Engaging in activities designed to broaden both public and academic understanding of chemical and biological weapons issues.

Updated: Feb 27, 2012

Activities

Preparedness and Emergency Response Research (PERRC)

CBWNP is the lead unit within CNS for activities undertaken as part of the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research (PERRC) network. This network, which is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) undertakes applied research whose findings can be applied by state and local health departments to improve all-hazards preparedness for and response to natural and man-made catastrophic events. The PERRC network is constituted by nine academic research consortiums in the United States including CalPREPARE, which is a consortium comprised of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Emergency Readiness at the School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley and the CNS.

As a component of PERRC, CBWNP is conducting public health systems research whose aim is to generate findings that can be applied by local public health departments to improve their planning for and response to catastrophic events caused by accidents or deliberate actions involving chemical and radiological/nuclear materials. As such, staff members are skilled in designing and executing table-top exercises that fulfill client needs and follow Department of Homeland Security guidelines.

In collaboration with the Monterey County Health Department, CBWNP staff and graduate research assistants have designed and carried out four table-top exercises that simulated biological, chemical, and radiological events perpetrated by terrorists.

The lead investigator for the PERRC project being undertaken at CNS is scientist-in-residence Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress.

Iraq's Wars with the US from the Iraqi Perspective

CBWNP researchers are currently in the second year of a project titled "Iraq's Wars with the US from the Iraqi Perspective: State Security, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Civil-Military Relations, Ethnic Conflict and Political Communication in Baathist Iraq."

This project seeks to understand and analyze the Iraqi Ba'ath power structure and state system to produce an analytical, coherent work on the Iraqi state from the Iran-Iraq War to 2003. It will also provide an analysis of weapons of mass destruction proliferation dynamics and study of a Middle Eastern military and security architecture that could have applications for understanding other states in the region, particularly Syria.

The project is funded by the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense under its Minerva Initiative.

Studies of the Anti-plague System in the Former Soviet Union and Its Successor Nations

The CBWNP has conducted an extensive study of the Soviet Union's anti-plague system and its remnants in the nations that once constituted the USSR. The study's first report on the history of the anti-plague system was published in 2002, and the second report on the current status of that system in the successor states in 2006. CBWNP researchers are currently working on the third report, which will be a compendium of articles that deal with many historic aspects of the anti-plague system that have never been published outside Russia. The third report is expected to be released during summer 2012. Its editors are CBWNP consultant James W. Toppin and Raymond A. Zilinskas; they are assisted by GRA Casey Mahoney.

Past Activities

View past CBWNP activities