's location would facilitate collaboration with experts throughout the region.

"It's understandable why critics of the biolab might prefer that the research take place in an isolated facility ... [but that] would impede scientists' ability to learn from one another," the newspaper said.

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Land-Based Nuclear Missiles Escape Drastic Cut Under Pentagon Plan

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:10:50 -0400

Land-based nuclear missiles came away relatively unscathed under a new U.S. Defense Department arms-reduction proposal, amid lawmaker fears of deeper cuts.

The Pentagon on Tuesday proposed cutting the arsenal of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles from 450 down to 400. But the United States would maintain 54 of the Minuteman 3 weapons outside of their underground silos and keep those launch facilities in "warm" status.

The reduction in deployed ground-based missiles constitutes a one-ninth reduction in that arsenal, fielded at Air Force bases in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

The proposal was part of an anticipated announcement of plans to comply with the New START arms control treaty, which now leaves the United States and Russia with less than four years to cap their respective nuclear-arms deployments at a combined total of 700 deployed launch platforms, and 100 additional in reserve.

"By Feb. 5, 2018, the total deployed and non-deployed force will consist of 454 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, 280 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers, and 66 heavy bombers," the Defense Department said in a statement. "U.S. deployed forces will consist of 400 deployed ICBMs."

The Defense Department added that 240 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 60 nuclear-capable bombers would remained fielded, "for a total of 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, the treaty limit."

Specifics on the planned force reductions became public after some members of Congress had aired worries that the Obama administration intended to eliminate a full ICBM squadron, according to Reuters.

Distributing the cuts across ICBM bases in three states would preclude the need for such a move, one government insider told the wire service, which reported the distribution of planned cuts previously along with the Wall Street Journal.

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U.S. Nuclear Security Agency Has 'Failed,' Advisory Panel Says

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 17:15:00 -0400

A congressionally mandated panel says a key Energy Department agency has "failed" in its mission to effectively oversee U.S. nuclear-arms operations.

Drastic reforms are crucial to address "systemic" management shortcomings at the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to preliminary findings unveiled on Wednesday by the co-chairs of the Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise.

"The unmistakable conclusion of our fact-finding is that, as implemented, the 'NNSA experiment' involving creation of a semiautonomous organization has failed," according to Norm Augustine, who headed the bipartisan group with retired Adm. Richard Mies.

"The current DOE-NNSA structure has not established the effective operational system that Congress intended," Augustine told the House Armed Services Committee in a written summary of the panel's initial conclusions. "This needs to be fixed as a matter of priority, and these fixes will not be simple or quick."

The former officials attributed the National Nuclear Security Administration's history of high-profile security lapses at atomic-complex facilities and soaring cost overruns in major projects to problems that became embedded in the nation's nuclear weapons culture after the end of the Cold War. Congress established the agency in 2000 following the Wen Ho Lee spy scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory, giving it the responsibility to oversee arms activities that were previously handled by the Energy Department itself.

Today, both organizations contain "too many people [who] can stop mission-essential work for a host of reasons," Mies said in a written statement to the committee, provided for a Wednesday hearing. He added that "those who are responsible for getting the work done often find their decisions ignored or overturned."

He also asserted that a culture of mistrust has developed between NNSA officials and the nuclear-weapons laboratories they oversee.

Augustine said nuclear-arms efforts managed by both the Energy and Defense departments have been bedeviled by "complacency" and a "loss of focus" since the end of the Cold War.

Mies added that "there is no affordable, executable joint DOD-DOE vision, plan, or program for the future of nuclear-weapons capabilities."

The panel's initial findings did not endorse any specific plan for altering oversight of the nuclear-weapons complex. The group -- mandated early last year under a provision of the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act -- is expected to issue its final report this summer.

Past reform proposals have included a Republican-led push to eliminate Energy Department oversight of NNSA operations and increase contractor independence. Others have advocated a boost in Energy's oversight, or to place the atomic agency under Pentagon control.

Augustine said the president and his administration would shoulder primary responsibility for instituting changes.

