Chemical and biological weapon

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

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. 

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. 

Credit Waging Peace, Chemical and Biological Weapons Use in Warfare, Impact on Society and Environment, by Gert G. Harigel http //www.wagingpeace.org/ articles/2001/1 l/00 harigel cbw.htm... 

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 discovery in January 2003 of remnants of ricin, castor beans, and recipes for a half dozen other chemical and biological weapons in the London apartments of terrorists aligned with al Qaeda,... 

Kosal, Margaret, The Basics of Chemical and Biological Weapons Detectors , November 24, 2004, Monterey Institute of internationals Studies, available at cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/031124.htm. 

M.E. Kosal, The basics of chemical and biological weapons detectors, 2003. http //cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/031124.htm... 

Parachini, J. V. 2000. The World Trade Center bombers (1993). In Toxic terror Assessing terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons, ed. J. B. Tucker, 185-206. Cambridge, MA MIT Press. 

Chapter III of the IG report is devoted to a history of the threat. It concisely summarizes the changing American mentality following our success in World War II. After focusing almost completely on nuclear weapons, a succession of scientific and technical advances awakened military planners to the need also to consider the potentially serious threat posed by chemical and biological weapons. As intelligence reports about Soviet investment in psychoactive substances accumulated, their concern increased. In early 1951, for example, intelligence sources reported that Russia was experimenting with a... 

The second grand challenge, preparation, is as important as threat redaction, since preventive measures will not preclude all terrorist attacks. Though chemical and biological weapons are many and varied, a common set of barriers in basic science exist that can be overcome to increase our readiness. 

We need to have drugs, antidotes, and cures for the weapons of mass destruction that terrorists are likely to use. To develop medicinal countermeasures, the basic science involved must first be understood. For both chemical and biological weapons, the process of molecular recognition by elements of the human body is of utmost importance. However, we do not have a clear understanding of protein surface interactions, the relationship of genes to protein function, and how viruses infect and replicate. All of these processes are chemical in nature and caimot be solved without knowledge of the chemical sciences. 

A Skeptical Analysis of Chemical and Biological Weapons Detection Schemes... 

A SKEPTICAL ANALYSIS OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS DETECTION SCHEMES... 

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. 

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