President Clinton to Lead Roundtable on Genetic ...
OTC 10.04.98 16:53
WASHINGTON, April 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the White
House:
ROUNDTABLE ON GENETIC ENGINEERING AND BIOLOGICAL WEPAONS
President Clinton will lead a roundtable discussion Friday morning on genetic engineering
and biological weapons. He will be joined by a small group of outside experts and several
Cabinet members.
The purpose of the roundtable is to discuss advances in technology and their potential
implications for controlling and responding to the biological weapons threat. The
President has a longstanding interest in these issues. This roundtable discussion will
provide him with an opportunity to talk with some of the country's leading experts about
both the opportunities and the national security challenges posed by genetic engineering
and biotechnology.
In his State of the Union address, the President underscored the importance of preventing
the use of disease as a weapon of war or terror by strengthening the Biological Weapons
Convention with a new international inspection system to detect and deter cheating. This
is one of the issues which will be addressed, along with domestic and military efforts to
respond to biological warfare threats.
------ Participants in the roundtable include Administration Participants:
President Secretary of Defense William Cohen Attorney General Janet Reno Secretary of
Health and Human Services Donna Shalala
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet National Security Advisor Sandy Berger
Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre
Under Secretary of State John Holum General Joseph Ralston, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of
Staff
Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg Major General Don Kerrick, Deputy National
Security Advisor
Kerri-Ann Jones, Acting Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
-- Outside Experts: RADM Frank Young, former head of the Office of Emergency Preparedness,
Public Health Service; former commissioner, FDA
Craig Venter, president, Institute for Genomic Research Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Laureate,
president emeritus, Rockefeller University
Thomas Monath, vice president, OraVax; former Centers for Disease Control and US Army
Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases official
Lucille Shapiro, professor of genetics and chairman of the Department of Developmental
Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine
Jerome Hauer, Director, Mayor's Office of Emergency Management for the City of New York
Barbara Rosenberg, director of Chemical and Biological Projects, Federation of American
Scientists; research professor of environmental science, State University of New York
Copyright 1998