Biological Warfare
Modern Biological Warfare Agents
Contents
Approximately 20 nations are thought to have either past or current biological weapons programs. A list assembled be the Center for Nonproliferation Studies can be found here. Terrorist organizations from large to small have attempted biological agent development as well. A multitude of agents have been developed, the most menacing of which are anthrax, botulism, and possibly even smallpox. Anticrop agents such as stem rust of cereal and rice blast pose a threat to the world's food supply. A rundown of some of the worlds biological warfare (BW) programs, current and former, follows.
Biological Weapons History
Modern Biological Weapons
The Terrorist Threat
Specific Biological Warfare Agents
United States Biological Weapons Programs
Links
Early during the Cold War, the United States actively pursued the development of ofensive biological weapons. Armed with information gleaned from the World War II effort and from captured Japanese scientists the US set out on an aggressive development campaign. The center of this effort was at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Other sites, including the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and the Pine Bluff Arsenal (also a chemical warfare plant) in Arkansas participated in the effort. The focus of the initial US program was to weaponize anthrax. This was a successful endeavour that produced large quantities of anthrax munitions. Other weapons developed included anticrop agents for use against the wheat crops of the USSR and Chinese rice fields. Non-lethal, incapacitating agents such as tularemia and Q fever were developed as well. Hemorrhagic fever viruses were developed in the 1960's. Overall, approximately 20 microorganisms and bacterial toxins formed the US biological arsenal. In 1969, amid the turmoil of the Vietnam Era, President Nixon ordered the cessation of all offensive biological weapons research. All prior weapons facilities were either dismantled or turned over to civilian medical research. The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, or USAMRIID, was then established with the goal of developing defensive capability against biological weapons. The US no longer possesses offensive biological weapons capability. Rather, the United States maintains a credible nuclear deterrent that can be used either in retaliation or to pre-empt a biological (or chemical for that matter) attack.
Department of Defense Site
New Yorker article on modern biological weapons makers
Scientific American article on Bio-War
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease
Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Federation of American Scientists Biological Weapons Division
Center for Disease Control Bioterrorism Preparedness Site
Biology of Doom: A book on the US Biological Warfare Program by Ed Regis - Available at BN.com
Russia and Former Soviet Union
US efforts in developing BW agents paled in comparison to the Soviet program. In his chilling book Biohazard, former Soviet BW scientist Ken Alibek chronicles the Soviet program from World War II to the mid 1990's. Many details of the Soviet program are still shrouded in secrecy. It is known, however, that they were able to develop a wide array of lethal BW agents and possibly maintain stockpiles to this day. While the US program focused mainly on the easier to produce bacterial and anticrop agents, Soviet research explored viral diseases such as smallpox and hemorrhagic fevers. At one point, smallpox stockpiles of 20 tons of infective agent were maintained. The widely acclaimed "peacemaker" Mikhail Gorbachev approved 1 billion dollars in funding as recently as 1987 with a large share going to a smallpox development program.
The Soviet effort was centered at Biopreparat in Moscow with work being carried out at over 20 facilities scattered throughout the USSR. The BW program was well funded, despite the generally poor financial condition of the USSR. The programs operated under the close supervision of the KGB and recruited the best and brightest of the USSR's biomedical researchers. There are some indications that the Soviet Union utilized the incapacitating agent glanders during the Afghan war, but no other post-World War II use of BW agents is documented.
An incident at Compound 19 in Sverdlovsk (now known as Yekaterinburg) occured in 1979 that drew the world's attention to the Soviet BW program. Compound 19 was a major anthrax production facility. In the spore form, anthrax is a highly lethal airborne disease. In March 1979 a technician accidently vented anthrax spores through and unfiltered exhaust pipe into the air over Sverdlovsk. A few days later, people in the area began to fall ill with fevers, headaches, coughs, vomiting, chills and chest pains. These cases were later confirmed as being caused by anthrax. At least 94 people and 64 deaths occured in a narrow band downwind of Compound 19. Soviet officials moved quickly to cover the incident up, occuring as it did 7 years after the Biological Warfare Convention of 1972. The anthrax cases were blamed on "contaminated meat" despite the symptoms being consistent with the inhalational form of the disease. Further investigations were suppressed. No foreign scientists were allowed near Sverdlovsk to investigate until 1992, when a team including Dr. Matthew Meselson visited the area and established the airborne nature of the disease. This followed an admission by Boris Yeltsin that "military activities" at Compound 19 had contributed to the incident. Outside investigators still have not been allowed access to the buildings of Compound 19.