"Probably the most important individual under today's organization is the secretary of Energy who, in many cases in the past, did not have a background at all within this arena," he said during the committee question-and-answer session.

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Pentagon Seeks to Design Virus-Fighting Protein 'Cocktails'

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 16:34:55 -0400

The U.S. Defense Department is weighing a new search for immune-protein "cocktails" it hopes will protect humans against Ebola and other deadly, weapon-usable viruses.

The Pentagon two weeks ago invited scientists to submit research proposals for designing "monoclonal antibodies" that could protect against Ebola and Marburg, as well as "alphaviruses" such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

Pentagon planners have been turning to antibodies as a possible tool because "no easy and quick fix" for such agents has emerged from efforts to develop vaccines or traditional antiviral treatments, said Gigi Gronvall, a senior associate with the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The early-stage research now under consideration ideally would lead to single-shot treatments capable of guarding troops for months from multiple virus types, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency said in a Sept. 18solicitation. DTRA officials welcomed researchers to propose "'cocktails' that may enable cross-protection against multiple species of virus."

The emphasis on "cocktails" makes the latest DTRA proposal particularly notable, because several studies suggest that mixes of several antibodies can be particularly effective in fighting pathogens, Gronvall told Global Security Newswire in a telephone interview. Antibodies hit their targets with such specificity that a treatment with multiple immune proteins can help account for slight variations between invading microbes.

Monoclonal antibodies have been in use since the 1980s to treat cancer and immune-linked ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis, but their use against infectious pathogens has lagged, according to a DTRA-sponsored report co-authored by Gronvall on the technology's biodefense potential.

The United States last year licensed the first inhalation anthrax treatment to use the technology, which involves creating massive quantities of a single immune "antibody." The human body naturally generates such proteins, each of which is designed to mark a specific pathogen or toxin for elimination by other immune-system components.

One antibody cocktail grown in modified tobacco plants showed promising potency against Ebola infections specifically, according to a study published in August.

"There have been a lot of changes in the way that monoclonal antibody technologies have evolved over the last several years, and it makes monoclonal antibodies a very nice piece of their approach to medical countermeasures," Gronvall said.

The latest DTRA Broad Agency Announcement seeks proposals for studies no longer than one year, with a cost no greater than $500 million. The filing deadline is Oct. 16.

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Experimental Drug Could Treat Child Bioterrorism Victims

Diane Barnes — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:43:39 -0400

The United States on Friday announced a $17.7 million push to secure federal licensure of an experimental antibiotic officials believe could treat young victims of anthrax or tularemia bacteria.

Announcement of the two-year research and development deal with a North Carolina pharmaceutical firm came weeks after congressional investigators warned that minors could have only limited access to 40 percent of the medicines stockpiled for use in a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear strike. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned an attacker could disperse either anthrax or tularemia into the air in breathable form, producing potentially deadly results.

“The needs of special populations including children are paramount in public health emergency preparedness,” said Robin Robinson, who heads the Health and Human Services Department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. “The development of this new antibiotic could help address a gap in our nation’s preparedness and could bolster clinicians’ ability to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections,” he added in an HHS statement.

The medicine, called solithromycin, falls within a category of drugs deemed particularly safe for children, though it could have "broad utility in all age groups," Cempra Pharmaceuticals CEO Prabhavathi Fernandes said in a press release issued on Tuesday.

The drug has been under development since 2006 and can be taken by mouth, a key feature "for administering antibiotics to kids," Fernandes told Global Security Newswire. The drug acts against bacteria now resistant to other antibiotics, and it "reaches concentrations needed to treat infections in the tissues as well as intracellularly where some pathogens hide," she stated by e-mail.

Cempra said initial funding under the deal would support phase 1 tests of the drug in children, and Fernandes indicated that "other pediatric studies are expected to follow." Phase 1 trials administer drugs to healthy participants to gather safety information such as possible side effects; no humans would be exposed to a bioterrorism agent.

