WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
THE EVOLVING THREAT IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Others pages in this series:
Introduction
What are WMD?
Nuclear Weapons
Atomic History
Biological Weapons
Chemical Weapons
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Prepared by Laura Reed, Security Studies Program, MIT, Cambridge, MA,
USA
“Never underestimate the “infinitely
great power of the infinitely small.”
-- French Chemist Louis Pasteur
Stated most simply, biological warfare encompasses any deliberate means
to spread disease to humans, animals or plants. Biological weapons, therefore,
include a daunting array of potentially deadly pathogens and toxins that
can be delivered in a variety of ways. The threat ranges from the intentional
poisoning of food in the form of salmonella, to the aerosol dispersal
of a genetically-engineered strain of a highly infectious disease such
as smallpox.
The intentional spread of infectious disease elicits a special dread
and fear. Disease, with the suffering it causes and its capricious yet
ineluctable spread, highlights human vulnerability. Although we recognize
the omnipresent nature of germs and disease, their malicious development
or use is both unnerving and repugnant. A successful BW attack could
conceivably result in thousands, possibly even millions, of deaths and
could cause severe disruptions to societies and economies.
The vast diversity of potential biological agents poses an enormous
challenge to our security. By some estimates, there are more than 300,000
species of bacteria and at least 5,000 kinds of viruses that adversely
affect humans. For centuries, societies have struggled to gain the upper
hand in preventing and controlling outbreaks, administering vaccinations
against polio, smallpox and other virulent diseases, teaching the importance
of hygiene in preventing the spread of infectious disease. We are also
familiar with the enormous toll of past epidemics, such as the many millions
killed by smallpox, the black plague, or the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
In the wake of such disease outbreaks, governments have enacted quarantines,
forced inoculations, and imposed embargoes.
Today, the magnitude of the threat is growing. The rapid movement of
people and goods around the world, population growth and urban centers,
changing agricultural practices and increased use of antibiotics, and
global warming have all complicated the governmental challenge. These
changes are likely to contribute to conditions that facilitate the rapid
spread of infectious disease. Recent studies suggest that a staggering
1,500 people die each hour from infectious ailments, the vast bulk of
which are caused by just six groups of disease: HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles,
pneumonia, tuberculosis (TB), and dysentery and other gastrointestinal
disorders.
While the global pattern of human activity has increased the potential
spread of disease, technological developments have also greatly increased
the threat posed by biological weapons. Perhaps most significantly, with
rapid developments in the field of genetic engineering, an increasing
number of scientists and technicians have developed expertise in the
techniques and lab equipment necessary to manufacture germ weapons. The
technical expertise needed to create genetically-engineered pathogens
and even entirely new classes of biological weapons has become widespread.
Currently, many tens of thousands of scientists and technicians are
working in thousands of labs developing drugs and vaccines with the aim
of improving crops, curing disease and developing new commercial products.
Similar research and materials are used for both legitimate public health
and illicit weapons applications. In just one example that attracted
headlines, researchers seeking to control rodent populations by sterilizing
mice unexpectedly discovered a virulent mousepox strain that could potentially
be used to create an extremely lethal smallpox weapon. In this rapidly
expanding and advancing field, there are no universally or even nationally
enforced regulations governing the safety and security of dangerous pathogens.
All told, we face a truly transnational threat of unknown dimensions
that we are currently ill-suited to address. The deadly anthrax attacks
in the U.S. mail in the fall of 2001, as well as documents seized by
U.S. military forces in 2002 from Afghanistan showing Al Qaeda’s
interest in BW, have served to heighten concern about bioterrorism. Biological
weapons are relatively inexpensive and easy to produce. A primitive version
of a BW can be developed in a small laboratory with readily available
equipment with only limited training and expertise. Yet there remain
significant technical barriers to developing and maintaining a sophisticated
BW program. With this in mind, it is important to increase awareness
and understanding of the dangers without unduly heightening public anxiety
and fear.
Characteristics of Biological Weapons
Diseases most likely to be considered for use as biological weapons
are assessed in terms of their lethality and “robustness” which
normally refers to their shelf-life and effective delivery in aerosol
form. To be considered a useful weapon by military planners, a biological
agent must be highly infective and possess high potency. BW comes in
two basic forms: liquid and dry powder. For most agents, the liquid form
is easier to produce, but the dry form stores longer and disperses more
widely when deployed. In contrast to the immediate effects of a chemical
weapon attack, a biological weapon attack takes a while before its effects
are apparent. Depending upon the type of BW agent, incubation periods
range from under 24 hours to a few weeks. For this reason, biological
weapons are often described as strategic or terrorist weapons, rather
than as tactical weapons to be used for immediate effect on the battlefield.
