Army patents biowar tech, aiding the enemy, indicting itself

Major Variola (ret.) mv at cdc.gov
Tue Jun 24 16:57:37 PDT 2003


Helping the Enemy?

      The U.S. Army is catching some flak for patenting two devices that
could be used to
      launch bioweapons. Critics say the patents may violate a
weapons-control treaty--and
      could give terrorists a blueprint for manufacturing the devices.

      The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the two patents
(numbers 6,523,478 and
      6,047,644) over the last year. One details a "nonlethal cargo
dispenser" that attaches to
      the end of a rifle and uses a bullet's momentum to zip a chemical
or biological payload to
      its target. The other describes a cartridge that can spread an
aerosol cloud.

      The Sunshine Project, a nonprofit arms-control group with offices
in Austin, Texas, and
      Hamburg, Germany, first raised questions about the patents last
month, saying they
      appeared to violate the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,
which bars the
      development of delivery devices. And this month, Greg Aharonian,
publisher of the
      prominent Internet Patent News Service, piled on. "Which words in
the phrase 'aiding
      and abetting the enemy' does the Army not understand?" he asks,
adding that "it is
      hypocritical to complain about countries developing biological and
chemical weapons
      when we are openly educating them on how to do so." He says the
military should have
      classified the patents. The Army says it is looking into the
issue.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol300/issue5627/r-samples.shtml#300/5627/1873a





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