I spent most of yesterday morning looking for regulatory jurisdiction over microbial research. Couldn't find anything. This article supports my conclusion.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/310/nation/Microbes_were_mail_ordered%2b.shtml

Microbes were mail-ordered

Lax controls let extremists easily obtain anthrax

By Tatsha Robertson and Robert Schlesinger, Globe Staff, 11/6/2001

WASHINGTON - Larry Wayne Harris, a former Aryan Nations member and a microbiologist from Ohio, was arrested three years ago after he bragged to an informant that he was carrying enough military-grade anthrax to wipe out all Las Vegas.

Federal officials were well aware of Harris, who in 1995 was convicted of wire fraud related to his purchase of freeze-dried bubonic plague through the mail. ''It was easy, and it's still easy,'' said Harris.

He was eventually cleared of the anthrax charges when it turned out that what he carried was anthrax vaccine, not the bacteria.

Harris's story illustrates some of the challenges US officials face as they try to determine whether foreign or domestic terrorists sent the anthrax-laced letters that have killed four people.

Last week, the federal government imposed tougher sentencing guidelines for crimes involving biological and chemical weapons, under legislation President Bush signed last month. But the problem may be catching the suspects in the first place.

In an effort to find the people or person responsible for the recent spate of anthrax-tainted letters, the FBI sent agents to comb through the Trenton, N.J., neighborhoods where several of the early letters were mailed. The action yielded little information.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the $1 million reward offered by the FBI has led to 170,000 tips and potential leads, but none has moved the investigation forward significantly, and many have proved to be hoaxes.

Part of the problem is that the federal government has little control over the many samples of diseases maintained by a large number of people, laboratories, and universities, said Jessica Stern, a terrorism specialist at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

In order to obtain samples of bubonic plague, Harris simply called the American Type Culture Collection in Maryland. He was able to use his credit card to pay for the bacteria, of the type which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the 14th century, and it was delivered by Federal Express days later.

Obtaining plague was completely legal. When authorities arrested Harris, the charge was that he had purchased the samples under a fake name.

In the aftermath of that incident, Congress in 1997 required that anyone intending to send or receive any of 42 different viruses, toxins, or bacteria, including anthrax and bubonic plague, must first register with the US Centers for Disease Control.

Nevertheless, the CDC is still not sure how many universities and others are storing anthrax and other bacteria.

''It's still not illegal to possess biological agents,'' Stern said. ''It's not even necessary to register unless you are shipping and receiving the agents.''

Controls over ''culture collections around the world are even looser,'' she said.

Many health organizations use the cultures to develop vaccines and medicines, but experts worry that lax laws have made potentially dangerous pathogens too easily accessible.

Domestic extremists have a history of trying to use biological and chemical weapons. In the early 1970s, Muharem Kurbegovic, also known as the Alphabet Bomber, tried to send deadly toxins through the mail to Supreme Court justices.

Others were drawn to ricin, a deadly toxin that can be created from castor beans. It was famously used by the Bulgarian secret service on the sharpened tip of an umbrella to kill a defector on the streets of London in 1978.

In 1995, members of an antitax group called the Minnesota Patriots Council were convicted under antiterrorism laws of having enough ricin, authorities said, to kill 129 people. The group allegedly planned to kill a federal marshal by smearing the poison on a door handle.

In 1999, three members of the Republic of Texas, an antigovernment group, were arrested on charges of threatening President Clinton and plotting to use a cactus thorn laced with anthrax or HIV as a weapon. Two of them were convicted and received long prison sentences, even though their defense lawyers said their clients had no ability to carry through on their threat.

Law enforcement authorities are often caught by surprise when it comes to bioterrorist threats. When police went to the home of Thomas Leahy - a Janesville, Wis., man whose relative said he had talked about killing family and friends - they found that he was storing ricin in his basement. He was allegedly planning to send it to people through the mail.

In the nation's only successful bioterrorist attack before the anthrax letters, followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh contaminated salad bars in Oregon with salmonella, making 750 people ill in 1984. Authorities did not know it was a bioterrorist attack for more than a year.

In Oregon in 1997, federal officials found dangerous chemicals, including sodium cyanide, in the home of James Dalton Bell, who had published on the Internet an essay about assassinating public officials. Bell, who had been collecting home addresses of IRS employees, was later convicted of Social Security fraud and obstructing the IRS.

In 1999, the FBI prevented a plot to infect wheat crops with a destructive fungus, according to the agency's annual report on domestic terrorism.

Overall, biological and chemical weapons terrorism is uncommon, accounting for only five of the 457 terrorist incidents in the United States between 1980 and 1999, according to an FBI report.

But, the report noted, these cases ''have shown a steady increase since 1995.'' One reason is that US fringe groups have become increasingly interested in weapons of mass destruction, specialists say.

''It's just the last couple of years that this move towards biological and chemical weapons has come about,'' said Sean Gilmore, professor of communications at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. Gilmore spent three weeks over the summer among white supremacist groups.

Biological and chemical weapons, he said, have ''given them a new belief that they can really have a reign of terror that will make a difference.''

Stern believes Harris contributed to this new interest in biochemical warfare. The microbiologist wrote a book on the dangers of bioterrorism, which was ostensibly his reason for ordering the bubonic plague. But Stern said the book is little more than a how-to guide that could ''be used by others to kill, including detailed instructions on how to obtain anthrax and disperse it.''

Although the FBI tries to keep tabs on Harris, he says he has never really broken the law. He paid a $50 fine and served 200 hours of community service on the wire fraud charge.

Harris, who was employed by Superior Laboratories in Columbus, Ohio, in 1995, said he is no longer a member of Aryan Nations. And he disagreed with the suggestion that right-wing groups might be behind the anthrax scare.

''It's Iraq,'' he said, arguing that the militia lack expertise and would have chosen different targets.

Michael Burkin, a professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, said it's an open question whether groups like the militia have the expertise to handle a biological threat like anthrax.

''On the other hand,'' he said, ''it would only take one or two people to do something like that.''

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001