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Contact & Copyright

The ZKea project is a collaborative non-profit effort. All copyrights to the materials contained within this website are strictly reserved. However, these materials may be distributed on a non-profit basis as long as attribution to ZKea authorship is fully maintained.

Christopher Minson is the ZKea contact. He can be reached at christopher at .

Introduction

The world is entering a profoundly dangerous era. The risks of this era are existential. At stake is nothing less than the survival of civilization - and possibly the entire human race.

Prophets have long warned of such "dangerous eras". Throughout history most such warnings have either been massively overstated or simply wrong. But the coming danger is truly different and truly existential, for it has already revealed itself to humanity as deadly and all-encompassing. And it comes in a form which is now intersecting science and the human condition in a clear and well-documented fashion, pointing to an approaching holocaust.

This will be the holocaust of emerging disease, either naturally occurring or man-made. Or, to use a popular generic term, "plagues". Now, as never before, humanity sits on a biological time bomb. A new Hiroshima is approaching, and mankind is unprepared for this approaching apocalypse that will rewrite the future of our planet.

It is the goal of this website to document every aspect of this threat via commentary, analysis and a single cross-indexed documentary database. To this end you are encouraged to consult the ZKea Archive and Search Engine. Both are updated daily and are heavily annotated with searchable topics. They and the links they contain aim to provide a full accounting of the threat of emerging disease, biological warfare and terrorism, and their technological, historical and sociopolitical antecedents. Further, all this material is open-sourced. It therefore may be distributed freely as long as attribution to ZKea and primary sources is preserved.

For those new to this topic the rest of this introduction presents a brief overview of the problem and its background. Read on. Then should you desire more information on specific topics, proceed to the archive databases and search tools.

Biological Hiroshima

The Historical Record

Throughout history the human species has been profoundly affected by plagues. These have decimated humanity countless times. To cite our first example, around 1918 a single influenza virus underwent a random mutation. This mutation transformed a relatively benign virus into a universal killing machine. The result was a global crisis that killed over 30 million human beings. This Spanish Flu was notable for its ferocity and lethal efficiency. Some people fell ill and died within a matter of hours. New York commuters boarded their trains healthy and were dead upon arrival in the city. Unusually, the virus targeted healthy young people, killing them preferentially over older individuals.

Influenza is always highly contagious. This particular epidemic was catastrophically magnified by improved transportation available at the turn of the century and by massive war time population dislocations. Spread by troop carriers and commercial ship traffic, the Spanish Flu quickly circumnavigated the planet. Panic broke out in cities around the globe as hospitals and morgues filled with the dead and dying. In the United States, troop camps were disbanded and emergency health measures instituted.

In other places the result was far worse. Half the population of some Pacific islands was wiped out in this epidemic. Untold millions died in Asia. Remote villages in Alaska ceased to exist. The virus stalked everyone, everywhere. There was no hiding place and there was no cure. Once ill with the "flu", the patient either died or recovered. As is also true today, there was little medical science could do to help.

This particular epidemic ended - if one can use the word - happily. Influenza is highly seasonal. The virus that attacks one season will mutate and take on a new form the following season (which is why flu shots must be given every year in order to be effective). Therefore the epidemic subsided of its own accord and, over the decades, was largely forgotten. Mankind was spared another year of mass death and fear. The world thus breathed a sigh of collective relief and got back to the more important business of finishing the World War I slaughter. Only in retrospect was it noted that the death toll of the Spanish Flu far exceeded the 20 million killed in the war. More fearfully, this virus killed people all over the planet and not just in fields of battle. In other words, in a short period of time this single virus, a packet of genetic instructions, turned out to be more deadly than all of man's technologies and armies over five years of global war.

As bad as 1918 was, it was a minor blip compared to other periods in human history. Humanity has suffered much worse, with far more devastating consequences.

Consider the case of the Native Americans of the 15th century. Estimates vary, but most scholars place the population of North and South America between 40 and 100 million at the time of European arrival. Much of this population was scattered and tribal. But many were organized in large and very sophisticated cultures. These demographics are particularly impressive when you consider that Europe had a roughly comparable population at that time.

These Native American societies were rich and complex. They were also militaristic and quite able to defend themselves against European incursion. True, the Europeans had a modest technological edge (primitive fire-arms and the horse), but the Native Americans had overwhelming numbers, disciplined and experienced armies, an effective command structure, and the pervasive advantage of defending themselves on their own terrain. Therefore, by all measures, these societies were quite capable of repelling any invading European force.

Due to these factors, the competitive situation between the opposing cultures was clear. The Americas were already completely occupied. There was no room left for Europeans. Victory and colonization of the Americas by European powers should have therefore been impossible.

Yet events proved otherwise. Within a few years small groups of Spanish conquistadors wiped out the Aztec and Incan civilizations. Subsequent invasions from England and Portugal continued the virtually effortless conquest, until all of the Americas lay under European dominion. Within a century the population of Mexico declined by 90%. The Incan empire was similarly devastated. Within a few decades most of the native population of the North American eastern seaboard vanished. The continents were effectively depopulated, greatly easing the way for European colonists. Thus European immigrants poured in and, over the following centuries, largely displaced the remaining surviving inhabitants. For all intents and purposes, the original native societies were annihilated.

How did the impossible happen?

