Mark Rockwell: White House and Bio-Weapons Prevention!

The United States is hoping to add more urgency in the international struggle to control potential bio-weapons at a bio-weapons treaty review conference in Switzerland the week of December 5. countries that are part of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) are in Geneva for the Seventh Review Conference (RevCon). The review will last three weeks. Attendees will evaluate the implementation of the treaty and chart a course for the coming years, said a statement from the White House on December 5. President Obama began underlining the US's sense of urgency concerning bio-weapons in September, when he told the UN General Assembly that biological perils need international attention. "We must come together to prevent, detect, and fight every kind of biological danger, whether it is a pandemic like H1N1, a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease," said the President on Sept. 22. The White House appointed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lead the United States delegation to the RevCon. She will deliver the opening statement for the United States on December 7, said the White House statement. The BWC, it said, is a critical venue for advancing objectives set forth in President Obama's National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats, which emphasizes the need for multinational collaboration on concrete activities to help counter biological proliferation and bio-terrorism.