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Businesses and other entities in Denmark have until May 1 to acquire a government license to handle materials that might be employed to produce biological weapons, the Copenhagen Post reported Tuesday (see GSN, Jan. 19).
Companies, research institutions and hospitals must apply though the Danish Center for Biosecurity and Biopreparedness for a license to handle "biological dual use components." Managers whose firms do not have the necessary approval by May 1 could be sent to prison for two years.
There has been limited emphasis to date on monitoring commercial use of potential biological weapons materials, biosecurity center chief John-Erik Stig Hansen told Business.dk.
"You could say that domestic safety has been extremely, extremely lax," Hansen said.
He would not confirm or deny rumors that the lax standards have been exploited in the past.
"We estimate that there are between 60 and 500 companies that need a license, but we really don't know. ... It appears that no one has previously performed a review of this area," Hansen said.
A CBB study of 96 sites determined that it would not be hard for a doctor to attain substances that could be used in a biological weapon in half of the visited facilities.
"Companies should take [the new regulation] seriously -- not just because of the penalty for not having a license ... but because no Danish companies or research institutions want to be involved in delivering components that can be used in a biological weapon attack," Hansen said (Copenhagen Post, Feb. 2).