A hypothetical independently wealthy, highly skilled biologist has his own lab at home with all the equipment he wants that is legally obtainable.
Due to personal curiosity and with no intention of releasing them, he develops:
A deadly flu virus
Cowpox virus manipulated to be functionally identical to smallpox
A species of bee with deadly venom
Airborne super-ebola
Would he be breaking any laws? If any or all of his projects get released accidentally or purposefully by someone else, would he then be guilty of a crime?
I know some academic researchers that have worked with such pathogens, at least on the lower end of your scale (e.g. “why do certain mutations make influenza more virulent?”). Within an academic setting, there are rigorous controls, involving CDC oversight, FBI background checks for all involved, and much more. The regulated term for pathogens that could *potentially *be weaponized is “select agents”.
Off the top of my head, I don’t know what legal consequences there are for unregulated select agents research. Obviously individual research institutions can be shut down, and individuals can be barred from research on the topic, but what happens if they do so in defiance of the regulations?
Luckily, the website on the federal select agents program has a handy list of the relevant laws and regulations. After a quick skim, I see that the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 has criminal penalties of up to 5 years in prison for unregistered possession or transfer of select agents.
The last human to die from smallpox was a worker in a lab room one floor above a research lab at the University of Birmingham in England, where they were using smallpox virus without any of the standard & normal safety equipment or procedures.
The professor in charge of that lab would likely have faced severe criminal sanctions for his mismanagement of that lab (as well as civil damages to the worker & her parents) – but he killed himself before he could be prosecuted.
As I understand it, dangerous pathogens have the same sort of legal controls as dangerous chemicals in most countries; there are laws restricting who can work with them and under what circumstances.