Health and Human Services said animal trials of the medicine's effectiveness against anthrax and tularemia could support an eventual bid for licensing from the Food and Drug Administration while also supplying "additional treatment options for clinicians’ use in a public health emergency."

Cempra declined to state when it plans to file for FDA approval. The company could receive up to $58 million if the contract is extended for a full five years, but the firm refused to say whether the initial $17.7 million award would cover any animal tests involving anthrax or tularemia.

"The full funding, if received, will support phase 1, phase 2, and the majority of the phase 2/3 studies on a pediatric oral suspension, oral capsules and the intravenous formulation" for lung infections acquired outside of hospitals, according the company's press release. "The contract should also fund nonhuman primate pilot studies of activity against biothreat pathogens, anthrax and tularemia, placing Cempra's lead product on the pathway to other indications."

Anthrax and tularemia are both seen as likely agents for an act of bioterrorism. The federal government has spent billions of dollars since the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings that followed to prepare the nation for such an act.

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HHS Bets on New Model to Fund Biodefense Drug Development

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:13:31 -0400

The Obama administration on Wednesday said it is putting down $40 million on a first-of-its-kind plan for a major drug maker to pursue an assortment of experimental bioterrorism antibiotics, drawing from a single funding pool as it studies newly discovered formulations and abandons any found to show little promise.

The approach is more flexible than the government's traditional strategy of funding specific drugs with individual contracts and "balances the business risk" for Washington and GlaxoSmithKline, the Health and Human Services Department said.

"Supporting development of multiple drug candidates simultaneously increases the likelihood that one or more will advance to the level at which the company can apply for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug," according to an HHS press release. The department said the effort might yield treatments suitable for uses more routine than the dispersal of lethal bacteria by terrorists, potentially reducing the need for pricey federal stockpiling of new medicines.

The science of antibiotic development is unusually risky and complex, and "there has been a significant reduction in antibiotic research over the past 15 to 20 years," GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Melinda Stubbee told Global Security Newswire on Thursday. "The existing investment model for antibiotics is challenging and doesn’t adequately reward innovation in antibiotic research," she stated by e-mail.

The initial funding would cover 18 months and allow GlaxoSmithKline in part to pursue one developmental antibiotic already seen to be effective in fighting potential bioterror agents anthrax, plague and tularemia in animals, according to the HHS statement. Stubbee said the drug remains in a "very early" development phase and there is no timeline for it to complete the testing process and potentially go to market. She noted, though, that new antibiotics require an average of about a decade to reach consumers.

Decisions on which other prospective treatments will receive development funds will be made by a board of specialists from the company and the Health and Human Services Department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The North Carolina-based pharmaceutical firm declined to estimate how many drug development projects could ultimately receive financing under the plan.

The deal could provide up to $200 million over five years. Health and Human Services did not specify if it could pursue new deals based on the same approach, but said it is seeking more proposals for potential drugs effective against a wide variety of pathogens.

(Image via anyaivanova/Shutterstock.com)

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Study Points to Faster Acting Anthrax Vaccine

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:55:34 -0400

A new anthrax vaccine additive could help to guard people exposed to the lethal bacteria with fewer shots than a widely used formulation delivered in five doses over a year and a half, according to a new study made public on Friday.

Vaccine with the "CPG 7909" adjuvant prompted a stronger immune response in two doses than unaugmented treatment, according to the findings published in the journal Vaccine. Developers hope the research will yield a vaccine capable of conferring protection faster and in fewer injections to individuals exposed to anthrax, an agent long thought by experts to be a likely tool of bioterrorism.

The paper says scientists plan to further examine the additive's role in producing immune reactions and side effects, but it neither identifies a schedule for new research nor specifies whether the augmented vaccine might be administered outside "a post-exposure setting."

Each of four test groups received two "NuThrax" doses incorporating a different level of the experimental additive within the existing BioThrax vaccine. Additional subjects received either placebo shots or the standard version of BioThrax routinely administered to U.S. military personnel and held in the Strategic National Stockpile for general use in an anthrax outbreak.

