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Bioterrorism: Part 1

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

With the advent of nuclear weapons came the dismantling of the United States' will to develop biological weapons. The dismantling of the biological weapons capability of the United States in 1969 and the unilateral unconfirmable agreements made during the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1972 caused governments in the West to go to sleep to the possibility of biological weapons development throughout the rest of the world. The sleep continued even after the 1979 accidental anthrax release in Sverdlovsk, Russia.

Personally, I think biological weapons are horrible and do not support any nation's attempts to produce them. Unfortunately, the United States made several serious mistakes by not continuing to pursue verifiable means of stopping this enterprise before signing agreements and then discontinuing its own biological weapons program.

Many other countries continued to develop and stockpile biological weapons in spite of the agreements they signed during the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. One common misconception of the time was that these biological weapons were not controllable. Even President Nixon stated that these weapons could not be controlled in a battlefield and that the U.S. had yet to make a usable biological weapon. He stated this in spite of the facts that said otherwise.

The western world has continued to be oblivious to the reality of biological weapons development while the communist government in the Soviet Union threw billions of dollars into their development and production. With the fall of the communist rule and the dismantling of the Soviet Union came the dismantling of support for biological weapons. This lack of support was not due to a change in direction but rather to a lack of funds to support this very extensive program. When paychecks disappear so do persons with knowledge to other places that will reward them for their knowledge.

It is believed that around 17 countries in the world have biological weapons capabilities. Many of these countries are very upset with the United States and Western Europe. Once thought only to be a wartime nightmare, biological weapons are now being used to terrorize. Events of the past two months have turned those nightmares into reality. A term called bioterrorism is now an everyday part of our vocabulary.

As of November 14, 2001, there have been 22 confirmed cases of anthrax obtained by handling or opening mail containing anthrax spores. Since November 7, 2001, no new cases of bioterrorism-related anthrax have been identified. Two mysterious cases of anthrax have also been identified. Investigation of the cases of inhalational anthrax in a 61-year-old hospital stockroom worker in NYC and of 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren in Connecticut found no evidence of anthrax contamination at the work site or home; the sources of exposure are currently unknown.