Can A Racist Virus Be Developed?
Short answer: yes
Your first thought might be: Hold on, this seems like something plucked right out of a movie.
Well, it sort of is. A year ago, I watched a Netflix series called Homeland. In season 3, the show introduced the threat of a ‘racist’ genetically selective virus, which targeted people of darker skin.
Despite the awful concept of it all, that piqued my interest. Could a genetically selective bioweapon ever be produced, and what would be the consequences for humanity?
Could it happen?
After just minutes of research, I found my answer under a Wikipedia page on ethnic bio-weapons.
What shocked me was that this was no longer a question of how, but when. For decades, scientists have been warning humanity about the possibility of ethnic bio-weapons. Today, as we experience first-hand the effects of a contagious virus, this is more concerning than ever before.
In 1997, U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Cohen referred to the concept of an ethnic bioweapon as a ‘possible risk’, and experts concluded a genetic weapon as ‘plausible’. In 2012, the Atlantic magazine wrote that a virus targeting individuals with a specific DNA sequence is within possibility in the near future, citing advances in personalized gene therapy.
Those aren’t the only two cases. This claim has been supported dozens of times — all by reputable sources.
There are even some reports of the active construction of ethnic bio-weapons. In November 1998, The Sunday Times reported that Israel was attempting to build an “ethnic-bomb” containing a biological agent that could specifically target genetic traits present amongst Arab populations. The story was also reported by Wired News and Foreign Report.
The Consequences
The consequences of such a weapon would be brutal. Entire populations could be wiped out. The weapon itself could easily be used in international warfare. Ethnic military groups would form. The virus could even be re-modified and lead to the end of human civilization itself.
Not to mention the divide it would cause between humanity. The development of an ethnic bioweapon could lead to an international war on a scale never seen before: one where people are not divided by their ideas, but by the color of their skin.
The world would be taken back to the dark days of Adolf Hitler. America left, once more, as a land where one is not judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin; society's last 400 years of progress would be wiped out in mere days.
Could they be a good thing?
Actually, to some extent, genetically targeted bio-weapons could be incredibly powerful in the war against drugs.
In fact, nations like America and Britain are already investigating a genetic bioweapon that specifically targets drug plants, which could change the face of domestic drug production forever.
But is it worth it? No; definitely not. An advance in that area of science could easily be transferred to ethnic bio-weapons. Here, the reward just isn't worth the risk.
The future for ethnic bio-weapons looks bleak. Bio-weapons are cheap to manufacture and have an extremely high effect-to-quantity ratio. It might be in a decade, or long past our lifetimes, but a horrifying era of bioterrorism will come, and the world will be a more tough place to protect than ever before.
