Biological warfare presents real threat

The Gulf War, now a decade in the past, made Americans suddenly aware of the threat from biological weapons when reports surfaced that Iraq had targeted Israel with scud missiles carrying warheads loaded with anthrax. If true, the threat never materialized and many complacently believe that it vanished along with the destruction of Iraq’s weapons at the end of the war. Nothing could be further from the facts, but the true threat is more likely to come from small groups of terrorists than from a war between nations.

Michelle Williams, in an AP report from a conference on bioterrorism last year, writes, “A terrorist attack on the United States will happen within the next five to 10 years” and she quotes D.A. Henderson, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, as saying, “We are a long way away from being even modestly prepared.” An article by Stanford University professor Steven Block in the January-February issue of American Scientist details the very real threat to the United States from terrorists armed with biological weapons.

Modern biological warfare had its start in World War II, as both sides of the conflict tested and used bioweapons. Block says that the Japanese killed thousands of Chinese in the course of testing anthrax, cholera and plague. The latter was released by means of plague-laden fleas being dropped by air onto civilian populations. The Russians infected German troops at Stalingrad with tularemia, a plaguelike disease that incapacitates rather than kills. Reminiscent of poison gas attacks in World War I, it quickly spread to both sides, resulting in over 100,000 cases of the disease.

The United States, Britain and Germany also developed bioweapons, but there is no evidence they were ever used. Secrecy surrounded bioweapons after WWII, and the world’s preoccupation with the Cold War and nuclear threat caused them to be ignored by most nations.

Biological weapons research continued at a furious pace in the Soviet Union after WWII, employing up to 32,000 people in 40 facilities. In 1979, an accidental release of anthrax occurred at one of these facilities when a worker accidentally left a filter off an output pipe. More than 100 people and large numbers of livestock downwind of the facility died of anthrax. Officials never admitted to the accident until 1992.

For 25 years after WWII, the United States quietly developed several bioweapons employing viruses and bacteria. In 1969, President Nixon declared a unilateral renunciation of such weapons and ordered them destroyed. This may have been the impetus for a 1972 treaty banning biological weapons research that ultimately was ratified by 143 nations. Unfortunately, many of the nations that ratified the treaty promptly broke it, including China, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Block calls bioweapons “the poor man’s atom bomb” and says the major threat to the United States comes from anthrax and smallpox. He says that the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, infamous for killing 13 people with sarin gas in a Tokyo subway in 1995, also attempted to carry out biological attacks with botulinum toxin on Tokyo streets. The attempt failed because they had a fairly benign strain of the bacteria and their misting device did not operate properly.

But, if anthrax or smallpox had been used, enough casualties would have resulted to spread fear and disruption, which is the main goal of most terrorists. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are large stockpiles of smallpox virus under marginal security and hundreds of jobless technicians who could sell their expertise to the highest bidder.

A new threat has recently emerged in the form of so-called binary bioweapons. The DNA plasmid is separated from a deadly pathogenic bacterium, rendering both portions harmless. A gene is introduced into the plasmid, making it antibiotic-resistant, and the bacterium and its altered plasmid are safely grown separately. They are then placed into separate chambers of a delivery device which, when activated, mix the two portions together in a growth medium. The two portions recombine and the pathogen, with its new built-in resistance to drugs, is released. This sounds complicated but could be carried out by a competent microbiologist.

What are we doing to combat these new threats? Almost nothing. A recent newspaper account of a bioemergency response drill said only one official showed up to take responsibility for all response activities in a large city.

Clair Wood taught chemistry and physics for more than 10 years at Eastern Maine Technical College in Bangor.