Biological Threats

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Grand Committee

Tabled By

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they have in place to protect the residents of the United Kingdom against biological threats; and what measures they are taking to promote the international regulation of biological weapons and to ensure that security standards are sufficient in laboratories engaged in biological research around the world.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken an interest in this debate and I want to express my thanks to Julian Elderfield, a master’s student at the London School of Economics last year, who has prepared for me some very interesting notes on this topic. They inspired me to put forward this Question for Short Debate. Admittedly, I tabled it last May, so we are considering it a few months later, but I am none the less sure that the issues have not moved on significantly during that period.

We are all aware that the National Risk Register places in tier 1 a number of significant threats to the United Kingdom. Those include a major natural hazard which requires a national response, such as an influenza pandemic. Also included in the tier 1 category is the threat of international terrorism, stating specifically:

“International terrorism affecting the UK or its interests, including a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists”.

That is the context within which this debate is framed.

We need to consider why biological threats have the capacity to be potentially so catastrophic. Of course, there have been a number of developments over the years, not least the rapid growth in international travel, which means that a virus emerging in one part of the world can travel round the world extremely quickly. We saw that with the SARS epidemic and other phenomena over the years. The changes in the way in which the world operates have had significant consequences.

The other context for all this is that viruses can, entirely naturally, change rapidly. They can mutate. They are comparatively simple organisms, if indeed they can be defined as organisms, and their mutation will often throw up viruses that have different effects or impacts, are more easily spread or are more virulent when they are ingested.

There is a whole group of issues around natural hazards and biothreats. In addition, of course, 50 years ago many countries—including, I rather suspect, our own—were experimenting with or thinking about biological weapons. Most countries would now deny that they have such a capacity but the fact that many countries considered this research and experimented with it raises the issue of what happened to those programmes and their products. In some instances, they were stockpiled and in some instances we do not yet know what happened to that material.

So far, one virus has been effectively eliminated in its natural state: smallpox. However, there are, I think, two stocks of the smallpox virus that have been retained for research purposes, presumably because of the possibility that smallpox might recur in some other way in the future. We have to consider the security of those stocks and whether there are similar issues around them.

The other big change that has happened, really quite dramatically, in the past 10 to 15 years is the speed of technological advance and the ability of scientists now to undertake genetic manipulation. As I said earlier, viruses are very simple. They are simply a capsule, often with perhaps 10 or 12 genes within them. The changing of just one gene within a virus can have a very profound effect on what that virus does: how easily it is transmitted, the extent to which it can be transmitted from an animal to a human being or between humans, and the consequences for the organism that is infected.

In fact, in 2001 the Journal of Virology published a research paper that demonstrated a whole number of ways of modifying the mousepox virus. This new virus was so effective that it overwhelmed the immune system of the test mice, causing massive liver failure and eventually killing the subjects. That reaction occurred even if the mice had been vaccinated against the mousepox virus. That was a legitimate scientific experiment— an effort to control the mouse population in Australia —but it demonstrated that a quite small change in a single gene with comparatively simple techniques could have major consequences.

These techniques are becoming more straightforward and all sorts of legitimate research is taking place in these areas around the world. Some of this could have the consequence of rendering a vaccine ineffective; some of it could confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics and antiviral agents in pathogenic organisms; it could increase the virulence of a pathogen, or make it easier for that pathogen to be transmitted; or it could perhaps alter the range of hosts for that pathogen. A whole number of things are now technically possible that were not easily doable 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Entirely legitimate research on genetic manipulation and modification is of course going on all over the world for entirely benign purposes.

The question that I want to pose is: how well regulated around the world is that research? How confident can we be that other countries are applying the sorts of restrictions that we would wish to see? Some pharmaceutical companies may have an interest in carrying out experiments and developing their techniques in countries where the regulatory regime is far less intense than it might be in our own country.

We have the Biological Weapons Convention, which is extremely well supported. I think that in excess of 150 countries around the world have signed it. However, as I understand it, although countries have said that they accept that they should not be developing biological weapons, the world has not set up what we might consider to be any effective system for monitoring compliance or verification. Some of the biggest and most powerful countries—the United States of America, for one—are extremely dubious about setting up any external system to monitor their own compliance and do not necessarily see the need for a supervisory body.

The US, for example, clearly has no official bioweapons capability but has constructed a huge research base, in many different centres around the United States, under the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures programme. That is undertaking, no doubt quite properly, genetic research, development and testing. However, if the United States says, “We are not happy with our compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention ever being tested by anybody else”, it is very difficult to see how that could be enforced on other countries.

Scepticism also persists about whether Russia’s offensive bioweapons capabilities have been completely dismantled. There are, I think, five Russian military bioweapons facilities which remain closed to outside inspection. Many of the officials linked to their current defensive programme are the same officials who developed Soviet offensive capabilities during the Cold War. There is a question again about how secure those facilities are, particularly as we know that regimes change and that certain parts of the world become less stable as things move forward.

There is clearly a risk that stocks of materials developed for one purpose could be misused or fall into the hands of terrorist groups or, potentially, rogue regimes. There is also a question of where scientific research is going. There have obviously been discussions over the years, particularly in the United States following the September 11 attacks, as to whether certain areas of scientific activity should be properly reported and appear in the scientific journals. I do not think that is a very positive route to go down but it recognises the levels of concern that exist in this.

In responding, can the Minister first say what is being done to improve supervision of these matters? Secondly, what is being done to regulate the security of scientific establishments, including those that hold stocks of pathogens? It all ends with a fundamental question. We are at risk, as a nation, from a pandemic of whatever sort and from whatever origin, whether naturally or unnaturally occurring. Are we really satisfied that our emergency and health services are able to withstand that?