United States Plans to Build Secure Biological Laboratories in Three Former Soviet States

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Sounds rather dubious...Zeus

www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_7_16.html#AF56E338 %3B

United States Plans to Build Secure Biological Laboratories in Three Former Soviet States

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency plans to build four Biosafety Level 2 and 3 laboratories in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to house and study dangerous pathogens, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2003).

Yesterday, the U.S engineering firm CUH2A announced that it had won a contract to design the four facilities, AP reported. The Pentagon agency plans to spend $24 million to design and $100 million to build the four laboratories, said spokesman Cindy McGovern. Two of the laboratories would be located in Kazakhstan - one in Almaty to focus on human pathogens and the other in Otar to research animal pathogens, according to the Associated Press. Laboratories to study and house both human and animal pathogens would be located in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.

"We're going to collect all of these dangerous pathogens in these countries in a single repository where they can now track who gets access to these things and who doesn't," said Kenneth Drake, project director at CUH2A. The effort is also aimed "to keep scientists gainfully employed, working on something for the good of their country rather than something evil," he added.

The four facilities are set to be built by September 2007 and would go into operation the following year, according to McGovern (Linda Johnson, Associated Press/Newsday.com, July 15).

Randi Airola
517-819-5926

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