Vaccinations incorporating any level of CPG 7909 produced stronger "toxin-neutralizing antibody responses" in two doses than vaccine without the adjuvant, but immune reactions evened out after four shots, according to the report. "Differences among the four [experimental vaccine] groups were not statistically significant," says an abstract of the report.

Immune responses from the augmented treatment reached their maximum after four weeks, seven days sooner than vaccine without the additive. However, recipients of the experimental vaccination also experienced temporary low counts of white blood cells involved in fighting infections, in part by helping to produce immune antibodies.

The "immunostimulatory" additive binds to a specific protein, setting off a chain reaction in the body's system for responding to disease threats.

The trial included 105 participants between 15 and 50 years old. No test subjects were exposed to anthrax in the study.

BioThrax manufacturer Emergent Biosolutions announced the start of a new phase 2 clinical study in January. The research team included experts from four other companies.

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East Coast 'Well Protected' Without Proposed Antimissile Site, Official Says

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:32:18 -0400

The eastern United States is already "well protected" against long-range missile threats without a new interceptor site pushed by some GOP lawmakers, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers.

The United States is covered by 30 silo-based ballistic missile interceptors at two existing locations, and 14 more are slated for deployment at Alaska's Fort Greely. That deployment would bolster defenses against "anything from North Korea as well as anything from Iran" in coming years, Madelyn Creedon, assistant Defense secretary for global affairs, said Thursday.

Creedon was discussing the nation's readiness to fend off a potential Iranian ICBM threat. The Pentagon warned in January that adequate foreign backing might enable Iran by 2015 to test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States, and that alterations to Iranian missiles could allow them to accommodate nuclear warheads. Tehran has consistently denied pursuing an atomic arms capacity.

The fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to review options for establishing a third Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptor site to augment the existing installations in Alaska and California. No fewer than two potential locations must be on the East Coast.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency is developing means to choose a number of potential placements for an East Coast interceptor site and would complete environmental impact assessments for at least three locations, Creedon added in response to a question from Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Mark Udall (D-Colo.).

"Should there be a decision at some point that we do need an East Coast missile defense site, this will allow an acceleration of the time that we would need one. But there are other options and we are well protected" by existing facilities, she said.

The head of the Missile Defense Agency on Wednesday dismissed a Republican proposal to provide $250 million in additional fiscal 2014 funding to examine potential East Coast antimissile sites. The fiscal 2013 authorization law made $100 million available for the study.

Speaking on Thursday, Vice Adm. James Syring said candidate locations now number in the "hundreds" and the department is deciding on roughly 10 to 12 "major factors" it would use in determining which to rule out. Hinting at one possible consideration, he suggested sites could receive red flags for any populated areas close to where rocket boosters might fall from launching interceptors.

The elimination process would extend "through the summer," and announcement of the finalists would come before the end of the year, he said.

When asked about an Obama administration proposal to provide Russia with additional technical information on U.S. antimissile systems, Syring said his office "has not declassified any information to give to Russia."

The Obama administration has hoped that sharing such data would quell Moscow's fears that missile interceptors to be deployed in Europe would threaten Russia's strategic missile forces. Creedon indicated there would be no sharing of classified data, which has been a concern for GOP lawmakers.

"We have no ability to share any classified information with Russia nor any intent to share any classified information with Russia," she said.

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DOD Aims to Shield Nuke Operations From Budget Cuts

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:38:46 -0500

Citing Tuesday's nuclear test by North Korea, a senior Defense Department official called U.S. nuclear weapons operations "a national priority" that the Obama administration would seek to shield from across-the-board federal spending cuts set to take effect on March 1.

It appears that "a safe, secure nuclear deterrent" will remain necessary "far into the future," Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on sequestration's anticipated implications for Pentagon programs. "That does require that we have the scientists and engineering base, the facilities, and the life-extension programs and other things we do to keep the nuclear arsenal going."

Congress failed to approve a defense appropriations bill for the current budget cycle, and instead enacted a short-term measure holding most federal spending at fiscal 2012 levels through March 27. The potential March 1 sequester, though, would cut roughly $46 billion in defense spending through Sept. 30, Carter said in his testimony.

