Weapons, biological

Upon completion of this chapter you should be able to  

Discuss the methods terrorists might use to expose people to biological agents. 

Explain the categories of threats from biological agents. 

Discuss the prehospital presentations of the common biological agents that generally produce respiratory symptoms. 

Because of the concern of the paramedics, the emergency physician notifies the local public health officer of the patients with similar symptoms and asks if there is a new kind of flu going around. The health officer checks his health department s online disease surveillance system for information on the latest communicable diseases in the area. He quickly finds that there have been multiple patients with 

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Weapons Precursors International restrictions designed to prevent the production of chemical and biological weapons... 

Peruski, L. F. Peruski, A. H. Rapid diagnostic assays in the genomic biology era Detection and identification of infectious disease and biological weapon agents. BioTechniques 2003, 35, 840-846. 

Thus there are two separate and distinct missions of any system designed to detect both chemical and biological weapons, namely Detect to Warn and Detect to Treat. The presence of a chemical agent must be detected immediately in order to warn troops to put on protective gear. Biological agents must be detected and identified promptly in order to minimize the number of exposed troops however, immediate death or incapacitation is not likely. Instead, early detection allows early treatment and lower mortality rates. 

Combat medicine poses special problems. Chemical science and technology can aid in the rapid detection and treatment of injuries from chemical and biological weapons and other new weapons such as lasers. We need to develop blood substitutes with a long shelf life, and improved biocompatible materials for dealing with wounds. For the Navy, there are special needs such as analytical systems that can sample the seawater to detect and identify other vessels. We need good ways to detect mines, both at sea and on land. Land mines present a continued threat to civilians after hostilities have ended, and chemical techniques are needed to detect these explosive devices. 

World Health Organization. Health Aspects of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Geneva World Health Organization, 1970. 

Although classified as biological weapons, toxins are chemicals. They are not alive and do not replicate themselves like pathogens (Chapters 17-20). They are not communicable to be affected, an individual must come into direct contact with the toxin. 

David L. Swerdlow, and Kevin Tonat. "Botulinum Toxin as a Biological Weapon Medical and Public Health Management." Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (2001) 1059-70. 

Lindler, Luther E., Frank J. Lebeda, and George W. Korch, eds. Biological Weapons Defense Infectious Diseases and Counterbioterrorism. Totowa, NJ Humana Press, Inc., 2005. 

Dennis, David T., Thomas V. Inglesby, Donald A. Henderson, John G. Bartlett, Michael S. Ascher, Edward Eitzen, Anne D. Fine, Arthur M. Friedlander, Jerome Hauer, Marcelle Layton, Scott R. Lillibridge, Joseph E. McDade, Michael T. Osterholm, Tara O Toole, Gerald Parker, Trish M. Perl, Philip K. Russell, and Kevin Tonat. "Tularemia as a Biological Weapon Medical and Public Health Management." Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (2001) 2763-773. 

It was examined by Iraq as a potential biological weapons in the late 1980s. 

Reliable information on the epidemiology, disease severity, and effect on public health is essential to sustain the need for a vaccine. The authorities must develop the policy to prevent infectious diseases and in the same time countermeasures against effects of biological weapons attack. 

Obligations of the countries ensuing from the convention for the prohibition of chemical weapons do not reduce the actuality of the protection. Terrorist acts during last decades with use of chemical and biological weapons enforce not only elaboration of new more efficient protection means, but permanent development and improvement of methods and means for consequence management. 

More recently, anthrax has been used as a biological weapon in the United States and a total of 22 cases were identified. Six fatalities occurred due to inhalation of the causal agent, Bacillus anthracis. Use of microorganisms for agroterrorism as well as infection of companion animals, and the potential development of genetically engineered agents have made the twenty-first century more vulnerable than past centuries. 

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