The answer is infectious disease. New World populations had virtually no immunity to introduced Old World diseases. In medical parlance, such populations were biologically "naive" and therefore universally susceptible. This meant that mortality approached 100% in these naive populations. Given this, from very small beginnings a virus could literally bring down an entire world.

Which brings us to smallpox. Smallpox was introduced into the New World via one of Cortez's men. This single man passed the virus to a few Native Americans. From there the virus exploded outward, racing ahead of the Europeans to infect two continents. Within a few months millions of Aztecs were dying. Within a few years the Incan empire was in its biological death throes. In another decade the virus had spread up the Mississippi river. Thus it was comparatively easy for the conquistadors to destroy these empires - for these empires were already dying.

It is difficult to overstate the physical and psychological terror of such epidemics. When death becomes so random and pervasive civilization quickly breaks down. Such was the case with the Native Americans. In the space of a few years ancient cities and societies crumbled to dust. Survivors were terrified and dispirited, as they watched their families die from unseen forces while the white man remained eerily untouched. As one early Spanish missionary wrote: "Indians die very easily. A single breath of a white man is usually sufficient." As populations plummeted, ancient cultures and traditions melted away. The resulting cultural dislocation made it easy to enslave the few remaining survivors as well as implant new cultural traditions. Indeed, it was because of these epidemics that alien languages and religions were relatively easily imposed on the conquered people. What choice did they have? The traditional gods had abandoned them . Meanwhile, the white man's god was clearly stronger and obviously quite angry.

The same story was repeated in the North American continent. Early English and American explorers were surprised to find vacant towns and overgrown fields where large native populations once flourished. Particularly in the fertile lower Mississippi valley, explorers were astounded by the silence and the degree of devastation. "There exist large and very impressive Indian towns in this territory," wrote one early explorer, "but not a single Indian. It is a mystery." But there was no mystery. European diseases had simply outrun the Europeans themselves, depopulating lands ahead of their exploration. Only the greatly diminished tribal cultures of the Plains and the West survived. Given their weakness, these were easily eliminated militarily by the expanding European settlers in the following centuries.

History is filled with additional examples. The Black Death (actually a wave of epidemics, stretching over centuries, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) first became visible in the Chinese hinterlands early in the Christian era. The effects were cataclysmic. In some epidemic waves, up to 98% of local populations died. The later effects on India and Islamic countries were often just as severe. The plague then reached Europe in the 14th century, where it proceeded to quickly kill one third of the population. As elsewhere, the effects in Europe of this level of mortality were fundamental and far-reaching. Economies collapsed, cities were abandoned and famine stalked the landscape. And, as in the case of the Native Americans, there were pervasive cultural effects as well. A preoccupation with death became the norm, both in art and in daily life. "People no longer bother with work and planning for the future," wrote one chronicler, "but instead live only for the day."

More examples: the Athenian plague of 430 B.C. that catalyzed the fall of Athens to Sparta; the terrible Roman plagues of 180 A.D. and 252 A.D., leading eventually to the fall of the Empire; countless Indian and Chinese plagues, some of which set population growth back by centuries. Ancient history is full of harrowing accounts of the mass death and dislocation caused by infectious disease.

Yet not all plagues are confined to ancient times. In early 2003 a random mutation suddenly granted unusual killing power to the common cold virus. Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) apparently originated in southern China's Guangdong Province. Polluted, crowded with people and animals, Southern China is a notorious incubator of novel respiratory viruses. Once established in the region, SARS then quickly spread via airline travel to a number of places around the world. It remains to be seen how lethal SARS will be, although it has the potential to inflict serious harm. Even if a major pandemic is not established, SARS clearly pointed to the dangers of a repeat of the 1918 terror.

As if on cue, the influenza virus reappeared in the news in 2004 - - this time in the form of the avian flu. Millions of wild and domestic birds died in Asia, as the disease swept through their populations with cold efficiency. Indeed, birds are susceptible to a wide variety of flu viruses. In fact, influenza is typically a far more potent killer of birds compared to mammals - including humans. Generally speaking, an avian flu virus has difficulty crossing over to other creatures. However, this particular virus - known as H5N1 - soon demonstrated a certain ingenuity ...

H5N1 had been tracked since 1997, when it first emerged in Hong Kong and killed a handful of people. After authorities there killed 1.5 million chickens (basically, every chicken in Hong Kong), the outbreak seemed to stop. But the virus had not disappeared; rather, it simply retreated into the Chinese hinterland. There, from between 1998 and 2001, the virus rapidly evolved, going through no less than 17 genetic reassortments. In January 2003 the "Z" variant of the virus evolved, which proved capable of dealing with a broader range of environments. By 2005 this virus (now dubbed "Z+") became supervirulent and quite capable of killing a diverse range of species, including cats, rodents, pigs and people. This virus was now spectacularly agile and dangerous. For instance, mice are typically unaffected by influenza, but Z+ causes 100% mortality in every mouse population tested. And the virus continued to intrude into species that normally are not affected. Among other things, it began to kill migratory birds - which normally are relatively immune. It even began to kill tigers - wiping out 30% of the tigers in Thailand zoos in a single ferocious epidemic.

