CBRNe News June 2009
Product Watch
Med-CM news
Tulane University received a $7 million NIH grant to work with Corgenix to develop a hemorrhagic fever detection kit. Polmedix received a $1.6 million grant from DTRA to develop a new defensin-mimetic antibody to combat BWA. Pharmathene and Emergent Biosolutions are the last two companies in the running for the US DoH $550 million anthrax vaccine requirement. Emergent were also able to announce that the FDA had extended their Biothrax vaccine’s shelf-life from three to four years, which has also now been approved for use in India by the Drugs Controller General.
The University’s at Memphis and Tennessee were awarded a $1.1 million contract to study tularaemia and to develop a new anti-TB agent by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The regional Bio-Lab in Memphis, one of only 13 labs in the US funded by the MiH, opened in June. Columbia University, as part of a consortium, received a $46 million grant from NiH to support research and training initiatives. Researchers from the University of Texas announced that they had found a way to stop ebola infecting cells by using a small interfering RNA technique
Defentect announce ‘First to market CBRNE Sensor Management Platform’.
Defentect announced that their software platform, DM3, would be the first fully integrated management, monitoring and messaging platform within CBRNE. It would allow multiple sensors to be coordinated, collect data and send it through the network for camera management and personnel. Presumably this is news to a number of CBRN companies already involved in Critical Infrastructure Protection, ICX, Smiths etc, as well as those companies that do Warning and Reporting, Bruhn Newtech and Optimetrics. As with all marketing puff no doubt the devil will be in the detail...
On the Front Lion
Lion Apparel announced the release of their Janesville CB-Xit, NFPA 1971 compliant firefighter ensemble for CBRN. Combining Lion’s V-Force, and Gore’s Chempak barrier, they feel that the suit provides a far higher level than NFPA 1971 requires. The suit is designed for single use, and is to allow firefighters to escape from an area where an unexpected agent has been released. It will be interesting to see whether the Concept of Operations can keep up with the technology, as previous escape technology, such as Escape Hoods, have come unstuck on the concept of protection levels that are just for rapid exits.
Blanket bang
Radiation Shield Technology, manufacturer of the demron radiation suits have unveiled their bomb blanket. As opposed to other blast mitigation devices the Demron-W High Energy Nuclear/Ballistic Shield as well as offering NFPA Class 2 Protection (94-2007) the fabric has been proved to offer Level IIIA ballistic protection.
Now if we ignore the claim that the bomb blanket provides nuclear protection, the thing that concerned me is that if you are using demron to provide radiological protection, why turn it into a blanket that will vent radioactive particles out the side, when there are other systems, such as Allen Vanguards UCS, that contain all the fragments. The good people at Radiation Shield explained, “Until now, bomb blankets have not been designed for situations that require radiation mitigation. But due to the increase in radioactive threats, it’s critical for first responders to use blankets that provide this level of protection. That’s where the Demron Shield comes in… Other systems, such as the Vanguard Advanced Enclosure system, function like a tent that is assembled around a potential explosive.
They have no capabilities against any ionizing radiation, and they have limited anti-frag capabilities. For this reason, Allen Vanguard also recommends that the tent be used in conjunction with a ballistic containment blanket to provide additional blast protection. Neither the Vanguard tent or their ballistic provide any protection against ionizing radiation and therefore, the Vanguard tent and blanket system would not be useful in a RDD (dirty bomb). As you know, nuclear materials in a RDD are actively irradiating and, when combined with an explosive to make an RDD, the surrounding population will be exposed to the radiation once the device is placed.
The explosive is used to disperse the radioactive material over a greater area, but before the explosion, the RDD is very radioactive and poses a significant risk to the first responders who first encounter it.
Comparing only the anti-frag capabilities of the Demron-W blanket with the Allen Vanguard blanket and tent, the Demron Blanket has greater capabilities. The anti-fragmentation attenuation of the Vanguard tent and blanket is much less than the Demron Shield, and they don’t offer any radiation protection. Hence, as a ballistic bomb shield, the Demron Shield can attenuate bullets and provide the highest level of anti-fragment protection. Although the Vanguard tent is a useful anti-fragmentation system, it does require a ballistic blanket such as the Demron shield to provide primary anti-blast protection and nuclear protection… When the first responder has approached the package, the blanket will immediately attenuate any radioactive source, but just as any bomb blanket, the blast can vent out the side.
