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Bioweapon fears sparked
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AUSTRALIAN scientists who inadvertently created a killer mouse virus said yesterday that the global Biological Weapons Convention must be given teeth to prevent such discoveries falling into the wrong hands.
The scientists, using technology that could be applied to biowarfare, had been seeking a biological contraceptive to halt mouse and rat plagues when they genetically modified a virus akin to smallpox with fatal results -- for mice.
Annabelle Duncan, who was deputy leader of a UN team which investigated biowarfare agents in Iraq after the Gulf War, said the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BCW) urgently needed updating.
Duncan is molecular science chief at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), which created the virus.
The genetically modified mouse virus, revealed by New Scientist magazine on Wednesday, is harmless to humans but it kills mice by wiping out part of their immune system.
Its creators say that the same technique could be used to make human diseases such as smallpox even more lethal.
New Scientist said that the discovery highlighted a growing international problem -- how to stop terrorists using scientific research to create deadly new weapons.
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