News Analysis: Biodefense Boondoggle?

Continued from page 1

By Erika Jonietz

June 7, 2004

The dispute over biotech funding goes beyond new biocontainment facilities. "There is a general feeling out there that we've spent too much or are planning on spending too much money on biodefense," says Loranger. Critics point out that while Congress has provided new money especially for biodefense research, the percentage of funds earmarked for other biomedical studies is decreasing. "If funding for all research increased proportionately, this wouldn't be a problem," says William Margolin, a microbiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. As it is, he says, "outstanding researchers in basic biology are getting squeezed at the expense of sometimes lower quality research on biodefense." In fact, Loranger notes, the number of grants the National Institutes of Health funds has already decreased 3 percent since the 2001 anthrax attacks. The result: fewer scientists and fewer different studies are being funded.

The arguments aren't merely academic. "These efforts are going have to be funded at a certain level to maintain these labs," says Loranger. "And you will see a decrease in other public health and basic research initiatives being funded." That could spell big trouble in the long term.

"There is no doubt that [the growth in biodefense spending] has been a boon for a lot of microbiology and microbiologists," says Stanford University microbiologist Stanley Falkow, who is known for his work on plague and tularemia-both possible bioterror agents. Falkow worries, however, that other good research could be neglected. "If the amount of money available for funding gets tighter and the decision is, do we fund something under one of these programs, like bioterror, or do we fund something that's in basic research of E. coli, that the bioterror is going to get the funding." That, he says, could be a mistake, as many of the discoveries now being applied to bioterror agents were originally made in so-called paradigm organisms like E. coli-nondangerous bacteria with characteristics similar to a variety of other microbes.

Another concern is biologists turning away from research on bacteria and viruses not considered bioterror threats in order to cash in on biodefense money. "I'm afraid people might start to ignore the global infectious disease problem, which I think is a far greater problem," Falkow says. He notes that until 9/11, the CIA believed that as far as national security, the U.S. got more benefit from trying to eradicate infectious diseases than from working on defenses against bioterror. The reasoning was simple: rampant disease in developing countries stymies economic growth, which leaves the populace dissatisfied and more likely to breed terrorists.

Decreased attention to non-bioterror agents could become a problem even in the U. S., Falkow notes. He specifically cites the need to attend to growing threats such as community-acquired, antibiotic-resistant Staphylococci, which causes problems ranging from boils to pneumonia and life-threatening bloodstream infections. "Not as many people are working on [Staphylococci] now as there were," Falkow says. Like many bioterror agents caught up in the funding vortex, staph is difficult to grow and manipulate. The not-unreasonable attitude researchers take, Falkow says, is "you might as well go work on something where there's a lot of money." The real problem, both Loranger and Falkow contend, is that there has been little public discussion of how much money needs to be spent on biodefense and where the money should go.

Even proponents of this favored branch of biological research agree. "The enormous amount of money that's been put into biodefense could go into other things," says virologist Peters. "And you could argue about where we ought to be using the money. I don't think we've had a really good national argument about this." Without that kind of debate, the United States could be left high and dry in its fight against infectious disease.