U.S. biodefense advocates have been "crying wolf" on the potential for catastrophic bioterrorism, playing up worst-case scenarios and driving billions of dollars into developing questionable defenses against questionable threats, according to a U.S. military analyst.

The knowledge needed to engineer new weapon-usable biological agents is common around the world, and the United States must seek the proper balance between agility of response and countermeasure stockpiling in defending against biological terrorism, experts told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee.

The threat of biochemical attacks by al Qaeda has declined, but the availability of agents and the group's professed interest in using them make the danger very real, according to a top German counterterrorism official.

Experts argue that there are still significant technical and logistical barriers that discourage terrorists from developing weapons of mass destruction.

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg responds to a recent article in Technology Review that argued advances in genetic engineering technology made 'home-brewed' biological weapons a real possibility. Rosenberg argues that more attention should be paid to known government research into biological weapons than the hypothetical risks from bioterrorism.

Biological warfare experts say that terrorists attempting to create biological weapons today would face many technical challenges but the spread of advanced genetic engineering techniques is slowly removing these barriers.

The authors evaluate the risks from several popular doomsday scenarios including smallpox biological terrorism, grey goo, and nuclear terrorism.

An analysis of historical smallpox outbreaks suggests that the disease is less contagious than many public health planners fear and is an improbable tool for terrorists, a Scottish university researcher concluded in a recent paper.

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Biologists are trying to balance need for scientific openness with concerns that their research might aid bioterrorists. The outcome of this debate will also shape the way the United States and the world manage such high-impact endeavors as human clinical trials, genetic engineering, and cloning, each of which carries potential benefits and risks.

Discoveries in Afghanistan show that al-Qaeda's research into biological weapons was more advanced than previously estimated by the United States, according to a new intelligence report.