Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare
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INTRODUCTION
Biological warfare agents may be more potentthan the most lethal chemical warfare agents andprovide a broader area of coverage per pound of payload than any other weapons system. The pro-liferation of technology and the scientific progressin biochemistry and biotechnology have simplifiedproduction requirements and provided the oppor-tunity for creation of exotic agents.
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Genetic engineering holds perhaps the most dan-gerous potential. Pathogenic microorganisms ca-pable of creating a novel disease, perhaps on anepidemic scale, could be tailor-made. Suppose thatan adversary inserted a gene lethal to humans intoa virus or bacterium. This agent could then spreada disease that could overwhelm the diagnostic,therapeutic, and preventive capacity of a country’shealth service.
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The threat posed by new biologicaland chemical weapons requires our urgent attention:
Certainly it is of great importance that new andinsidious biochemical weapons are being devel-oped and deployed, in total disregard for existingtreaties, while the perpetrators routinely deny allcharges and, in turn, counter that their accusers arefabricating the allegations as a propaganda device.It seems clear that the highest priority shouldbe afforded this issue for efforts toward itsresolution.
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The use of biological agents in future wars andterrorist attacks is a realistic concern. The difficultissues of degraded troop performance and health-care delivery are serious threats, and resources mustbe allocated to develop an effective response plan.Countering this threat will require that the highestlevels of our government find ways to
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•strengthen and verify international armscontrol agreements,•maintain the United States’s ability to re-spond with a broad range of alternativesagainst any aggressor who attempts to pro-liferate biological weapons, and•maintain a robust biological defense effortfor our U.S. armed forces, one that wouldequally and effectively apply to our civil-ian population in case of use by terrorists.Unfortunately, biological weapons are consid-ered by some nations to be part of their militaryarmamentarium, and there are military, technical,economic, and political incentives for nations to de-velop and maintain such a program. A goal of thischapter is to present the evidence in such a waythat the reader can conclude that the threat is realand significant; it is neither in the realm of sciencefiction nor confined to our own nation. As a Rus-sian writer stated in 1993:
I have been gathering information on bacteriologi-cal weapons (BW) for several years. Out of all themeans of mass destruction, this kind can be con-sidered as the most mysterious.
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EVIDENCE OF A SOVIET BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM
We have known for many years that the SovietUnion maintained an offensive biological warfareprogram in violation of the 1972 Biological Weap-ons Convention, which they initiated and signedwithout reservation. This knowledge has been re-ported to the U.S. Congress and the American pub-lic since 1984, and our government has repeatedlyraised this subject, first with the Soviet leadership, andmore recently with the current Russian leadership.
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Indirect Evidence
Beginning in the latter 1970s and continuingthroughout the 1980s, U.S. intelligence agencies re-peatedly alleged the existence of a Soviet biologi-cal weapons program. Then in April 1979, a majoroutbreak of anthrax in the city of Sverdlovsk (nowYekaterinburg) caused the death of a number of Soviet citizens from pulmonary anthrax.
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(Thisevent is also discussed in Chapter 22, Anthrax.)Details about this epidemic were not disseminatedby the Soviets, and it was not until much later thatthe Western communications media became awareof it.On February 13, 1980, the widely circulated Ger-man magazine
Bild Zeitung
carried a story describ-ing an accident in a military settlement in Sverdlovsk in which an anthrax cloud resulted, which prevail-ing winds carried into the outskirts of the city. Themagazine article went on to state that only a chancechange in wind direction prevented the cloud frompassing through the main section of the city. Whenthis story was published, major Western newspa-pers finally began to take an interest in the event.
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