Construction on new biodefense center begins

The Department of Homeland Security broke ground on June 26 for its $128 million, 160,000-sq-ft National Biodefense Analysis & Countermeasures Center (NBACC) at Fort Detrick, Md., which is expected to be completed by 2008 (C&EN, Aug. 15, 2005, page 26). The center is part of a vast $1.2 billion government biodefense complex to be built at Fort Detrick. NBACC will consist of the National Bioforensic Analysis Center and the Biological Threat Characterization Center. DHS says the threat characterization center will conduct lab studies to better understand current and future threats, assess vulnerabilities, and conduct risk assessments. Critics are concerned about the studies that will be undertaken and the lack of transparency, which they say could spark a biological arms race. Some of the work will be classified, and NBACC itself will operate as a closed facility. "My concern," says Alan Pearson, who once worked at DHS and is now director of the biological and chemical weapons control program at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, "has been and remains about what research actually is going to be done at the threat characterization center and whether there will be adequate oversight of that research, including external oversight." Pearson just released a study that tallies U.S. biodefense spending. From fiscal 2001 through fiscal 2006, the U.S. has spent more than $36 billion, an amount that will increase by at least $8 billion in fiscal 2007.