The basic steps involved in making a liquid biological weapon include:
obtaining a sample of the microorganisms to be used (known as the seed
culture); culturing the microorganisms until enough is grown to produce
a weapon; concentrating the culture to make it strong enough for a weapon;
adding certain ingredients to stabilize the culture. For a dry weapon
formulation, this liquid culture is dried out and then ground up into
microscopic particles. For toxin weapons, the toxin must first be extracted
from the source—either the liquid bacterial culture or a plant
or animal—and then concentrated. It can be difficult to produce
sufficiently large quantities of a particular virulent strain, so another
possible avenue is to steal or obtain an existing culture from a research
institute, hospital, or university lab.
While by no means exhaustive, there are about thirty different bacteria,
viruses, and fungi on the NATO list of likely biological weapons threats,
including: Anthrax, Brucellosis, Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Ebola, Glanders,
Japanese B Encephalitis, Machupo, Q fever, Rift Valley Fever, Rocky Mountain
Spotted Fever, Shigella, Smallpox, Tularemia, Typhus and Yellow Fever.
Naturally-occurring toxins that can be used as weapons include: Ricin,
SEB, Botulism toxin, Saxitoxin, as well as Mycotoxins. For a description
of specific types of bioterrorism agents and diseases, see the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) website: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/agentlist.asp
Biological weapons can be deployed in three ways: by contaminating food
or water supplies, which are then ingested by the victims; by releasing
infected vectors, such as mosquitoes or fleas, which then bite the victims;
or by creating an aerosol cloud, which is then inhaled by the victims.
With expertise and experience in developing BW agents, it is possible
to produce and deploy a BW arsenal within a few months, making long-term
stockpiling of large quantities of BW agents unnecessary.
History of Biological Weapons
Over the centuries, biowarfare has existed in many forms: from dropping
rotting carcasses into public drinking wells to dispersing the plague
by aircraft. Yet, while it is possible to find many horrendous examples
of biowarfare, there are relatively few historical examples of large
scale BW deployments in warfare, especially when compared to the enormous
human toll caused by conventional warfare. Nonetheless, a number of
nations have invested heavily in research and development of biological
weapons.
One of the few countries that engaged in extensive biological warfare
in the 20th century is Japan. Its research and development of agents
and dissemination devices began in the early 1930s and lasted until the
end of World War II in 1945. During this period, the Japanese program
experimented with biological agents on human prisoners, causing at least
10,000 deaths. In addition, the Japanese dropped bombs over Manchuria
and other regions of China designed to infect the population with bubonic
plague between 1940 and 1941. It is unknown how many people perished
as a result of these attacks; Japan has acknowledged that the BW attacks
caused 20,000 deaths, while Chinese government estimates assert that
there were over 200,000 casualties from these wartime attacks.
After World War II, both the United States and the former Soviet Union
developed extensive offensive BW programs. Notably, for nearly two decades,
the former Soviet Union and then Russia maintained perhaps the world’s
largest offensive biological weapons program.
At its peak in the late
1970s, Soviet bioweapons scientists conducted research on some 50 agents
and weaponized roughly a dozen. Beginning in 1984, the top goal for this
research was to alter the genetic structure of known pathogens such as
plague and tularemia to make them resistant to Western antibiotics. By
1987, the Soviet BW program had the capacity to produce 200 kilograms
of freeze-dried anthrax or plague bacteria per week. In total, about
60,000 to 70,000 people worked in various BW activities. It was not until
the breakup of the Soviet Union that President Yeltsin ordered the secret
programs disbanded and the full extent of Soviet offensive research was
revealed. Although Russia has renounced its offensive biological weapons
programs, its vast biological research and development complex still
exists, contributing to ongoing fears about the dangers of proliferation.
Today, according to a recent U.S. State Department report, more than
ten countries are believed to have ongoing biological warfare programs,
including Russia, Israel, China, Iran, Libya, Syria and North Korea.
Text available at: http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/rpt/51977.htm
Prior to 1991, Iraq pursued a vast and advanced biological warfare program.
This program was uncovered and disbanded as a result of international
inspections at the end of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. No evidence of
an offensive Iraqi BW program has been found in the aftermath of the
American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Biological Weapons Convention
Like the former Soviet Union, the United States pursued a large-scale
offensive biological weapons program following World War II. In 1969,
however, President Richard Nixon announced the U.S. decision to unilaterally
renounce its offensive BW program and destroy its stockpiles. Technically,
the use of BW was first outlawed in the Geneva Convention of 1925. But
President Nixon’s bold move to end the United State’s offensive
BW program led to multilateral negotiations to outlaw biological weapons
entirely and, in 1972, the Biological Weapons Convention was signed.
