Several federal agencies are working together to design and build a high tech laboratory that will protect against a living Mars germ.
Such a germ might pose a risk of disease or infection for the Earth's people, plants or animals when the Martian samples are returned in about 10 years.
"Samples from Mars should be considered hazardous until proven otherwise," Jonathan Richmond, a biological containment expert for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said yesterday at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"The risk is very small, but not zero," said John Rummel, NASA's planet protection officer. "We're ignorant (about Mars) and what we've learned in biology is that when you are ignorant, be careful."
Although the site and many details are still unknown, NASA plans to build a laboratory that would quarantine the Mars samples behind the same biocontainment barriers that scientists now use to prevent the escape of Ebola, a highly contagious and lethal African virus.
Rumors have persisted for years that China, which intervened on North Korea's side in the 1950-53 war, took large numbers of U.S. captives for interrogation and in camps inside China and never accounted for them.
Declassified reports in the files of the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence now make clear that the United States knew of the prisoners and closely tracked their movements.
On a visit to Beijing in January, Defense Secretary William Cohen asked top Chinese officials to open People's Liberation Army record archives and other files that might help account for missing U.S. service members.
About 8,100 are unaccounted for from the Korean War.
Cohen got no explicit assurances from President Jiang Zemin, but a Cohen aide present in the meetings said lower-level Chinese officials indicated Jiang's nonresponse should be interpreted as tacit acceptance.
Federal agents also offered a $100,000 reward in the case and pleaded with Eric Robert Rudolph to turn himself in.
"We are concerned about the situation for everyone involved, including Eric," said Jim Cavanaugh, an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent. "This would be a lot easier on everyone involved if he would contact us and come in."
02-16-98
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