In that case, once the radiation threat is dealt with, additional anti-frag measures such as the Vanguard tent can additionally be applied.” It is, I suppose, a solution, but frankly if there is some unshielded gamma source I’d rather just send the UGV downrange and dump it in a Dynasafe container.
Swiss model
Thales were pleased to announce that the Swiss MoD had sifned a contract for 12 NBC Recce vehicles, utilising the Mowag Piranaha IIIC chassis.
The Swiss will take possession of the last vehicle by 2011, and they will all have the typical warning and reporting, detection and marking capabilities that you would suspect in a recce vehicle. When this is combined with the MoD’s mobile Bio detection capability it marks the Swiss as a serious non-Nato CBRN player.We hope to bring you more information on the Swiss renaissance in a future edition of the magazine.
Bruker grab major US order
Bruker Detection, the US arm of Bruker Daltonics, announced that they had a contract for first article test and verification for the Improved Point Detection System, based on their Raid S2, shipboard chem. detector. While the initial order might be small, ten units at a cost of £1 million, if the Raid does pass the US Navy’s test system it would mark a major step away from Acada for US forces and might be the toehold that Bruker need to get into the US military chemical detection market.
Bomb Newtech
Bruhn Newtech announced the sale of their EOD Command and Control System to an unnamed European Ministry of Defence. The system is based on their EOD Frontline Software and will assist in a range of duties.
Cobham build up their CBRN defence
Cobham Surveillance are clearly on the prowl in the CBRN market, after winning the UK Police’s Scene Management contract and snapping up Smiths Detection’s Gareth Oram to be their Business Development Manager they have also booked a stand at CBRNe Convergence in the Hague.
Cobham, working with Indespension, produced a barrier system to control crowds during a CBRN incident, the towable system can be set up by two officers across variable road widths (up to 13metres), is hinged to allow different angles and is complemented by a public communication system.
Ceeker found, but it’s just not Quidditch!
Vetitide, manufacturer of the Ceeker biological identifier, announced that their device had been tested by Midwest Research Institute and found to correctly identify anthrax 100% of the time and to correctly identify hoax samples 95% of the time.
Ceeker uses UV light and algorithms to detect spores and can provide test results ‘within minutes.’ Ceeker is being marketed at the first responder community as a white powder device – allowing users to determine whether the powder is in fact anthrax.
Prince of the desert
Princeton Gamma Tech Instruments (PGT) announced the release of their new Sahara III, silicon drift (SDD) x-ray detector. The major improvement has been a reduction in the cool down time from one hour, to five minutes! The previous cooldown time meant a major lag in data collection and throughput, which has now been eradicated and this is combined with what PGT believe is market beating technology – such as the ability to perform as well at -15C as other detectors do at +60C.
It’s a Peridox!
Clean Earth Technologies announced that their Peridox with EDS has been approved by the EPA to decontaminate anthrax. The process works by spraying a thin layer of Peridox onto the contaminated surface, which is then illuminated with a powerful UV light, the electrostatic spray then wraps itself around complex surfaces ensuring complete coverage, and ‘kills’ anthrax in ‘seconds.’ Clean Earth will first market Peridox through the name PeridoxRTU which will be used in hospitals to take care of c.difficile.
Cristanini news
Cristanini announced that the Italian MoD had committed to an order for “stations of thorough decontamination installed on unloadable platform.” Installed on an unloadable platform eh! Is that one of those immovable object meets unstoppable force type activities?
FM53 put through its paces
FM53, the foreign sale version of the US M53, has been released with a huge amount of data from TNO, the testing and research authority in the Netherlands. Using particle counters 30 individuals were asked to undertake various strenuous activities – such as running, jumping, digging and (by far the worse) crawling. The FM53 came out of the test exceedingly well offering protection factors ratios of one million to one.
The editor has seen the data, and what is interesting is that not only does the FM53 do well, but so do the control masks – the new testing and evaluation regime is able to assess respirator protection factors to a far higher standard than was previously possible.