Can H5N1 cause a human pandemic? No one really knows. However, as time goes on, increasing numbers of people in SE Asia are falling prey to the virus. Should the disease ever break out decisively into the world population, the world would witness an unparalleled biological catastrophe.

And let us not forget our most costly current plague - AIDS. 20 million dead and 45 million infected as of 2005. HIV is in some ways the perfect killer: invariably lethal yet with a long incubation period in which to maximize its spread. Fortunately the virus has a weak point, in that it is quite fragile in the external environment and not easily spread. Had HIV evolved the ability to spread in the air or via casual contact, Homo sapiens might now be experiencing a universal apocalypse dwarfing any other event in the history of our species. Instead, in species terms, HIV became just an almost-catastrophe. Humanity was hit by a bullet, but fortunately it was a rubber bullet. Next time we might not be so lucky.

In summary, since the dawn of urban civilization, deadly epidemics have afflicted mankind. And the human cost of any of the larger epidemics dwarf all of humanity's wars and famines combined.

The Environmental Context

The dynamic of disease is, of course, not unique to Homo sapiens. All organisms are prey to viruses and epidemics, as this is a normal part of environmental balance. Rats suffer from plagues, birds are attacked by influenza and malaria, and insects are afflicted by myriad varieties of poxes. These viruses keep their respective host populations within the bounds of the environment. For instance, every species of caterpillar is victimized by at least one species of pox. If not for these pox viruses, the world would quickly be inundated with hungry caterpillars. Viruses and infectious bacteria have no peer when it comes to quickly and massively reducing population sizes. They invariably take advantage of population spikes. All this is integral to the normal dynamic of populations and ecosystems.

These ecological processes are the mechanisms by which disease and epidemics reached humanity. As Homo sapiens urbanized and populations increased, viruses and bacteria had a new opportunity to exploit an increasingly common target. By the usual process of mutation and evolution, various disease vectors made their transition to our world.

For example, bubonic plague spread due to the ecological disruption of the grasslands of Central Asia, and the subsequent fact that rats found a very pleasant lifestyle cohabiting in our ever-growing cities. When large numbers of humans entered swampy humid habitats, malaria jumped from birds to people. Human smallpox arose from a related pox (perhaps camelpox). It became a scourge of the Old World in Egyptian times, once cities of sufficient size developed on the Nile. HIV jumped to Homo sapiens some decades ago, probably due to tropical deforestation and the intensified contact between growing human populations and other primates.

The pattern has been repeated countless times. And as humans expand into and disrupt the last remaining untouched areas of the globe, further such jumps can be expected.

The Technological Threshold

We see that epidemic disease has dramatically affected our world throughout history and into the modern era. And we understand that viruses and epidemics are part of the natural order, acting as nature's crowd-control mechanism. But why should this concern us now? After all, mankind has survived and prospered so far. What has changed in the global equation that makes the age-old danger of epidemic disease such a profound and immediate concern?

Three fundamental things have changed. Let us consider them in ascending order of importance.

First, the world's population continues to explode. As of 2005 the population is approaching 7 billion. At current rates, it will level off at 12-14 billion sometime at the end of the century. Never before has the planet supported so many large mammals from a single species.

Much of this population is increasingly forced into crowded urban zones, many of which are unstable, unsanitary and under increasing social strain. Even more importantly, these urban zones are now inextricably interconnected via air-travel. Should an epidemic arise anywhere in today's world, it will spread almost immediately to all parts of the globe due to population density and the efficiency of transportation.

Perhaps the greatest threat in this regard are the 1 billion human beings currently living in 3rd-world megaslums. These dense urban aggregations typically lack even the most basic sanitation facilities. Furthermore, their health infrastructure - where it even exists - rarely includes any kind of systematic monitoring services. These hyper-slums are biological kindling, always ready to ignite a worldwide catastrophe.

Second, the planet is now under profound ecological stress. Climates are changing, species are on the move or going extinct, landscapes are being altered and degraded. Even within strictly human ecologies (such as in large urban centers), the same dynamic holds. Populations are migrating, health care and availability are declining, and immune systems are increasingly compromised from pollution and HIV. As history shows, such a situation creates opportunities for new infectious diseases to arise, such as with HIV, or for old diseases to take on new forms, such as with Spanish Flu. Any of these incipient plagues face a very hospitable environment, given the increased urbanization and efficient transportation of the modern world.

The above two factors, by themselves, paint a very dim scenario for humanity. Never before in human history has the situation been so ideal from the viral perspective. It is a unique and highly dangerous situation. It is akin to a forest filled with flammable debris, waiting for a lit match. In nature, this is the time for a plague to strike. Certainly there have been increasing attempts. For example, between 1977 and 1994 no fewer than twenty-nine previously unknown human pathogens emerged. None reached the level of species-killer, but this may only be a matter of time.

These facts are dire enough. However, there is a third factor at play that completely outweighs the first two. By itself it poses the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.

This new factor is biotechnology. Molecular biology has reached a critical threshold. This is the single most profound event in human history since the harnessing of fire. Biotechnology in the form of molecular genetic engineering has the potential for being both the most beneficial as well as the most destructive technology ever unleashed. Among other things, for the first time the inner mechanics of disease-causing microorganisms are both understood and subject to manipulation. The implications of this are staggering. For example, biologists have now pinpointed the exact mechanisms of pathogenesis in a number of viruses and bacteria. These pathogenic characteristics have then been altered or enhanced, rendering microorganisms more virulent, immune to vaccine, or both. Techniques for enhancing the dispersal, survival and spread ("weaponization") of these microorganisms are also being fine-tuned.

