Foreign Policy and Bird Flu Vaccine Concerns

Seeing the headline, “U.S. controls bird flu vaccines over bioweapon fears,” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_re_as/as_bird_flu_biological_warfare , piqued my curiosity, as I had recently posted a question after 9/26 class about how pluripotent stem cells could become “dangerous.” Further reading revealed that the keyword in the headline was “fears.” There is only a potential threat of biological weaponry with the HSN1 or Avian influenza virus.

In the article, the idea of a bird flu bioweapon was called “the nuttiest thing I ever heard” by U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates and other unnamed experts called the idea “far fetched.” We allegedly do not possess the technology to produce such a bioweapon. Experts believe that they cannot create a bioweapon from the bird flu vaccine, because the vaccine is created with an inactivated virus that cannot be genetically altered and cannot be resuscitated back to its virulent form.

Despite this lack of technology, the fear of biological warfare is apparently the motive behind the supplement to the U.S. export regulation. The Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Title 50 1701-1707), makes it convenient for the U.S. President to order embargoes to countries that are designated “state sponsors of terrorism.” Examples are North Korea, Iran, and Sudan; areas with strained diplomatic relations, human rights violations or nuclear weapon potential. Some countries are able to apply for export licenses to the U.S. Other countries, such as Iran, Cuba and Sudan have longstanding embargoes that prohibit trade with the U.S. Using language such as not letting the vaccines get into the wrong hands,” and “legitimate (italics mine)public health and scientific research is not adversely affected,” does sound as though bioterrorism through vaccines is a real national security concern.

Unfortunately, this ban is perceived negatively by some countries. Notice how the same article that I am citing is posted by the web site, Plan for Pandemic: HSN1 Avian Influenza What you need to Know and what you need to do about it: “Indonesia refuses to send bird flu virus to American lab fearing Bush may use same for bioweapons on non-white countries.” Consider the following headline: “U.S. Hoards Bird Flu Vaccines Over Bioweapon Fears” http://wjz.com/national/bird.flu.vaccine.2.838462.html. Perception truly is reality for some.

Bioethicists would say that limiting vaccines to select countries because of the foreign policy is morally questionable. This is because other countries accused of having biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction (WPD) such as Libya or Iraq do not have such trade restrictions. There should be consistency in the regulation of importation of viruses and the exportation of vaccines, if we are to appear ethical in our trade policy.