Russia has decided to ban the export of biological specimens, but nobody seems to be able to figure out quite why. Cyrill Vatomsky runs through some of the possible reasons. My favourite:
According to Kommersant Daily, the report claims that the supposed biological weapon is designed to be ethnically specific and will target health of Russian people including causing infertility among Russian women.
Does anyone know if there was a sensible rationale behind this decision, or is it just down to bureacratic meddling taking on a life of its own?
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James 05.31.07 at 3:45 pm
I just did a post about this also. The claim that Russia’s enemies would seek to design a biological weapon to induce sterility is preposterous. What is more realistic is that health authorities are concerned about the clinical trials being carried out by large foreign pharmaceutical company, which may be using poor Russians (and perhaps children) in the interior as guinea pigs for experimental drugs.
I have no basis for this, but after a few phone calls, that’s what the rumor mill is producing.
Cyrill 06.02.07 at 5:13 am
It looks like it is a combination of gross paranoia and gross incompetence. I have a follow up on this based on another Kommersant article
ReluctantMuscovite 06.02.07 at 7:40 am
You can’t build a biological weapon targeting an ethnically diverse group like Russians, at least not with what we know about DNA to date.
You could do it, maybe, with highly homogeneous groups like Germanic Icelanders, because they have been genetically isolated for quite a while. But, I think even that’s ridiculous.
I agree with Cyrill, I think it’s a classic case of bureaucratic SNAFU. I predict it’ll be reversed shortly once the presidential admin gets wind of it and one of the obviously smart guys there figures out that this is utterly stupid.
Lyndon 06.02.07 at 11:51 am
This is an interesting story. The idea of a genetic bio-weapon is absurd. Even if “the West” had the technological capability and moral bankruptcy to pursue such an idea, why exactly would they target Russians as opposed to, say, people with Bin Laden’s genetic makeup?
My guess is that a big factor is concern about unmonitored clinical trials on Russians by foreign companies (a la the situation in Africa described in the book/movie “The Constant Gardener“). However, it seems that officials (not just in Russia) often mix genuine concerns with financial considerations, so I don’t exclude the possibility that someone looked around and said, “Hey, wait a minute - these Western companies are exploiting Russia’s natural resources [in this case, the people]. Why shouldn’t the Russian government get first crack at exploiting these resources?”
That would be in line with the approach in the energy sector.
So, perhaps clinical trials will be resurrected, but with mandatory involvement by a government-championed intermediary and perhaps with the analysis conducted in labs in Russia - if something like this is the goal, we can see it as another instance of the Russian gov’t pursuing goals which could be seen as legitimate and in the “national interest”, but doing so using clumsy means.
Or who knows, maybe it is just a screw-up or some kind of overstepping in an attempt to combat illegal organ trafficking. Watching what happens in Russia and pontificating on it is never boring, that’s for sure.
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