Some of this work has happened by chance as a result of otherwise innocent basic research. But much of it is already by design, conducted by a growing network of clandestine germ labs around the world. For instance, it is known that the ex-Soviet Union weaponized a virulent form of smallpox in the 1980s. Tons of the dried virus were then mounted onto special cooled warheads designed to maximally spread their deadly cargo upon reaching their target. Recall that a single smallpox-infected individual was sufficient to begin the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas, eventually killing millions of people. Calibrated against this, the impact of the willful spread of tons of smallpox virus is truly difficult to imagine. According to ex-Soviet scientists, additional weaponization work was conducted on other microorganisms, including anthrax, tularemia and bubonic plague.

Simple modifications can yield dramatic results. One basic approach is to splice a single destructive gene into common human bacteria. For example, South Africa's Project Coast isolated a toxin-producing gene from Clostridium perfringens. C perfringens causes a variety of fatal conditions including gas gangrene, a severe form of gangrene which attacks living tissue. Technicians spliced this gene into Escherichia coli, an intestinal bacterium found in every human being. Such a modification is trivial and yet potent: should this particular modified bacteria ever escape and establish itself in human populations, the result could be a universal epidemic of gangrene.

Indeed, the only limit to what can be accomplished with bioengineered microorganisms is our capacity for imagination. A variety of methods to increase the lethality and spread of infectious diseases are now well-known and in the public domain. For instance, more advanced chimeric viruses are now reportedly in the hands of a number of nations. These chimeras combine the worst of multiple pathogens (ebola plus influenza?), making them universally lethal. In addition, diseases could conceivably be targeted to affect only certain races, or only people of a certain sex, or age, or to exhibit a range of symptoms.

Nor is this work limited geographically. The old Soviet Union and South Africa were not the only places with such expertise. The United States and a number of other countries also have robust biological weapons programs. All these programs are mature and extremely deadly.

Then things get truly scary, for molecular biology expertise is widely distributed and there is no lack of players who wish to develop the ultimate weapon. It is believed that active biological weapons programs are now being conducted in a number of countries. This list includes Iran, North Korea, China, Cuba, Syria, and Libya, among others. Unlike nuclear physics, molecular biology at this level does not require expensive visible labs and equipment. All such work can be carried out in a modest (even mobile) facility under the direction of a competent PhD and some skilled grad students. It is thus quite within the reach of most countries in the world. The barriers to entry are low and the potential payoff is high. Given this, even sub-state actors (such as any reasonably well-funded terrorist group) could conceivably develop and deploy their own doomsday weapon. It is indeed with good reason that biological weapons are sometimes called "the poor-man's nuke".

The comparison with nuclear physics and nuclear weapons is apt. Molecular biology is now in a state of development comparable to that of nuclear physics in the 1930's - fundamental work is going on at a furious rate while knowledge rapidly expands and spreads. The bottle has been discovered and it contains a terrifying genie. Someday this genie will be unleashed. On that day the world will be awakened by epochal events that are both novel yet terrifyingly familiar.

Biological Hiroshima

Let us summarize. Epidemic disease has been the most significant cause of human mortality, dwarfing all other causes including war. In addition, the twin engines of extremely fast population growth and ecological disruption create an ideal environment for the natural emergence and spread of deadly plagues. Finally, the advent of modern molecular biology has added an entirely novel ingredient into this mix: the danger of engineered plagues, precisely targeted to inflict the maximum damage to mankind. Combined, these factors point towards an inexorable slide to a biological Hiroshima.

Given a world that is increasingly overpopulated, poverty-stricken, divided and hostile, with mass terrorism and mailed anthrax a fact of life rather than a theoretical consideration, the reality of this threat becomes clear. It is only a question of time before a new and terrifying plague - either naturally evolved or created with malicious intent - is unleashed upon humanity.

This website tracks both breaking news and primary materials pertaining to this threat. The goal is to awaken the world to these dangers as well as to provide an impetus for necessary policy changes.

As stated earlier, all materials on this website may be freely emailed or otherwise shared with others, as long as attribution to ZKea and primary sources is preserved. Similarly, we are very interested in new materials and fresh perspectives. Feel free to contact ZKea with both.

Biological Terrorism

Biological terrorism refers to the use of biological agents to inflict mass casualties on civilian populations. Due to their horrific nature, many people believe that such terrible weapons would never be used. These beliefs are more grounded in hope than in reality, for history does not support this view. As the historical record shows, biological weapons have often been used in the past with devastating results. The only novel aspect about the present era is that biological weapons have so dramatically increased in potency and widespread availability. We are therefore at the cusp of seeing a very old method of warfare/terrorism updated to a new and much more potent form.

Many pathogens have been used for terrorism over the centuries, with smallpox botulinum toxin, bubonic plague and anthrax figuring most prominently. Such weapons have mainly been used in military situations, primarily to disable or terrorize the civilian populations of the enemy. However given the nature of these pathogens, the line between military use and terrorism has always been an exceedingly thin and arbitrary one.

