II. NATURE AND HISTORY OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE (BW) Biological warfare is the deliberate introduction of disease producing organisms into populations of people, animals or plants. The organisms are the same as those found in nature, but can be selected and cultured to be more virulent and resistant than those in nature. Some organisms, and especially bacteria, can be grown so as to be resistant to drugs and antibiotics. It might also be possible to develop a kind of "super germ" or new strains of germs for which the body has not evolved antibodies and for which vaccines have not been developed. The Hongkong flu is an example of a virus (evolved by nature) to which we had no sereological resistance and for which a vaccine could not be developed until the disease was discovered and the organism isolated. There are diseases like influenza which are basically incapacitating and there are others which cripple or kill. Hundreds of pathogenic organisms are available in nature from which the scientists and military strategists can select those which will serve the planned effect. Among the most effective and most feared BW diseases are the following:9 Anthrax.-Bacterial disease usually found in animals. Symptoms include high fever, hard breathing, and physical collapse. Can cause death within 24 hours if it affects the lungs. Brucellosis.-Bacterial disease usually found in cattle, goats, and pigs. Also known as undulant fever. Not usually fatal to humans although can cause high fever and chills which may last for months. Plague.-Bacterial disease sometimes carried by rodents. Usually fatal within a week. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs, may be transmitted by coughing. Bubonic plague (responsible for "Black Death" in 14th-century Europe) is harder to transmit and therefore not considered useful in BW. Q-fever.-Highly infectious disease usually carried by ticks. Rarely fatal, can cause fever lasting 3 months. Tularemia.-Bacterial disease also known as rabbit fever. Marked by high fever, chills, pains, and weakness. Rarely fatal. The advantages of a biological weapon system are: 1. Its theoretical potential as a device for mass destruction. This is especially true if the combination of virulent agent and susceptible population, along with other conditions, are suitable to epidemic results. For example, the black plague killed one fourth of the known population of Europe at the time (1348). There is presently no other class of weapon with such potential for destruction except the hydrogen bomb. 2. It is a self-replicating weapon-it proliferates itself, not only in the affected individual but also in the entire population. • From Senior Scholastic, Feb. 7, 1969. (See app. B for further details.) Not all diseases are equally contagious, but in one way or another they may spread from those who receive the direct military inoculum to those who do not. 3. Most biological agents are relatively inexpensive to produce and are conducive to delivery by aircraft and missiles as well as by fifth column methods. The cost of a biological weapon system-including large scale manufacture of the agent, storage, transit and dissemination is probably greater than most of us might think; nevertheless it is low enough for consideration by many nations who would find it impossible to think seriously of a nuclear capability. 4. It is difficult to prove guilt of attack under certain circumstances; that is, since the causative organisms are in nature anyway and if the organisms are delivered in stealth, it could be argued that the situation is the result of a spontaneous epidemic. The world has experienced thousands of epidemics and there always has to be a first epidemic for any area for any specific disease. We do not know very much if anything about a deliberately induced epidemic or pandemic because it has never been done. In the absence of other evidence the presence of the diseased population itself would not constitute proof of a deliberate BW attack. 5. Against unprotected populations the effectiveness of large scale biological attacks may be comparable to the effect of nuclear weapons.10 And if the organism employed can be cleared out or if it gradually "runs out," as it usually does, then the country attacked could be conquered without destruction of property and the physical environment. 6. Crops are vulnerable to biological attack. Large stores of food are an asset against this type of attack but are less likely to be a solution to large scale crop destruction in the future. The disadvantages of biological weapons systems are: 1. Biological agents have never been used in modern warfare and still involve a number of unknowns. 2. There is danger of infecting the using forces as well as the enemy. 3. Shelters and masks equipped with air filters together with immunizing inoculations can be quite effective against biological agents. (Viruses may be less amenable to such protection.) 4. Biological agents, like chemical agents, depend upon wind and favorable weather conditions for effective distribution. Many organisms are sensitive to dry-sunlighted atmospheres, and on a clear day they may remain viable for only a few minutes to a few hours." Biological weapons are also unreliable and unpredictable; one can only guess how a biological attack might progress. 5. Some biological agents are persistent; that is, they have spore forms which resist destruction and die-off and may remain in the environment, especially the soil, for tens or even hundreds of years. 10 Brode, Harold L., “Offensive Weapons and Their Effectiveness," December 1965. (Unpublished paper, p. 3.) 11 Ibid., p. 3. 6. Because of the incubation period-the time between the inoculation of the agent and the appearance of symptomsbiological warfare may have little tactical usefulness, where speed of effect is usually essential. 7. There is a strong public and professional aversion to biological warfare. Medical people, even some military medical people, resent the basic idea. It defies the heritage of medicine and has been called "public health in reverse" and a "perversion of medicine." The most significant advances in medicíne, public health and in life expectancy have been made in the field of infectious diseases. These advances represent the hard work and brilliant discoveries in bacteriology, biochemistry, medicine and engineering over the past 100 years. At a time when world scientific and health authorities are planning for the eradication of infectious disease, these authorities are appalled by the very thought of the deliberate introduction of billions and billions of pathogens into the global atmosphere, water and soil. |