Executive Order (from the National Security Council)
National Security Decision Memorandum 44 (NSDM-44)
Signed: February 20, 1970
In the memorandum United States Policy on Toxins, the US renounced the offensive production, stockpiling, and use of chemical and biological toxins and confined the military research in toxins to defensive purposes.
The Act was intended as a renewal of 16 sunset provisions scheduled to expire December 31, 2005 contained in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001 signed into law October 26, 2001, by President George W. Bush as Public Law 107-56.
Terrorists and countries of concern may be able to gain access to poorly secured weapons of mass destruction at sites throughout Russia. To address this threat to U.S. national security, the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Energy (DOE) have obligated more than $1.8 billion since 1992. GAO was asked to report on U.S. programs to help improve security at sites where Russia stores (1) weapons-usable nuclear material, (2) nuclear warheads, (3) dangerous biological pathogens, and (4) chemical weapons. For each area, GAO assessed U.S. plans to address security threats at sites in Russia, U.S. progress in implementing those plans, and the primary challenges facing DOD and DOE.
Since 1992, the Congress has provided more than $7 billion for threat reduction and nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union (FSU). These programs have played a key role in addressing the threats of weapons of mass destruction and are currently expanding beyond the FSU. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 mandated that GAO assess (1) Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy (DOE) strategies guiding their threat reduction and nonproliferation programs and (2) efforts to coordinate DOD, DOE, and Department of State threat reduction and nonproliferation programs that share similar missions.
Research Report for the Wellcome Trust Project on `Building a Sustainable Capacity in Dual-use Bioethics`
By Jim Whitman
It is widely acknowledged that twenty-first century life science research presents numerous dual use issues – that much of the benign potential of new advances in the life sciences can also be misused for pernicious and destructive purposes. The problem is extensive enough that biotechnology itself has been characterized as a `dual use dilemma`. This paper argues that it is unhelpful and misleading to place the focus of dual use bioethics on the apprehension of dilemmas; and that to place the onus of responsibility on practicing life scientists to experience dilemmas when the character and momentum of life sciences research is a structural matter is unlikely to enhance biosecurity. An ethics which turns crucially on dilemmas will not suffice.