An early case of an attempt to spread infectious disease occurred in 1346 in the Crimea. Tartar forces were besieging the town of Caffa. Plague broke out in the besieger camp. The Tartars, undeterred, turned this into an opportunity to create an early form of weaponization: they loaded the freshly dead into catapults and launched them into the city. Caffa's defenders tried to dispose of the bodies as fast as they could - throwing many into the sea - but eventually an epidemic broke out within the walls. The tactic was ultimately successful, as the defenders were forced to abandoned the city and retreat west. In fact, this retreat helped spread the plague to Italy, creating one of the first waves of the Black Death. About one third of the population of Europe died as a result.

Another early case concerned the British general Jeffrey Amherst, for whom Amherst Massachusetts is named. In 1763 the good general was in command of troops in the Ohio area. Certain native tribes in the area had become increasingly hostile. In response, the general wrote a letter to a subordinate outlining a plan to "Extirpate this Execrable Race" via the dispensation of smallpox-infected blankets. The order was carried out with military efficiency. A smallpox epidemic duly took hold amongst the tribes. Mortality was very high. Some tribal groups virtually vanished, and the rest suffered severe population losses. The virus did a very thorough job in breaking the rebellion.

A more methodical case of terrorism was "Unit 731", a special germ-warfare unit of the Japanese Army during World War II. This unit conducted germ warfare experiments on prisoners of war (who were referred to as maruta, or "blocks of wood") and launched mass terror attacks on Chinese civilians via special plague and anthrax bombs. It is impossible to verify the human losses from these attacks, although it is believed that the death toll was extremely high. After the war's end, the United States gratefully took all of Unit 731's research results. These served as an important foundation for American germ warfare research.

Indeed, as the 20th century wore on, a number of nations developed ever more potent and refined biological weapons. The scope and ambition of these efforts is a little-known story. The good news is that none of the viral super-weapons developed in these programs has yet to be used. The bad news is that much of the technology - and perhaps the weapons themselves - are now in the hands of a number of states. They may even be in the hands of terrorist groups.

It is little wonder that non-state groups became very interested in biological weapons. Easily constructed, easily hidden and quite devastating, their appeal was obvious. However, for many years most counter-terrorist experts believed that biological weapons were ill-suited for such groups. Given the usual goal of terrorists/freedom-fighters is to effect political change of some sort, and that mass death would undercut their own support, why would such groups ever use weapons that kill so indiscriminately? Better to kill just a few carefully targeted individuals and then maximize the media impact via propaganda tools. In other words, it was believed that such organizations wished to see lots of people on TV, not lots of people dead.

Beyond ignoring history, the key problem with this view is that it assumed an underlying rationality in the terrorist's mindset. While this might be an appropriate assumption for traditional secular terrorists such as the IRA, it does not fit the psychology of most religious terrorists. Since such terrorists are inspired and motivated by primal religious forces, rationality and moderation play little part in their strategy and goals. Even so, it took the events of 9/11 to awaken the world to the fact that there is such a thing as pure hatred and fanatic intent, and that there are people who would gladly commit mass-murder of innocents. Clearly modern terrorist groups - especially religious terrorist groups - will use biological weapons when they acquire them. In the age of sacred terror, the intent is to simply kill as many unbelievers as possible. For this purpose biological weapons have no peer.

Early signs of this dynamic were the Aum cult biological attacks. Aum fondly believed that the end of the world was close at hand. When this seemed slow in coming, they tried to lend a hand to the apocalypse via a number of chemical and biological attacks. Only luck and technical incompetence saved the world from horrific casualties. It is probably a bad bet to assume that other cults will always make the same kinds of mistakes.

And then, of course, there were the infamous 9/11 anthrax attacks. These were quite strangely constructed, in that they combined very sophisticated weapons with attempts to save lives (each letter contained a warning that anthrax was enclosed. Hardly the optimal tactic if mass-murder was truly the goal). As a result these attacks, while frightening, never achieved anything near the casualties that anthrax is capable of inflicting. As with the Aum attacks, we may not be so lucky next time.

What would a biological attack look like? One way to answer this question is to refer to the Dark Winter exercise. This was the code name for an American bioterror simulation conducted in 2000. The results were stark and have since driven much of United States policy.

Given the escalating potency of biological weapons, and their probable increasing availability on the open marketplace, the future threatens to repeat the past, but with much greater catastrophic impact.

Attack Scenarios

What would a biological "event" look like? What would be the early signs and how would it develop?

Such an event could take myriad forms. However, in general these forms fall into one of three broad categories.

The first possibility is a large-scale aerosol attack involving the systematic dispersion of toxins, spores or complete microorganisms over an urban area. This might be accomplished by a plane or remote drone. Ground-based dispersion via a ground vehicle could also be effective. The pathogen would be suspended in a liquid media. A sprayer then distributes the pathogenic media into the atmosphere.

The sprayer would need to be specifically adapted so that the resulting particle sizes would be small enough to ensure proper dispersion. Simply put, most biological agents require that they be dispersed via extremely fine mists. Urban legend aside, sprayers suitable for insecticides don't meet this criteria - the pathogens would largely get lost inside of large droplets of water. On the other hand, it is not overly difficult for a good machine shop to make the required alterations. Given such a modified sprayer, a crop-duster would be an ideal attack vehicle for such an attack.

