http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/features/news-analysis/2970.html

 

BioDefense safeguards the nation’s mail streams

By Jacob Goodwin, Editor-in-Chief

Published November 18th, 2009

The device looked somewhat incongruous sitting in a meeting room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel – in fact, John Meyer, president of BioDefense Corp., described it as "a cross between a safe and a washing machine" – but the ungainly appliance could mean the difference between life and death if a terrorist tried to send you a piece of mail containing anthrax or another lethal bio-agent.

Dubbed the MailDefender, the device is intended to kill anthrax, small pox, ricin, avian flu and a host of other dangerous bio-agents by subjecting stacks of mail, placed inside its tumbling drum, to a combination of dry heat, short injections of moist heat and doses of ultraviolet irradiation, for a total cycle time of 80 minutes, followed by a 10-minute cool-down period.

Any organization that placed all of its incoming mail through such a decontamination protocol could be highly confident that any worrisome bio-agents would be totally neutralized, said BioDefense execs, at an informative symposium offered to about 100 corporate security directors, law enforcement officers and other security professionals in New York City on November 17.

Tom Daschle, who was sent an anthrax-laden envelope while he served in the Senate in 2001, may be gone from office. And Tom Brokaw, who was mailed an envelope containing anthrax in 2001, may have left his anchor’s chair at NBC News. But the threat of such a deadly bio-terrorist act -- more than eight years later -- continues to haunt government security officials and those responsible for the safety of large companies across the country.

Anthrax, small pox and ricin may be among the most obvious bio-agents that could wreak havoc on an organization’s mail stream, explained Dr. Gregg Mosely, the CEO of Biotest Laboratories, Inc., who addressed the group. But he also noted that the MailDefender could kill such hemorrhagic viruses as Ebola, Dengue, Lassa and Marburg, which he called “incredibly virulent.”

Unlike anthrax, which is “resistant to almost everything and can remain around essentially forever,” explained Mosely, these hemorrhagic viruses typically don’t last very long. However, he added, with a sobering note of caution, “if you encounter one, you’re probably dead within 18 hours.”

The MailDefender, which will kill all biological agents, is designed to make sure that such an attack doesn’t succeed, said Jonathan Morrone, BioDefense’s senior vice president for sales and marketing. He explained that typically about three pounds of mail are placed in the appliance’s metal basket and agitated repeatedly, while the envelopes are subjected to intense heat. Once the door is closed and the machine is started, it cannot be opened until the decontamination cycle has been completed.

“This is the only machine that is certified by UL,” said Morrone, referring to Underwriters Laboratories, the global product safety certification organization.

Currently, the MailDefender is designed to neutralize any bio-agents inside any of the envelopes placed in the basket, but the device does not contain any detection or alert system that would notify the operator that a bio-agent had, in fact, been discovered. BioDefense says it hopes to add such a detection and alerting feature in the near future.

According to the company, the MailDefender has already been sold to the U.S. Department of Justice (for use by a U.S. Attorney’s office in Virginia and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in Virginia), the Department of Defense, the Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC and the United Nations in New York City, where enough machines have been purchased to provide “executive protection for higher UN officials,” said Morrone.

But that’s only the beginning. The company is now targeting the 9,000 federal buildings that BioDefense believes should also be scrutinizing their mail streams. And the company is contemplating the possibility of opening a facility in northern England which could serve as a jumping-off point for its planned penetration of the European market.

Media accounts have put the cost of a MailDefender machine at $90,000, but specific prices were not discussed at the Waldorf-Astoria event.

The presentations were designed to describe not only the continuing threat of anthrax and other bio-agents -- and the role that the MailDefender can play in safeguarding an organization’s mail stream -- but also to point out the importance of advance planning by any organization for such an attack.

To drive that point home, BioDefense presented two of its newest advisors, Andrew Clancy and Gordon “Spike” Townsend, of the UK-based International Risk and Security (ISR) consultancy, who brought long experience in police and counter-terrorism work in the UK to the New York gathering. By walking the audience through a hypothetical anthrax attack in an office on the 15th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, Clancy and Townsend were able to underscore the importance of training personnel before a bio-agent incident actually takes place, the need to isolate the scene of the attack, the danger created if first responders rush to the scene or if nearby employees flee the area, the legal and human consequences of “holding captive” dozens of employees on that specific floor, and a host of related issues.

When pressed, Dr. Mosely acknowledged that no decontamination device could realistically claim to be 100 percent perfect, 100 percent of the time. A vast quantity of lethal bio-agents -- referred to as “the challenge” in the argot of bio-terrorism -- might enable a small quantity of bio-agents to survive even the most rigorous sterilization protocol.

“You can create a challenge that will overcome any process,” acknowledged Mosely. “There are no guarantees in life.”