Republican lawmakers last week rejected a call by President Obama to delay spending reductions mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act by implementing budget cuts and tax increases. An alternative proposal by Republicans -- defeated previously on multiple occasions -- would delay sequestration cuts for one fiscal year by tightly restricting recruitment of new federal employees.

Ashton said the nation's nuclear deterrent "is the last thing that you want to do serious damage to," and suggested the Defense and Energy departments "will try to protect our nuclear capabilities to the maximum extent possible."

Still, "there may be some effects on some parts of it," he said. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley in January said sequestration could threaten preparation of a new strategic bomber, and the head of the Air Force nuclear command last week said spending cuts could force a 10 percent cut in B-52 bomber flight hours.

If sequestration curbs extend over a full decade, "I can't imagine that we won't have to also look at the nuclear part of our force structure in order to accommodate some of those savings," Carter added. The Obama administration committed in 2010 to invest $85 billion over a decade in modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal and associated infrastructure.

The deputy Pentagon chief said the United States would ensure Pyongyang is reprimanded for conducting its third nuclear trial detonation.

"There's nothing more provocative than what the North Koreans did," he said. "I'm particularly looking to China, of course, to join in that condemnation, and ... they have a pivotal role" in helping to determine North Korea's future course.

Separately, Naval Operations Vice Chief Adm. Mark Ferguson said the announced removal of one of two aircraft carrier deployments from the Persian Gulf would leave open the option to deploy a second carrier group in the region at a later date. The Obama administration has not ruled out military force as an option for addressing a perceived threat from the nuclear program in Iran, which has failed to convince Washington and other capitals that its atomic activities are not aimed at development of a bomb capability.

"If we deploy it now, we would not have the capacity to have a carrier deployed there in the future," he said. Spending limitations forced the second carrier group's removal, the Pentagon indicated last week.

Carter said the carrier redeployment took place because "we're going to run out of operations and maintenance funds in the Navy later in the year."

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) noted Iran's recent dismissal of potential direct talks with the United States, and he voiced concern over "the signal we're sending to the Iranians" by withdrawing an aircraft carrier from its vicinity.

Asked if the anticipated cuts would harm Air Force capabilities to potentially strike Iranian atomic sites, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said the service's "kick-in-the-door capability would be affected."

Air Force Space Command last week warned sequestration would prompt a number of missile radar stations to cut their operations from 24 to eight hours each day, but Welsh told lawmakers the move would only affect "redundant" systems.

"Missile warning is not impacted," and any "threat to the nation will be detected," he said.

Carter said sequestration would produce "a true crisis in military readiness" within months and force alterations to the national defense strategy unveiled last year by the Obama administration.

"The cloud of uncertainty hanging over our nation's defense affairs is already having lasting and irreversible effects. And ultimately the cloud of sequestration needs to be dispelled and not just moved to the horizon," Carter said. "Perhaps most important, allies, partners, friends and potential foes the world over need to know that we have the political will to implement the defense strategy we've put forward."

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Aging technology endangers Pantex security, auditors warn

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:51:20 -0500

A deteriorating nuclear-weapon security system at the Pantex Plant in Texas could malfunction if it does not receive maintenance, the U.S. Energy Department inspector general warned in a report made public on Friday.

The technology had a projected "useful life" of two decades upon entering use in the 1990s and it is now in need of sustainment updates, an insider with a branch of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons complex operations, told DOE auditors.

The facility near Amarillo switches out or fixes components in certain nuclear arms, and it carries out disassembly of weapons retired from the atomic arsenal. The protective apparatus is specifically designed to protect "Zone 4W," the sole area of the Texas plant involved in short-term storage of atomic armaments and "other nuclear explosive assembles," according to the Jan. 29 assessment.

Any failure in the defenses would necessitate the use of "compensatory measures" to shore up protections, according to NNSA and Pantex personnel. No details on the system are publicly available, and the IG report does not specify what security vulnerability could arise from any malfunction.

