U.S. controls bird flu vaccines over bioweapon fears

"That would pose a much graver threat to the public than the theoretical risk that the vaccine could be used for biological warfare," he said.

The danger of biological warfare use depends on the specific virus or bacteria. But most experts agree that bird flu vaccines cannot be genetically altered to create weapons because they contain an inactivated virus that cannot be resuscitated.

It's also unlikely they would be used to create a resistant strain of the virus as part of efforts to wreak havoc within global poultry stocks. If enemy states wanted to do that, they could make their own vaccines or turn to a less hostile country like China, said Ian Ramshaw, an expert on vaccine immunology and biosecurity at The Australian National University in Canberra.

"I can think of no scientific reason how a terrorist organization could use such a vaccine for malicious intent," he said. "I personally think it's a rather silly attitude and the U.S. is probably going overboard as it has in the past with many of its bioterrorism initiatives."

Meanwhile, bioethicists say limiting vaccines could also raise moral questions of whether some countries should be denied because of decisions based on foreign policy. They said the export controls appear inconsistent, as Libya, Iraq and two dozen other countries suspected by the U.S. of having biological weapons programs do not face restrictions on the export of poultry vaccines.

"If there really is a serious threat, to be consistent we'd have to more heavily regulate who has access to the vaccine," said Michael Selgelid, who co-authored the book "Ethical and Philosophical Consideration of the Dual Use Dilemma in the Biological Sciences."

"There are malevolent actors in the U.S. just like there might be in all these other countries," he said.

The policies were initially put in place amid biosecurity fears in the mid-1990s and then bolstered after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and subsequent anthrax letter mailings. The vaccines are among a long list of other items barred to rogue states over fears they could be used to make weapons of mass destruction, from technology and chemicals to dangerous pathogens.

Bird flu has killed more than 240 people across the world since 2003, nearly half of them in Indonesia.

Indonesia's health minister Siti Fadilah Supari first drew widespread attention when she boycotted the World Health Organization's 50-year-old virus sharing system last year, saying pharmaceutical companies were using viruses from developing nations without their knowledge to make expensive vaccines. She has since called for the creation of a global stockpile of drugs or other forms of benefit-sharing.

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