Biological and Chemical Materials

Updated to reflect the numerous advances that have evolved since the September 11 terrorist attacks, Emergency Response Handbook for Chemical and Biological Agents and Weapons, Second Edition maintains its reputation as a comprehensive training manual for emergency responders to incidents involving nuclear, biological, and chemical materials. 

Convection (also known as advection) is a more passive movement of biological and chemical materials, in that the agent moves with the water or air within the soil. Onedimensional solute flow rates in the z dimension can be represented by... 

Soil contaminated by biological and chemical weapons would be a different problem than waters contaminated by biological and chemical weapons. Soils contaminated by transuranic waste from RDDs would be a long-lasting problem. The radioactive particles would travel through the air with the soil particles moved by wind. The radioactive particles would travel within the soil if the particles are moved by water. Biological and chemical materials that are sorbed to the soil would move within the soil by convection-dispersion equation (see Chapter 3) or become retransported with the soil in the air or water. 

Ricin as a potential biological threat agent has received much popular press. In 2003, suspects were arrested in London for making ricin from castor seed in their apartment (Risen and van Natta 2003). The popular press has speculated that if ricin were made, it could be used to contaminate food in military mess halls. All of these instances indicate that biological and chemical materials may be a potential terrorist weapon to compromise the safety of the military and civilian food supply or other vulnerable areas. Given the extreme toxicity of ricin, the relative ease with which it can be obtained, and the fact that references to its use have been discovered in terrorist haunts, the ability to accurately and precisely detect ricin is a critical need. 

Therefore, the soil texture may determine the environmental fate of biological and chemical threat agents. To sequester, sorb, and remove such materials, a clay-textured soil is advantageous. Sand-textured soils facilitate biological and chemical materials within the environment. In studies presented below, the quantity and type of clay will be discussed with respect to the sorption and movement of toxin and microbial spores. 

In April 1953 the CI A s Deputy Director of Plans, Richard Helms, proposed that the agency establish a program for the covert use of biological and chemical materials 15 for the manipulation of behaviour. The project was, Helms believed, ultra sensitive , and he therefore argued that it be exempt from all the normal accounting channels, its very existence hidden from all but the most senior officers of the CIA. The Director of the CIA, Allen Dulles,... 

Granular media filtration is used for treating aqueous waste streams. The filter media consists of a bed of granular particles (typically sand or sand with anthracite or coal). The anthracite has adsorptive characteristics and hence can be beneficial in removing some biological and chemical contaminants in the wastewater. This material may also be substituted for activated charcoal. 

Other inorganic and organic compounds are brought into solution by the decomposition of their parent materials. Rocks and minerals will be decomposed by physical, biological, and chemical mechanisms. Enzymes released into the soil solution by microorganisms will decompose insoluble organic... 

Research over the past decade clearly indicates that AM have other functions (1) release of chemicals that relate to tissue injury (2) regulation of other cells that determine further tissue injury or postinjury repair and (3) adaptive response to biologic and other materials to sustain the first two functions. These macrophage activities may contribute to the initiation and progression of fibrosis that characterize the disease called asbestosis. A few details of the experiments performed with macrophages will illustrate the direction of present research. 

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