April 5, 2016 Panelists discussed the relationship between genetics, enhancement, public health, and national security. Speakers: - Jamie Metzl, "The National Security Implications of the Genetics Revolution" - George Annas, "Post-9/11 Uses of Public Health and Medicine by National Security Agencies" - Jonathan Moreno, "National Security and Biology" Cosponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, the Harvard National Security & Law Association, the Harvard National Security Journal, and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University. Visit our website to learn more!: http://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/events/details/the-national-security-implications-of-the-genetics-revolution

1. Jonathan D. Moreno
David and Lyn Silfen University Professor
Date
UNIVERSCITY OCF PENNSYLVANIA
CENTER FOR BIOETHICS
National Security and
Biology
Petrie-Flom Center
Harvard Law School
April 5, 2016

2. Disclaimer
I am currently a senior advisor for the Presidential
Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
Nothing in this presentation should be construed
as representing the views of the commission.

3. Bioterrorism: Some history

4. Oedipus’s sin punished by plague

5. The Roman army
 “Armis bella non venenis
geri.”
 “War is waged with
armaments, not with
poisons.”
 Yet they were used…

6. French and Indian War
 Sir Jeffrey Amherst
orders General Henry
Bouquet to disseminate
smallpox among tribes in
the Ohio-Pennsylvania
region using blankets of
ill soldiers

7. Confederate soldiers and poisoning
of wells in advance of Union Army

8. Koch and Anthrax
 Robert Koch shows that anthrax is
caused by a specific bacterium, 1877
 Koch’s Postulates:
(1) Identify a specific organism, (2)
obtain a pure culture of that organism,
(3) reproduce the disease in
experimental animals using the pure
culture, and (4) recover the organism
from the infected animals

9. Pasteur and Anthrax
 Applies heat attenuation
to chicken cholera, then
anthrax. Field trials
show immunity in
animals to challenge of
virulent strain, 1881.

10. Imperial Japanese Army
Experiments
 General Ishiro Ishii at
the Ping Fan complex,
Manchuria

12. The Experiments
A) High-Altitude Experiments
B) Freezing Experiments
C) Malaria Experiments
D) Lost (Mustard) Gas Experiments
E) Sulfanilamide Experiments
F) Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration
and Bone Transplantation Experiments
G) Sea-water Experiments
H) Epidemic Jaundice Experiments
I) Sterilization Experiments
J) Spotted Fever (Fleckfieber) Experiments
K) Experiments with Poison
L) Incendiary Bomb Experiments

18. Soviet Anthrax Program
 Anthrax leak on April 29,
1979 kills 94 people in
Sverdlovsk
(Ekaterinberg)
 Boris Yeltsin admits leak
from military activity,
1992
Fermenter>

19. The Era of “Big Neuroscience”
Simulate the human brain. Map activity of neurons

20. Cognitive Neuroscience Funding,
US Defense Establishment,
FY 2011
 Army, $55m
 Navy, $34m
 Air Force, $24m
 DARPA, >240m
 Margaret Kosal, Georgia Tech (5/12/11)
White House BRAIN Initiative, FY 2014
 DARPA $50m

21. Examples of Department of Defense
Research Programs, 2016
“OSD fund programs to address understanding and modeling of human
behavior in social and cultural contexts.”
Human Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling (HSCB)
“Research and design neuro‐cognitive computational models that detect a
single‐sound source (amongst multiple audible stimuli) to determine whether it is
possible to link brain data to the segregated/isolated sound sources from noisy
environments….”
Army Research Office, Life Sciences, $9.8 million
“Explore mechanisms for direct neural interfacing to receive and react to
operationally relevant environmental, physiological and neural information.”
Biological-Computational Programs, $10.5 million
https://research.usc.edu/files/2011/05/Guide-to-FY2016-DOD-Basic-Research-Funding-.pdf

22. The U.S. “Third Offset” Strategy
$18 Billion FY 2017
 Robotics
 Systems autonomy
 Miniaturization
 Big data
 Advanced manufacturing
Partner with innovative private sector companies

24. Operation Midnight Climax, etc.

25. Letter to Parliament from
Secretary of State for Defence,
18 July 1995
“The purpose of the Moneybags, Small Change and Recount trials
was to identify the effects of the drug LSD on behaviour in military
operations. The Volunteers were briefed prior to the study as to the
nature of the drug which would be administered. They were also
informed that some of them would be given a placebo rather than
the active drug so as to provide controls for the investigation. Prior
to the study the Volunteers were not told specifically which
individuals would have the drug rather than the placebo as this
would have negated the validity of the study. After the exercise was
completed the individuals were told whether they had had the drug
or placebo administered.”