At the time, President Nixon’s military advisers concluded that
biological weapons were unreliable and unpredictable. They argued that
biological weapons could spread out of control and initiate epidemics
in civilian populations on either side of an armed conflict; furthermore,
their use might trigger a nuclear response.
As a result, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the development,
stockpiling, transfer, and use of biological weapons worldwide. The BWC
was the first comprehensive disarmament treaty, having as its primary
purpose the destruction of existing stockpiles of biological weapons
(BW) and the prevention of their proliferation. Signatories of the Convention
renounce their right to engage in military preparations for offensive
biological warfare, regardless of whether they are faced with a similar
threat. As such, member states renounce the right to in-kind retaliation
or deterrence.
Despite its sweeping ban of an entire class of weapons, however, the
BWC does not include formal measures to ensure compliance by its 144
member-states. This lack of an enforcement mechanism has undermined the
effectiveness of the BWC. In the aftermath of the agreement, the United
States disbanded its offensive BW program and destroyed its stockpile
while the Soviet Union secretly expanded its top-secret BW programs.
As various violations came to light following the Cold War, the BWC
came increasingly to be seen as a failed “gentleman’s agreement” that
lacked effective verification procedures. As a result, in the 1990s,
prolonged negotiations were undertaken to develop possible verification
measures, or what was known as an implementation protocol. Upon taking
office in 2001, President George W. Bush reversed previous U.S. support
of these negotiations, scuttling any prospect of an agreement on a legally
binding compliance regime.
Despite the current impasse with respect to the BWC, a number of other
initiatives are underway to strengthen international norms and incentives
for implementing national regimes to slow and reverse proliferation and
misuse of pathogens. Notably, many countries have enacted national legislation
to criminalize offensive BW research.
Efforts to Improve Biosecurity
Over the past several years, the United States has dramatically increased
biodefense funding and undertaken a variety of initiatives to prevent
the acquisition and intentional misuse of biological agents by would-be
criminals, terrorists or spies. Meanwhile, though, while most countries
generally use the same four biosafety levels in classifying sensitive
materials, they observe no common standards about what security measures
are appropriate to each level.
While by no means alone, the United States
does not have comprehensive laboratory safety laws. The current U.S.
system does not even have comprehensive reporting requirements for accidental
releases. Part of the problem is that labs are housed in very different
types of institutions with varying degrees of oversight and accountability.
These include: public universities; private universities; non-profit
institutes (including non-profit research hospitals); government agencies;
and the private sector, ranging from biotechnology companies to health
care providers. With this in mind, there is also an urgent need for expanded
training and education in biosecurity and biosafety that includes developing
and implementing “best practices” to reinforce ethical norms
and to uphold so-called “codes of conduct” as a tool to combat
the misapplication of biology.
To be effective, these biosecurity efforts must transcend national boundaries
and be interwoven with a multilayered public health approach to prevention,
detection and response. This entails a greater emphasis on improving
national and international disease surveillance and more effective international
capabilities for responding to suspicious outbreaks.
No matter what disease strikes next, it is imperative to quickly identify
and alert affected populations and appropriate authorities to dangerous
outbreaks. This requires integrated strategies for combating known risks
(e.g. ebola, plague), responding to the unexpected (e.g. epidemic intelligence,
verification of events, assessment of humanitarian impact and coordination
of rapid specialized response), and improving global, national and local
preparedness.
Of crucial importance to any successful regime is the need for strengthened
mechanisms to identify and report disease outbreaks as part of our effort
to build national preparedness for epidemics (whether they are naturally
occurring, accidental or intentional in origin). Currently, there is
much promising research and development underway that offers the hope
of rapid detection and identification of so-called “silent killers.”
The World Health Organization (WHO), established in 1948, is responsible
for coordinating the intergovernmental system of reporting disease outbreaks.
Unfortunately, this system operates with very limited financial resources
and depends upon voluntary reporting and contributions by member states.
Quick and reliable reporting is crucial to efforts to diagnose, treat
and control disease outbreaks with a minimum loss of life. Yet many regions
are handicapped in this effort by glaring shortcomings in existing public
health infrastructure. No matter what lies ahead, we all benefit by increasing
funding and international partnerships to improve our ability to quickly
identify and alert relevant public health authorities to new disease
outbreaks wherever they occur around the globe.