Existing regulations permit employment of stopgap protections, but overuse of such measures contributed to failures revealed in a July break-in at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, DOE auditors said, citing previous findings.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has called for Pantex personnel to develop a proposal to "upgrade or replace" the Zone 4W security system, insiders with both organizations told auditors. Neither the National Nuclear Security Administration nor the plant's contract operator responded by press time to requests for further details.

The Texas facility is now operated by contractor B&W Pantex, a conglomerate managed by the firms Babcock & Wilcox, Bechtel National and Honeywell. A separate consortium of four private contractors is set to take over security and management of the Pantex and Y-12 sites on May 1.

Inspectors said the National Nuclear Security Administration "recognizes the potential security concern posed by the aging security system." Still, the agency as of November had not endorsed a "mission need statement" submitted three months earlier by Pantex personnel, they added; the Energy Department requires such statements in an effort to adhere to project time lines as well as cost and performance goals.

Separately, DOE investigators voiced concern over the dilapidated status of a number of nuclear-material holding structures at the Pantex Plant, but one site worker said delays in repairs to the buildings would pose no risk of accidents or security lapses.

The storage area is filled to roughly 86 percent of its capacity, the report states. A Pantex source told IG officials that the plant does not anticipate a space shortfall based on the average rate of eliminating unneeded parts, but the insider could not provide records to support the assertion.

The report also commends the Pantex Plant for surpassing its fiscal 2010 weapon disassembly goal by 26 percent and its fiscal 2011 dismantlement quota by 11 percent. The United States does not disclose the specific quantities of weapons it eliminates.

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Lawmakers reaffirm demand for biowatch data

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:28:33 -0500

The Homeland Security Department has turned over "substantial" documentation in response to a congressional panel's request for records on a controversial biological agent sensor network, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not been similarly forthcoming in providing related information, two Republican lawmakers said in a Thursday letter renewing the call for data.

The Health and Human Services Department branch has so far provided none of the requested details on the performance of theBiowatch program, said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee head Tim Murphy, R-Penn.

The Los Angeles Times last year reported that the initiative, which incorporates disease agent scanners in more than 30 cities, had indicated possible biological strikes on dozens of occasions from 2003 to 2009. None of the cases involved an actual act of bioterrorism, but DHS officials have challenged characterization of the events as false alarms.

Upton and Murphy's predecessor in November asked CDC Director Thomas Frieden for various details on the Biowatch effort, including specifics on the agency's finding that certain sampling technology fielded and later retired was not viable for the program. The request apparently remains under HHS review, according to the legislators.

"We urge you to expedite this document production so we can work with you and your department more effectively on improving protection against the threat of bioterrorism," the lawmakers wrote.

The letter does not elaborate on the material provided by Homeland Security. Top panel Republicans last year asked the department to turn over records on the existing Biowatch system's performance, as well as written communications involving a high-level official who advocated canceling development of a new generation of Biowatch technology.

The Obama administration issued a preliminary call last week for companies to submit candidate equipment for the controversial multibillion dollar plan to deploy the new generation of Biowatch detectors. Homeland Security spokesman Peter Boogaard on Thursday said the draft call is aimed at “performance testing of potential Biowatch systems to gather information about potential technologies."

Asked why the department is moving forward with procurement after previously postponing acquisition of components for the future system, he said by e-mail that "the Biowatch program must return to a DHS Acquisition Review Board for further review" before any performance testing contract can be finalized.

Detection units in the upgraded system are intended to autonomously gather and evaluate air samples for the presence of dangerous organisms such as anthrax between four and six times each day, rather than requiring samples to be sent to a laboratory. The planned upgrade would extend the network to approximately 20 additional urban areas, in total enabling monitoring of areas where around nine-tenths of U.S. inhabitants reside, the Times reported previously.

Homeland Security as of September had spent roughly $1 billion on deploying older Biowatch technology and over $150 million on development of technology for the Generation 3 initiative, according to past reporting. The future surveillance program is projected to cost $3.1 billion in its first five years of operation.

