From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 18:14:03 +0800
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Re: PLA_gue  Germ Terrorism
Message-ID: <01HZFUC4ZW4W8Y56CR@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>

>  12-30-95. To update the list of terrorist threats, the Wash
   Post reports on the purchase in May of bubonic plague germs 
   by "white supremacist" Larry Wayne Harris, his bust by the 
   FBI and germ teams, prosecutors amazement that possession 
   of such deadly micro-organisms is not illegal, and the 
   consequent plea bargain of wire fraud with probation.

   The article explains that possession of "terrorist" mites
   is not prohibited due to a legal loophole which allows
   scientific trade in wee supremacists. There are calls for 
   outlawing the meat-eaters by closing the gap in the 
   anti-terrorism bill before Congress. But scientists say 
   how dare you spit in our nanodeath soup.

   It notes that offshore spread is Commerce regulated.
-------------
	There are very good reasons for keeping this legal loophole. How could
one ship, say, Ebola virus for evaluation if it wasn't there? Besides which,
E. Coli (the workhorse of prokaryotic genetics) can be a pathogen if the
right plasmid is inserted. Banning shipment, buying, etcetera of strains of it
would rapidly reduce most genetics work in the U.S. to the state of gene
therapy work in Switzerland (i.e., none, due to the Swiss laws outlawing any
form of it).
	Incidentally, thanks to the person who quashed the "black-seeking
virus" idiot. Human races are so far from being proper genetically distinct
subspecies that nobody competent would call them that, if they only weren't us.
	-Allen