Weill's Ronald Crystal testifies on bioterrorism

By Timothy S. Paul

Dr. Ronald Crystal, chairman of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, testified May 15 in Washington, D.C., before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security as part of a hearing on "Project BioShield."

Project BioShield, initiated by President George Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address, is a comprehensive effort to develop and make available modern, effective drugs and vaccines to protect against attack by biological and chemical weapons or other dangerous pathogens.

Crystal

Crystal, also the chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, outlined the threats posed by the use of infectious agents and ways to adequately prepare for bioterrorism.

"We believe the threat is very real," said Crystal.

The 2002 Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, which mandates strict requirements for possession and transfer of select agents, is a "positive step," Crystal said. But he also cautioned that biologic agents naturally reproduce themselves. It is relatively easy, he said, in a small laboratory with readily available equipment and biological reagents to cultivate bio agents that would have a devastating effect if used for terrorism.

Furthermore, technology is widely available that would allow genetically modified bio agents to circumvent existing vaccines and therapies. "For some agents this has already been done, such as the creation of strains of anthrax that are resistant to conventional antibiotics," Crystal said.

Crystal testified that academia alone cannot bear the brunt of bioterrorism preparedness. Instead, it must be a collaborative effort between the government, academic community and the private sector -- especially the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

"I believe the strategy should be to leverage the exploding knowledge of the genetic revolution to develop new generations of vaccines and therapies against the most probable agents, and then stockpile the effective vaccines and therapies to be used in response to an attack," he said.

Crystal's full testimony is available at the Cornell News Service Web site: http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/Crystal_testimony.html.