The department said it is accepting feedback on last week's draft procurement notice until Feb. 11 and intends to issue a final version in the third quarter of this year. A section of the solicitation calls for prospective contract winners to each provide Homeland Security with two sample detection units as well as supporting systems and technical aid in no more than 16 weeks. Trials would assess whether the technology "is designed to be cost-effective," and if it meets various DHS technical requirements.

Product testing could start as soon as 14 weeks into a contract period and would wrap up no later than 30 weeks after a deal is signed, according to the document. It does not offer a time line for selection of equipment for larger-scale manufacturing and deployment under a future contract.

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U.S. lawmaker demands action to secure alleged Syrian uranium

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:34:38 -0500

A top Republican lawmaker on Monday pressed for international action to secure a possible stockpile of uranium in civil war-torn Syria.

Experts have suggested the Bashar Assad regime might have amassed up to 50 metric tons of the substance as fuel for a suspected plutonium production reactor leveled by a 2007 Israeli aerial bombardment prior to completion.

The Syrian government has insisted the destroyed Dair Alzour facility was a military installation with no atomic purpose, even though U.N. inspectors in 2008 uncovered indications of natural uranium introduced at the site by humans. Damascus has rejected International Atomic Energy Agency requests to further examine the grounds of the razed location.

News reports suggest material previously collected for the plant could fall "into the hands of extremist groups that are present in the region," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.) said in astatement. "If these reports are true, it should be of paramount importance for the U.S. and responsible nations to work to ensure this nuclear material is secured."

The former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct "an emergency meeting" on Syria, and she pressed Damascus to provide the Vienna, Austria-based organization with "immediate access to all nuclear facilities and stockpiles so that they may be protected and sealed."

Any rejection of the requests "must be met with immediate, comprehensive and painful sanctions by the U.S., European Union, and the U.N. Security Council," she stated. "Russia and China must stop giving the Assad regime a pass and act responsibly."

U.S. State Department offices in Washington and Vienna did not respond by press time to requests for comment on Ros-Lehtinen's demands. However, Foggy Bottom last week acknowledged the allegations over Syrian uranium without directly addressing their veracity.

"We’re obviously aware of these reports regarding the presence of those kinds of materials that could be used for WMD capability," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Friday. "We will continue to work with the IAEA, and we hold the Syrian regime responsible for its management of any" such material.

Asked if the United States is capable of independently verifying the presence of a Syrian uranium stockpile, Nuland refused to "get into intelligence information."

"The Syrian regime’s noncompliance remains a matter of serious concern for the international community and something that we watch very closely," she said.

In comments reported last week, a number of government insiders suggested Iran could seize uranium from Syria to secretly enrich the material for use in a nuclear weapon. Tehran insists it is only refining uranium for nonmilitary use, but Washington and other capitals hold the assertion in serious doubt.

“Syria is almost certainly in possession of good quality uranium of the type that Iran has been trying to acquire on the international market for years," the sources told the Financial Times. "It would certainly be possible to transfer this from Syria to Iran by air.”

Tehran would be obligated to inform the U.N. nuclear watchdog of any such development and to place transferred material under international oversight, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nuclear specialist Mark Hibbs.

"All these requirements would likely be moot, of course, if any uranium metal fuel in Syria subject to transport were not to have been declared to the IAEA," Hibbs wrote last week on the Arms Control Wonk blog. "And you can bet that 50 [metric tons] of uranium metal would not have been declared, since Syria continues to deny that it was running a clandestine nuclear program when Israeli aircraft took off for [Dair Alzour]."

Ros-Lehtinen suggested the alleged Syrian uranium cache could be "weapons-grade," but theTimes described the material as "unenriched" and a Washington Free Beacon report refers only to claims of "enriched" material. The lawmaker as of press time had not replied to a request to explain the discrepancy.

