U.S. counterterrorism experts are concerned that highly lethal toxin found in an easily available and well-known beauty treatment could be used as a biological weapon by terrorist organizations, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 21).
Officials in 2006 learned of the possible existence in Chechnya of an illicit facility capable of mass production of botulinum toxin, tiny amounts of which are found in each container of Botox.
Botulinum toxin is classified as one of the most serious potential biological weapons by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, hundreds of containers of Botox would be required to acquire enough of the nerve agent to kill just one individual, experts say.
The rumored Chechen facility, said to have produced a Botox knockoff, has yet to be located. U.S. officials and terrorism experts, though, say they are certain the factory is real and that there are likely dozens of other similar plants. No such facilities have been found in the United States.
The believed growth in these laboratories is fueled by an expanding underground market for the beauty treatment. Most transactions in this black market take place on the Internet where sellers do not require prescriptions or care much whom is doing the buying.
Meanwhile, the terrorist organization al-Qaeda has tried to acquire botulinum toxin, while organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon have conducted trade in ersatz medications as a method of fundraising.
"It is the only profit-making venture for terrorists that can also potentially yield a weapon of mass destruction," said bioterrorism expert Kenneth Coleman.
In a 2009 experiment, scientists successfully demonstrated that a biologist with some advanced training and relatively inexpensive equipment could produce 1 gram of the raw toxin -- potentially enough to cause thousands of deaths.
"We assume that illicit producers are willing to sell their products to anyone with cash," researcher Raymond Zilinskas said.
Past efforts to develop the toxin into a biological weapon by both the Japanese extremist group Aum Shinrikyo and al-Qaeda have failed. However, a chief problem that bedeviled terrorists in the past-- difficulty in acquiring the toxin in its deadly form -- appears to have gone away.
"There are no major obstacles," Coleman said. "It's not that hard to acquire the bacterial strains. But you don't even have to make it. You can buy it from existing manufacturers. And you can buy it in sufficient quantity to cause widespread harm" (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Jan. 25).