Errata
While RiskAware might have been happier to get a $62 million contract from Spawar – as reported in the Summer edition of the magazine – they were in fact thrilled to get a $6.2 million contract instead. Apologies for the mix up.
Threat Watch
Crystal Clear
The Israeli based Technion Institute of Technology have announced that they have discovered six new polymorphic csrstalline structures of TATP - the supposed terrorist explosive de jour.
TATP is difficult to detect, partly because previously there had only been one crystalline form detected, now using x-ray crystallography Technion feel that now that these new forms have been discovered it will become easier to detect using x-ray and other techniques. Will this mean that we can carry liquid duty free with us on hand luggage in air transit...? Unlikely.
Use of WMD Religiously Bad - Official.
As opposed to the column inches expended on various Mullahs who have encouraged the user of CBRN terrorist devices to kill the infidel, the Grand Mufti’s comments that it couldn’t be sanctioned received less feedback. Grand Mufti Ali Goma’a, Egypt’s top cleric, stated that the use of CBRN against non-muslim countries was ‘...false... and a slander of religion.’ So far so good, unfortunately he went on to say that the possession of these devices by State parties was legitimate - so, much like the Parson’s egg, it was good in parts.
Now hiring...
A Al Qaeda recruiting video that aired earlier this year explained that their plan was to smuggle biological material into the US via tunnels under the Mexican border, utilising white militia groups and other anti-government entities. This caused a certain amount of excitement.
What people failed to take heed of was the fact that Al Qaeda are now advertising that they have no-home grown biological capability and are short of assets and operatives. While Muslim fanatics might be difficult to ‘penetrate’ the US intelligence community has deep roots into the major national crazies – so any attempt to utilise them is playing to US strengths. How desperate is Al Qaeda becoming?
Keep focussing on the less-than-WMD
Ricin continues to be the belle of the Toxin ball, with suspected finds in the UK and US. A Seattle, abused wife, found a suspicious substance, that the FBI expects to contain ricin, after entering his office for the first time. After a fracas that left her injured, and her husband unresponsive, she gained access to the office and alerted officers.
Both husband and wife later tested positive for ricin, and firefighters are decontaminating the house. Meanwhile police ‘smashed’ a ‘ring’ in Durham, UK, that was planning to poison ethnic minorities with ricin – that they kept in a jam jar (is ricin ever kept in anything else??). The father and son team were arrested and the father charged under Terrorism Act.
That’s where I put them!
USAMRIID found 9,200 unrecorded samples when they did an inventory of stock. The 335 refrigerators had over 10% more samples than the 70,000 expected, and these dated back decades. Most of the samples had no further scientific value and were destroyed. What occurs to this Editor is how many might be missing, if the stock/sample control is that fluid...
Korea rattles on
Korea marked the July 4th celebrations in the US with a show of force, firing missiles into the ‘East Sea’ in an unrelated time frame. Meanwhile the International Crisis Group realised their report on North Korea’s Chem Bio program - http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6159&l=1 – as expected there is little detail, or new, but it is useful to be reminded that the threat is not just a Nuclear or ballistic one.
EU unveils new policy
The EU Justice Minister, Jacques Barrot, raised the spectre of the Word at Risk report (see CBRNe World Spring p.10) to unveil the new CBRN policy. The Policy itself is influenced by the Graham Report, the UK’s CONTEST II and some of the EU’s own work on FP7, there are three areas of action – increased protection of materials of concern, improved detection capacity and better response.
There are 132 concrete measures, based on the 265 recommendations from experts that were delivered in January 2009. Quite what these are is not apparent, as the ever unfriendly EU website refuses to give up their secrets. Should a paper copy arrive in the office we will try and provide more illumination.
Finally...!
Shchuchye facility in Russia has finally been opened to begin destruction of Russia’s CW arsenal. Shchuchye was funded by the Cooperative Threat Reduction Initiative, started after the Cold War, has cost the US $1 billion and is ready to begin its task of destroying 2 million OP shells. Russian officials, in what has to be one of the best cases of wilful naivete, have stated that that it will allow it to meet it’s obligation to destroy its stock by 2012.
Please forward any items for consideration in this section to the editor, Gwyn Winfield This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it