Biological Weapons Technology

Biological agents are naturally occurring microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi) or 

An additional characteristics and certainly a concern is the relative low cost required for the production and theeasc of deployment of biological agents by subnational groups and organizations for biomedical, pharmaceutical, and food production. All of the equipment used to produce biological agents is dual use. 

Because biological agents reproduce, only small amounts of a starter organism are needed. Other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) require the purchase of large amounts of precursor or of fissile material to achieve threat capability. The self-generation of the biological agent is a unique element of this WMD. 

With the advent of World War II, rapid developments occurred in biological warfare capability in the United States and other nations. 

In recent years, newly emerging infectious diseases have complicated the picture. They include AIDS, prion disorders, and several hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola. These diseases and the possible reduction in immunocompetence have fostered an increased role of the United States and international agencies in monitoring disease outbreaks. 

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On 23 February 1993, following the Persian Gulf War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, a panel of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services submitted a special report,2 Special Inquiry of the House Armed Services Committee Into the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat. This report concluded that despite the decrease in absolute quantities of chemical weapons, the potential diversity and the frequency with which such weapons could be encountered were increasing. The threat had shifted to Third World scenarios, with deployed U.S. military forces facing new threats from chemical and biological weapons. Technological advances have increased the diversity of poten-... 

KING, J., The Threat of Biological Weapons , Technology Review, vol.85, May/June 1982. 

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. 

Chemical and biological weapons (CBW) have long been called the poor man s atomic bomb, but they are actually weapons of mass destruction that once could be afforded only by a few powerful and industrialized nations however, during the twenty-first century, a proliferation of technology has now made them readily available to second and third rate powers, as well as terrorists and one man or woman acting alone... 

The National Institute of Justice has put together multivolume compendiums of instrumentation relevant to chemical and biological weapons detection. However, none of these books contains a critical review of the effectiveness of the technologies. One instrument included in the publication is a portable, handheld, ion mobility spectrometry chemical agent monitor with moderate to high selectivity, but only when used in open spaces, far from vapor sources such as smoke, cleaning compounds, and fumes. This would seem to make it useless in the battlefield. Another listed chemical agent monitor has a below 5% false positive rate. With one in 20 false positives, no one could reasonably act upon an alarm. 

The nations of the Free World must also bring into proper perspective the threat which they face from the possible use of chemical and biological weapons. In most instances, because of their geographical proximity, other nations are even more vulnerable than we. There should be Free World preparedness comparable to United States preparedness. This can be effectively assisted by exchange of scientific and technological information among the free nations. 

Third, lead time must be shortened for realization of the fact that chemical and biological weapons must be an integral part of our arsenal of defense. Just as we must shorten our technological lead time, so must we have rapid acceptance of the need for total preparedness. 

The biological weapons (BW) prohibition regime is built around the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and the Australia Group, which expanded its activities from CW-related dual-use goods and technologies into the BW realm in 1990. 

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