Biological Warfare…A Threat Through the Ages

When you hear the term “biological warfare” what thoughts come to mind? Do you envision powdered envelopes, contaminated clouds, or smallpox on gifts for Native American Indians? Biological warfare has a history of being very nasty and highly effective but what is it exactly?

Also known as “germ warfare,” biological weapons use toxins or infectious agents that are biological in origin. This can include viruses, bacteria, or fungi. The only use of these agents is to incapacitate or kill humans, animals, or plants as part of a war effort. Basically, they use non-human life forms to kill humans.

Living organisms can be unpredictable and incredibly resilient, making biological weapons extremely difficult to control, potentially devastating on a global scale, and strictly prohibited around the world under numerous treaties.

Unfortunately, treaties and international laws are one thing, man’s ability to find creative ways of killing each other is another.

History of Biological Warfare

The history of biological warfare goes back a long time. Its deployment is relatively simple, there’s no need for any of that nuclear fusion, electrical components, or rocket grade titanium.

One of the first examples goes back more than 2.5 millennia: Assyrians infected their enemy’s wells with a rye ergot fungus, which contains chemicals similar to LSD. When people drank the water, it caused a confused mental state and hallucinations, (they were tripping) and some died.

During the 1300s, Mongol warriors attacked the Crimean city of Kaffa. During the siege, many Mongols died from the plague, and their dead, infected bodies were catapulted over the city walls.

Some researchers feel this tactic may have been responsible for spreading the Black Death plague into Europe. If this is the case, biological warfare caused the eventual deaths of approximately 25 million people.

In 1763, the British Army attempted to use smallpox as a weapon against Native Americans at the Siege of Fort Pitt. In an attempt to spread the disease, the English provided blankets from a smallpox hospital as gifts.

During World War II, both sides involved were very interested in the prospects of using biological warfare. We built facilities capable of mass-producing anthrax spores, brucellosis, and botulism toxins. Fortunately, the war ended before they could be used.

The Japanese made the most use of biological weapons during World War II. During one of their attacks on China, the Japanese Army Air Force dropped ceramic bombs loaded with fleas carrying the bubonic plague.

Here is a quote from a paper on the history of biological warfare.

“[T]he Japanese army poisoned more than 1,000 water wells in Chinese villages to study choleraand typhus outbreaks. […] Some of the epidemics they caused persisted for years and continued to kill more than 30,000 people in 1947, long after the Japanese had surrendered.”

Dr. Friedrich Frischknecht, Professor of Integrative Parasitology, Heidelberg University, Germany.

Modern Threats of Bioterrorism

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define bioterrorism as “the intentional release of viruses, bacteria, or other germs that can sicken or kill people, livestock, or crops.”

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as aerosol sprays; in explosive devices; via food or water; or absorbed or injected into the skin.

Because some pathogens are weaker than others, the type of pathogen used defines how it can be deployed.

Terrorist love these types of weapons. They have the potential to cause great damage, but they are also cheap to produce when compared with missiles or other hi-tech equipment.

Also, they can be used remotely, and due to the long time it takes for them to spread and take effect, there is plenty of time for the terrorist to escape unnoticed.

Biological weapons are difficult to control or predict in a battlefield situation since there is a high risk that troops on both sides will be affected. However, if a terrorist wants to attack a distant target as a lone wolf, bioterrorism carries much less risk to the person.

Anthrax

Today, experts believe the most likely organism to be used in a bioterrorism attack would be Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax.

It is easily found in nature, easily produced in a lab, and lives for a long time in the environment. It is also extremely versatile and can be deployed in powders, sprays, food, or water.

Smallpox

Another potential method of bioterrorism is smallpox. Unlike anthrax, it can spread from person to person. Though smallpox is no longer a disease to worry about in the natural world because vaccination efforts stamped it out, if someone were to gain access to the smallpox virus, it could be an effective weapon, spreading quickly and easily between people.

BTW, it is still kept in two laboratories, one in the U.S. and one in Russia.

Plague

We already know how the Mongols used the plague as a weapon centuries ago, but some believe that it could be used in the modern world, too. Y. pestis is passed to humans through the bite of a flea that has fed on infected rodents.

Once a person is infected, the resulting disease can either develop into the bubonic plague, which is difficult to transmit among humans and fairly easy to treat with antibiotics or, if the infection spreads to the lungs, it becomes the pneumonic plague, which develops quickly and doesn’t respond well to antibiotics.

A paper written on the plague and its potential for use in biological terrorism says:

“Given the presence and availability of plague around the world, the capacity for mass production and aerosol dissemination, the high fatality rate of pneumonic plague, and the potential for rapid secondary spread, the potential use of plague as a biological weapon is of great concern.”

Dr. Stefan Riedel, Department of Pathology, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, TX.

Cholera

Cholera is a potentially severe and sometimes deadly gastrointestinal disease and has the potential to be used in bioterrorism. It doesn’t spread from person to person very easily, so it needs to be added to a major water source for it to be effective.

The bacteria responsible for cholera, Vibrio cholerae, has been weaponized by the U.S., Japan, South Africa, Iraq, and others.

These are just a few pathogens to worry about. Others considered having potential as biological weapons include brucellosis, Q fever, monkeypox, arboviral encephalitides, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and staphylococcal enterotoxin B.

Should we worry about biological weapons?

Though the use of biological weapons has been around for a very long time, modern technology gives us something new to worry about. Some experts are concerned about recent advances in gene-editing technology.

A gene-editing technology called CRISPR has set off alarm bells in the defense community. The technology allows researchers to edit genomes, which allows them to easily modify DNA sequences to alter gene function.

Used correctly, this tool has the potential to fix genetic defects and treat disease. However, if it falls into the wrong hands, it has the potential for evil.

CRISPR technology is becoming cheaper to run, making it more accessible to terrorists.

A report titled “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” written by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence was published in February 2016. In it, gene editing makes the list of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.

“Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology,” he explains, “its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.”

“Advances in genome editing in 2015,” he continues, “have compelled groups of high-profile U.S. and European biologists to question unregulated editing of the human germline (cells that are relevant for reproduction), which might create inheritable genetic changes.”

With advanced knowledge of CRISPR-like technology, there would be no theoretical end to the misery that could be caused. There’s the potential to create drug-resistant strains of diseases, or bugs immune to pesticides, capable of wiping out a country’s staple crops.

Presently, however, other methods of bioterrorism are much easier and closer at hand, so we don’t have to stress about this in the foreseeable future.

I know this may have been a heavy article to absorb but try not to worry too much. Rest easy in the knowledge you are more likely to be killed by an animal attack than a terrorist using biological weapons or otherwise.