While zombies remain part of myth — we hope — the threat of human extinction from disease is very real.

In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Center’s Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons Control argues that the Graham-Talent WMD Commission exaggerates the bioterrorist threat and proposes solutions that won’t produce the comprehensive approach needed to strengthen public health security.

In their new article on ForeignPolicy.com, Lynn Klotz and Edward Sylvester argue that the race to develop countermeasures to biological weapons might have actually increased the probability of a bioterrorist attack and made it more difficult to achieve the kind of international cooperation that can truly reduce this threat.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and its Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons delivered this statement at the Meeting of Experts of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention on August 19, 2008.

Despite the death of Bruce Ivins, the man the FBI claims is solely responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, questions about the largest biological attack carried out on U.S. soil still remain. What are the big picture implications for our nation’s security from biological attacks? What can be done to strengthen the oversight of national biodefense programs and dual-use research in the life sciences? Starting Monday, August 18, Alan Pearson, the Center’s Director of Biological and Chemical Weapons Prevention, will blog from a major international UN conference addressing some of these very issues.