This explains the elemental dread that American intelligence felt when it was discovered that some Islamic terrorist cells had tried to acquire crop-dusters. Had the perps acquired a sudden interest in farming? Or was something a bit more urban being planned? Also, a number of regimes, including Iraq and Iran have recently put a great deal of work into drone aircraft. These drones are useless for delivering conventional explosives. Their only effective function would be to deliver either chemical or biological toxins.

The old Soviet Biopreparat program developed some much more sophisticated methods to deliver such an attack. In particular, the Soviets modified ICBM warheads with refrigeration equipment and special heat-venting fins. These allowed the warhead to re-enter the atmosphere without broiling its pathogenic cargo. Once near the target the warhead would then deploy a number of aerosol bomblets. These would float down via parachute to a pre-set altitude whereupon they would release their contents in a fine mist.

Given low-tech approaches work just as well, it's not likely that bio-ICBM's will be falling on our heads anytime soon. Even so, the fact that the Soviets devoted so much creativity and resources to this scenario illustrates how seriously they took this weapon. Indeed, the Soviets felt such a bio-warhead would probably be at least as deadly as an equivalent thermonuclear device. And certainly far cheaper.

No matter what system is employed in such an attack, certain conditions would have to exist for it to optimally succeed. Wind and overall meteorological conditions need to be right. For instance, rain would probably interfere with an attack. Bio-weapons generally prefer dry weather. Typically night would also be preferred, due to the increased cover and atmospheric stability. Under good conditions models indicate that a biological attack on Washington DC would result in 1-3 million deaths.

A number of agents are well-suited for such a scenario. Anthrax, due to the robustness of its spore form, is particularly appropriate to this method. Anthrax spores survive a variety of extreme conditions, do not degrade easily, and thus can be easily applied and distributed. But many other pathogens, including BT and tularemia would work well. No matter what pathogen was used an attack of this type could lead to a very high-number of cases, since large numbers of people would be exposed at roughly the same time. On the flip side, such an attack would probably be relatively localized to the targeted urban area.

The casualties from such an attack would come quickly. Very soon hospitals would be hit by flood of cases, swamping their ability to respond. Drugs would run out quickly. This lack of surge capability has been noted as a critical American weakness in various biological defense gaming exercises. It's likely there would be considerable panic as people try to flee the afflicted zone, further complicating relief efforts.

A second type of attack would mimic a naturally-occurring epidemic. Here a dispersed attack would rely on the natural communicability of a given pathogen. For example, smallpox could be released in a number of locations in a target country or countries and then spread outward naturally under its own power. This release could be accomplished in a variety of ways. If one has a sufficient number of fanatics on hand, for instance, these volunteers could simply be inoculated with the virus. In a few days these martyrs-to-be would be extremely infectious. Yet at this early stage they would still not show or feel the primary effects of the disease and thus would remain reasonably mobile. They could then be given plane tickets and told to "see the world". If causing a disastrous epidemic is your goal, there is nothing better than the enclosed cabin of a crowed passenger jet. The constantly circulating air and the close proximity of passengers ensures that everyone will have at least some exposure to the virus. After their flight the attackers could then walk around the airport for awhile, shake a few hands, and then board another flight to a new destination. Each attacker, even if he only takes a few flights to a few cities could infect thousands. And a cadre of such attackers could infect an unlimited number of people.

If the supply of willing martyrs is low, alternative approaches could be used. A number of different designs for smallpox aerosol bombs have been built and proven to be effective. Given the smallpox must be stored in cooled form, these aerosol weapons are a bit more difficult build than equivalent anthrax spore weapons. However, the required skills are hardly out of reach. A microbiologist, a competent engineer and an good machine-shop is enough to build such a weapon.

Smallpox is ideal for such an attack since it is extremely infectious. The virus spreads by air and under optimal conditions can reach as far as a hundred meters. In addition, anything that has touched a smallpox victim (such as blankets and clothing) is likewise infectious for a number of days. Even if the carrier is not visible the virus can still spread. In previous smallpox epidemics it was noted that the virus often spread via hospital ventilation shafts. Hospital patients or visitors who were hidden and quite far away from the smallpox patient thus contracted the disease.

Once the virus was successfully transmitted to a number of new carriers, the foundations of a disastrous epidemic would be set. Afflicted individuals would then naturally spread the disease further in an ever-widening spiral of infections. Given these individuals would be distributed very widely, and given their symptoms would be quite novel and thus easy to misdiagnose, there would be ample time for each of them in turn to infect many other people. Thus, by the time this attack was visible, it is likely there would already be millions of people infected throughout the country (and world). Simultaneous mass-epidemics would arise in countless cities. Hospitals would inundated, anywhere, everywhere. There would be no safe zones, nor a place to hide. No civil-defense health system is remotely capable of dealing with such a scenario. Therefore the result would likely be panic and societal breakdown on a truly epic scale.

Note that such an attack is much more fundamentally "terroristic" than the first scenario, for in this case there would be no logical limit to the spread of destruction. Such an attack could easily engulf the planet, wiping out countries far-removed from the original target. Thus it seems unlikely that any state - no matter how rogue - would choose such a method since the effects would boomerang back to attacking party. However, terrorists might not feel this to be a disadvantage. Especially if religiously-motivated, the apocalyptic nature of the inevitable result might have great appeal to them.