While there is much debate over the efficacy of current biodefense programs,
strengthening global efforts to detect and contain epidemics provides
clear and sustainable public health benefits. The recent outbreak of
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARs) in 2003 offers a good case in
point. In response to reports of severe illness and death from an unknown
virus, WHO successfully managed an international partnership known as
the Global Alert and Response Network (GOARN). This unprecedented international
collaboration succeeded in rapidly identifying and containing the spread
of SARs. The response to the outbreak of SARs offers one of the few bright
spots in the realm of infectious disease that merits fuller scrutiny.
In the event of the intentional release of a biological agent, WHO’s
global alert and response network would be a vital part of any effective
international containment efforts.
Useful Links:
For various additional resources on biological weapons issues, see the
Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) of the Monterey Institute of
International Studies. http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/
CNS provides an overview of past and present chemical and biological
weapons. http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/possess.htm
CNS also provides resources on biosecurity measures to prevent bioterrorism.
http://cns.miis.edu/research/biosec/pdfs/biosec.pdf
The Arms Control Association (ACA) provides an overview of BW issues,
documents and analysis. http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/bw/
The BioWeapons Prevention Project, a civil society initiative, tracks
compliance of governments and other entities with the Biological Weapons
Convention and other international treaties that codify the norm against
biological weapons, relevant scientific and technological developments,
and measures undertaken by governments and relevant organizations to
increase openness and transparency. http://www.bwpp.org/
The Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare is an
inter-university collaboration for research, communication and training
in support of informed public policy regarding chemical and biological
warfare. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/hsp/
The Acronym Institute provides a compendium of information on the Biological
Weapons Convention and Review Conferences, as well as ongoing efforts
to strengthen the regime. http://www.acronym.org.uk/bwc/index.htm
The Bradford Project on Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention.
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/other/bw-info.htm
Henry Stimson Center provides documents on BW. http://www.stimson.org/cbw/
For examples of educational efforts to promote awareness of biosecurity
issues among biologists and interactive teaching curricula, see the Federation
of American Scientists. http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=150
For a further discussion of efforts to establish a Code of Conduct to
provide clear guidelines on values and professional practices that defines
the expectations and directs the actions of practitioners of the Life
Sciences, see:
The Interacademy Panel on International Issues (IAP).
http://www.pugwash.org/reports/cbw/IAP_Biosecurityfinal.pdf
Statement of Thomas Holohan, BWC Experts Group Meeting, U.S. State Department.
http://www.state.gov/t/ac/bw/49989.htm
The National Security Archive compiles declassified governmental documents,
including information on the Nixon Administration’s decision to
end its BW Program.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB58/
The Sunshine Project offers analysis supporting full transparency and
improved public access to U.S. biomedical research. http://www.sunshine-project.org/
In addition to various briefs, the Sunshine Project provides a search
engine of research grant data from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) tracking U.S. spending on biotechnology, biodiversity, specific
diseases, or funding in specific locations. http://www.cbwtransparency.org/crisper
The Canadian government provides information on the BWC and its Protocol.
http://www.opbw.org/
In the United States, a number of federal agencies are engaged in biodefense
research and offer various resources. These include: the Department of
Homeland Security; the National Institutes of Health and Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention under the Department of Health and Human
Services; the National Laboratories operated by the Department of Energy;
the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Dugway
Proving Ground, and the Naval Medical Research Center under the Department
of Defense; the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the U.S. intelligence
community.
For information on bioterrorism agents and preparedness, see the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC). http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/agentlist.asp
The U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (part
of NIH) provides a fact sheet on Anthrax. http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/anthrax.htm
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides links on bioterrorism.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bioterrorism.html
The National Academies provides public safety resources on Bioterrorism
for First Responders and a search engine of more than 3000 related web
pages. http://www.nap.edu/shelves/first/
The Biodefense Education Organization’s digital library provides
biodefense news stories through the end of 2005, reference resources
on biodefense and current U.S. government unclassified biodefense textbooks
and manuals. http://www.biodefenseeducation.org/readinglist
For an overview and series of recommendations on how to balance the
tradeoffs between promoting beneficial research in the life sciences
while minimizing the possibilities for abuse, see the National Research
Council (NRC) 2003 Report, “Biotechnology Research in an Age of
Terrorism.”http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10827.html
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources has created the National
Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to provide advice to federal
departments and agencies on ways to minimize the possibility that knowledge
and technologies emanating from biological research will be misused.
http://www.biosecurityboard.gov/
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