摘要:
Sir Brian Heap's Editorial "Scienctists against biological weapons" (16 Nov.,p. 1417) reminds me of a mischievous and skeptical aphorism attributed to Amrom Katz, a shrewd armscontrol analyst at Rand Corporation many years ago. Katz said, "We have never found anything thatthe Soviets have successfully hidden" (1, p. 212). It is one thing to say you are "againstbiological weapons;' but it is another to recognize how difficult is the process of inspection andverification at reasonably high levels of reliability. We now know, of course, that the formerSoviet Union manufactured tons of biological agents after pledging formally and publicly that theywould not. We have good reason to believe that Iraq is in the same category of using talent to cheaton commitments. We suspect that North Korea is in that category as well. So what is the answer? Atleast four efforts need to be sustained. First, international "norms" are a baseline. Although wordsdo not deter everyone, it is extremely important to underscore over and over again the abhorrenceall peace-loving people have about biological weapons. Second, occasionally it might be necessary touse force, such as in the present war in Afghanistan. Only force can work in the extreme ***, we need a surge of effort by the National Institutes of Health, academic health centers, andindustry on vaccines and drugs against biological weapons. And fourth, more research and development(R&D) should be devoted to improving ways of defending against biological weapons and verifying, iffeasible, the terms of any treaty. The U.S. Department of Defense, including the Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency, merits our help.