26. The “Mind Race”
“The claimed phenomena and applications”…presented by
several military officers, “range from the incredible to the
outrageously incredible. The ‘anti-missile time warp,’ for
example, is somehow supposed to deflect attack from nuclear
warheads so that they will transcend time and explode among the
ancient dinosaurs….One suggested application is a conception
of the ‘First Earth Battalion,’ made up of ‘warrior
monks’…including the use of ESP, leaving their bodies at will,
levitating, psychic healing and walking through walls.”
 “Enhancing Human Performance: Issues Theories, and Techniques,”
Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human
Performance, The National Research Council,1988

27. Modafinil (Provigil)
Supplement or
replacement for
amphetamines

28. The trust drug?
 Natural oxytocin
production is
associated with trust
behavior
 May be artificially
administered in a
spray to encourage
cooperation
 Use in interrogations?

29. The “Anti-Conscience” Pill?
 Beta blockers can be
used to treat stress,
prevent PTSD
 Suppress release of
hormones like
norephinephrine that
help encode memory
 Can they also reduce
guilt feelings?

30. Non-invasive Brain Imaging
 Uses fMRI (oxygenation)
or PET scans (glucose)
 Correlations of
neurochemistry with
behavior
 NIRS (Near Infrared
Spectroscopy) cheaper
and portable, also
records oxygenation but
poor temporal resolution

31. The “Brain Fingerprinter”

32. Alan S. Cowen et al, “Neural portraits of perception:
Reconstructing face images from evoked brain activity,”
NeuroImage, March 8, 2014

35. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)/
transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)
 Induces changes in brain
activation
 Could be used to alter a
person’s social behavior
or attitudes
 Influence brain functions
including physical
movement, visual
perception, memory,
reaction time, speech and
mood

36. B. Zwissler et al., “Shaping memory accuracy by left
prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation.”
J of Neuroscience, March 12, 2014

39. The Roborat

40. Optogenetics
Neurons are genetically
engineered to carry a protein
adapted from green algae.
When the modified neuron is
exposed to light, via a fiber-
optic implant, the protein
triggers electrical activity in
the cell that spreads to the
next neuron in the circuit.
Seems to provide more
specific information and
control over neurons and
their transmission

46. International Law
 Human Rights (E.g., Declaration of Helsinki)
 Humanitarian (Geneva Conventions)
 Disarmament (BTWC, CWC)

47. National Research Council
August 13, 2008
 Committee on Military
and Intelligence
Methodology for
Emergent Physiological
and
Cognitive/Neural
Science Research in the
Next Two Decades
 Client: Defense
Intelligence Agency

48. National Research Council
May 12, 2009
 Near term (within 5 years)
 Immersive virtual reality
 Heartbeat variability
 Galvanic skin response
 Medium term (5-10 years)
 In-helmet EEG for brain-machine
interface
 Head and torso impact protection
 Biomarkers for predicting soldier
response to environmental stress
 Far term (10-20 years)
 In-vehicle deployment of
transcranial magnetic stimulation
 Brain scanning to assess
physiology
 Ongoing (within 5 years with
continued updating)
 Field-deployable biomarkers of
neural state
 Biomarkers for sleep levels

51. Italy
Human rights, medical ethics and enhancement technologies
in military contexts, 13 March 2013
“Many of these [military
enhancement] technologies
represent a risk that goes beyond
the limits set by international
laws as regards to military
activities and war, both for the
individuals, civilians and
military, who are subject to them
and for the opponents.”

52.  National security and the
brain before neuroscience
 Psychopharmacology
 Non-invasive imaging
 Brain-machine interface
 Neuromodulation
 International Law
 Ethics

53. Thank you!