Lastly there is the third scenario. This would be an attack on the food or water supply. This would take the form of release of toxins or pathogens in agricultural zones or in reservoirs. Water-based attacks, while of some interest to terrorists, are in fact rather difficult to execute. In addition, most weaponized pathogens don't do well in water, although there are some exceptions. Food crops or herd animals are easier to attack and a number of pathogens target them.

Such an attack has some unique advantages. For one thing, it makes it possible to target very specific attributes (such as corn, or wheat), thus minimizing any boomerang effect back to the attacking party. For another, this allows the attacker to bring maximum economic pain to the target without inflicting disproportionate casualties. Lastly, such an attack is easily disguised and difficult to diagnosis. How could the target country be sure that this was not a natural crop epidemic, versus a biological attack?

For these reasons, the early American germ warfare program specialized in such agricultural weapons. Weaponized pathogens were developed and deployed that targeted virtually every food crop and livestock species in the world.

Even so, the agricultural-attack is probably the least likely scenario in today's world. Its greatest negative is that it takes time to develop and the effects (and thus the terror) are therefore greatly attenuated. From the terrorist standpoint, mass-death by starvation is much less desirable and glamorous than mass-death through some gruesome epidemic disease. However, such an attack still remains a possibility if initiated by more "civilized" states.

Lastly, it is also possible that advancing technology will allow unanticipated forms or means of attack, perhaps using newly-weaponized and particularly gruesome agents such as ebola. or new vehicles of dispersion. With a world changing so rapidly it is impossible to predict. The only surety is that this threat will continue to multiply into new forms.

Religion & Biological Terrorism

One of the hallmarks of the religious terrorist (as opposed to the secular kind) is the unquestioned willingness to kill large numbers of people with absolutely no moral qualms. Since the religious terrorist by definition has God on his side and since his aims are pure and other-worldly, it is easy for him to morally justify apocalyptic actions that the standard garden-variety terrorist would simply never consider. Given nothing can deliver a true apocalypse more easily and reliably than a bioweapon, religious-based terrorist groups have long been interested in this technology.

One of the trendsetters here was the Aum cult. Even by the standards of cults, the Aum were a strange bunch. Among other things, members believed in the virtues of levitation and coffee enemas. They also wore elaborate radio sets on their heads so as to better hear the thoughts of their Leader. Despite their kookiness, the cult attracted a number of educated followers with scientific and technical abilities. It is a discouraging fact: religious cults may be weird and ignorant, but that doesn't prevent them from attracting capable followers - or to capably pursuing doomsday agendas.

An essential Aum tenet was that the end of the world was very close. Of course, many other mainstream religious cults believe this. For example, hang around in parts of the United States long enough and you will discover the imminent end of the world is also a core belief of a number of fundamentalist Christian groups. What made Aum different was that they were interested in actively helping the process along. To this end they attempted a number of mega-terror attacks of which the most famous was the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. In addition to this they researched nuclear and radiological weapons. They also acquired a large ranch in outback Australia to serve as their refuge once the apocalypse (whether naturally-occurring or due to their own efforts) came about.

Aum is less well known for their series of failed Anthrax and Botulinum Toxin attacks. These did not achieve their desired effect (millions dead), due to a host of basic technical mistakes. For example, the anthrax Aum used was of a very benign strain. Also, they failed to modify their dispersion equipment to generate aerosols of the required small diameters. Even so, other groups took careful note of Aum's goals and failures. Just like with Japan's previous biowar pioneers - Unit 731 others have taken to building on their work.

Other eastern-based sects have attempted biological attacks. Perhaps the most famous one was the 1984 Rajneesh salmonella attacks in Oregon. Even though it was a very amateur job using a relatively mild pathogen and executed by not particularly bright people, this attack sickened thousands of people.

Nowadays terrorist groups are far more professional and threatening. Among these, Al Qaeda had a particularly deep and long-standing interest in acquiring and using such weapons. Their most advanced efforts were in botulinum and salmonella toxins. It is known they also experimented with anthrax in Afghanistan. At one point it was believed that this anthrax program was only in the beginning stages. However current intelligence indicates that this program was somewhat more advanced than first thought. It is possible that at least one Afghanistan anthrax lab was in full production prior to the U.S. invasion. However, it is not believed that Al Qaeda possessed the processing and aerosol technologies necessary for delivering their anthrax in truly advanced weaponized form.

Even so, Al Qaeda researched the dispersion equipment necessary for carrying out mass-attacks (such as modified crop-dusters). In addition, they and related groups have attempted to procure weapons directly from the ruins of the old Soviet programs. And, of course, there are no lack of other sources should the Russians not be forthcoming.

It used to be argued that modern terrorists would never use such devastating weapons. The thinking went that terrorists wanted to "see a lot of people on TV, not see a lot of people dead". Such an argument never did have a historical basis. And the events of 9/11 erased any lingering doubts for those who ignored their history. In the age of sacred terror, few can doubt that when terrorists acquire biological weapons, they will not hesitate to use them.

Ancient History

Mankind has never found a weapon he didn't like and eventually use. Whether a weapon was conventional, chemical or biological, people have happily applied them all. This has been true since ancient times, as these references show.