Separately, Ros-Lehtinen urged the United States and partner nations to demand that Syrian rebel forces "publicly and formally" pledge in a "post-Assad era" to eliminate Syrian WMD operations and relinquish related assets to international authorities. "Failure to make this commitment must be taken into consideration when determining continuing support for the opposition forces,” she said.

The Syrian government is widely assumed to hold a chemical arms stockpile encompassing hundreds of tons of blister and nerve agents, along with various types of delivery systems. Reports in late 2012 indicated that the military had been detected mixing precursor materials for the nerve agent sarin and pouring the mix into munitions.

There are also suspicions that Syria has a biological weapons program.

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DHS defends acquisition plan for bioweapon detectors

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:06:16 -0400

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Thursday defended plans to press ahead in vetting and acquiring a new generation of sensors designed to provide early warning of a biological weapons attack, even as auditors and some lawmakers urged it to pause and reassess the effort.

Before finalizing a blueprint three years ago for procuring a third generation of Biowatch detectors, the Homeland Security Department carried out a faulty evaluation that failed to ask if the new equipment was necessary or would prove effective once deployed, the congressional Government Accountability Office said in a report issued this week. The developmental technology is designed to autonomously gather and evaluate air samples for the presence of dangerous organisms such as anthrax between four and six times each day; Biowatch gear now in 30 U.S. cities requires the physical removal of filters on a routine basis for assessment in local laboratories.

The department accepted GAO recommendations to re-examine the necessity for the effort and possible alternatives, as well as to "develop performance, schedule, and cost information in accordance with guidance and good acquisition practices." However, it rejected advice from auditors to delay procurement efforts until completing the administrative steps.

"All of those things take time, and during that time period, we do not want to delay ... the technology side of the coin," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Garza said at a joint hearing convened on Thursday by two House Homeland Security subcommittees

Department officials last month approved plans to move forward with "an analysis of alternatives" that would incorporate "testing of a small number of detector units from each competitively selected vendor," Garza said in written testimony.

"There is not going to be any performance testing during that time period," he told lawmakers during a question-and-answer session. "When you come to the end of the day, we are going to be aligned with exactly what GAO is saying, to complete these documents before we start performance testing."

Some lawmakers, though, voiced concern over the planning by Homeland Security, which has spent more than $150 million to date on the development of Generation 3 scanning technology. Initial testing of preliminary next-generation scanners showed the technology to lack sufficient resiliency and sensitivity to perform reliably, according to GAO investigators.

Further evaluating the gear while also examining other options could "allow payment for a product that the government will never use," House Homeland Security emergency preparedness subcommittee Ranking Member Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) said in prepared remarks. She added that such timing could also pave the way "for a predetermined outcome."

The need for a self-operating biological-weapon sensor network appeared to have been a "foregone conclusion" among DHS officials, the lawmaker suggested. Funds already spent on the next-generation system might have been better used for "grants to state and local governments that would have invested in viable and locally based solutions," she said.

The Generation 3 system is projected to require $3.1 billion during its initial half-decade of use; the department has so spent roughly $1 billion on older Biowatch sensors. The planned upgrade would extend the network to approximately 20 additional urban areas, in total enabling monitoring of areas where around nine-tenths of U.S. inhabitants reside, the Los Angeles Times reported previously.

Separately, Garza attempted to explain technical shortcomings reported in Biowatch sensors fielded since 2003. Congressional auditors said the current equipment has produced "more than 100" inaccurate warnings of disease threats, according to earlier reporting.

The DHS official attributed the alerts to genetic similarities between potential weapon agents and naturally occurring biological materials.

"For a particular organism, there is a subspecies of the organism very, very closely linked, so closely linked that when Biowatch [launched] in 2003 there was not a test to distinguish between the different subspecies of organisms," he said. "By and large, what we find is that very low-level subspecies of that organism.

"Many people didn't know that this even existed in the environment and some of the cities that we're in, and so it was a surprise to them that we were finding this there," the DHS official added. "We rewrote the book on where bacteria live."

The department responded by "looking at ways to improve our detection technology," he said, referencing Defense Department efforts to develop more accurate sampling methods.

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