For example, it is widely-known that the Black Death wiped out over a third of the population of Europe. However, far less widely-known is the probable fact that these epidemics were ignited by an act of biological warfare. This took place in Caffa in 1345 (now Feodosija, Ukraine), which at that time was a port for Genoese merchant ships. A Muslim Tartar army was besieging the Christian city when a terrible plague (bubonic plague) began to decimate their ranks. Although badly demoralized by the disease, the Tartars nonetheless had an inspiration: they began to catapult their dead into the city in the hopes of spreading the plague to the defenders. The strategy was successful. Plague spread in Caffa and the city fell. The surviving Christian defenders retreated to various ports in Europe, taking the seeds of the plague with them. Thus began the Black Death.

Biological warfare far predates the Tartars, however. The ancient Scythians perfected the biological-tipped arrow. This consisted of a mixture of decomposed snakes, dung and human blood, that had been buried and putrefied. The resulting substance was then coated on the tips of their arrows. Thus it didn't really matter if a Scythian arrow killed you outright or not, for even a minor wound was sure to develop a lethal mix of gangrene and tetanus.

Despite not knowing the germ origin of disease, ancient warriors were sufficiently astute to notice that disease correlated with dead and decaying bodies. Thus, another common tactic was for ancient armies to pollute enemy water sources with dead animals.

There is a common conceit that "modern" man has risen above such things. In fact, there has been no change to our underlying mentality. We are the same people we were thousands of years ago. The only difference is that our technology is far more powerful, and therefore far more capable of causing our extinction.

Anthrax, 9/11 Attacks

As of early 2003 this event has largely faded from the media and the public eye. Amidst all the other geopolitical excitement much has been lost, confused or otherwise forgotten. So it is probably worth reviewing the historical facts before presenting any analysis of this matter.

In brief, in October of 2001 the United States realized that it was under biological attack by unknown terrorists. Here is the precise sequence of events:

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Sept. 18, 2001

Trenton, NJ

Mailing of anthrax letters to NBC and NY Post and probably to the National Enquirer.

 Sept. 20

St. Petersburg, FL

Mailing of hoax letters to NBC and probably to NY Post [and National Enquirer?]

 Sept. 21

Quantico

Mailing of accusatory letter to Quantico Marine Base accusing Dr. Asaad, former USAMRIID scientist, as terrorist.

 Sept. 19-25

NYC

NBC received and opened ANTHRAX letter (brown granular sandy); not recognized as dangerous, and not reported by media.

 Oct. 2

Boca Raton

Stevens (AMI) checked into hospital, near death, undiagnosed.

 Oct. 5

Boca Raton

Death of first anthrax victim (Stevens, inhalation anthrax).

 Oct. 5

St. Petersburg

Mailing of hoax letters to J. Miller at NY Times and H. Troxler at St. Petersburg Times.

 Oct. 5-8

US media

Suspicion of possible bioterrorism is increasing but mail not implicated.

 Oct. 6-7

Boca Raton

At AMI, spores found in 2nd worker and on Stevens' computer keyboard.

 Oct. 8

Boca Raton

2nd worker (Blanco, mailroom worker) at AMI sick, nasal spores detected; FBI takes over investigation, seals AMI office. Blanco later confirmed to have inhalation anthrax.

 Oct. 9

US media

Looks like bioterrorism (letters not yet recognized as source).

 Oct. 9

St. Petersburg

Troxler (SP Times) opened hoax letter.

 Oct. 9

Trenton

Mailing of anthrax letters to Daschle and Leahy.

 Oct. 10

Boca Raton

3rd AMI worker (2nd in mailroom) tests positive for anthrax. FBI now conducting criminal investigation. Anthrax strain appears to be weapons grade

 Oct. 10-12

US media

First suspicion that source of anthrax at AMI might be a letter (not found), since two of those affected work in mailroom.

 Oct. 12

NYC

Miller at NYT opened hoax letter.

 Oct. 12-13

US media

First reports of any anthrax of hoax letters to media.

 Oct. 12

NYC

NBC cutaneous anthrax case reported (Brokaw's Assistant). First symptom was 25 Sept.

 Oct. 13

NYC

NBC anthrax letter and hoax letter first reported. (FBI had ignored NBC hoax letter, opened 25 Sept., until anthrax diagnosed on 12 Oct.) Brokaw's Assistant now recalls seeing a second letter, weeks earlier, containing a brown, granular substance, most of which was discarded but letter retained.

 Oct. 13

Boca Raton

At least 6 workers at AMI have tested positive for anthrax and are on antibiotics.

 Oct. 14

US media

Copycat hoax letters now appearing.

 Oct. 15

DC

Daschle's office opened anthrax letter.

 Oct. 16

NYC

Infant who was at ABC office on 28 Sept. has cutaneous anthrax. No further evidence at ABC, suggests case due to cross-contamination of mail.

 Oct. 16

Trenton

Two postal workers report possible symptoms; by 20 Oct both diagnosed with inhalation anthrax.

 Oct. 19

NYC

NY Post anthrax employee diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax (symptoms started 22 Sept); letter with anthrax found unopened in mailroom. Employee remembers opening a similarly-addressed (hoax) letter earlier.

 Oct. 20

US Media

First mention that source of anthrax letters is probably domestic.

 Oct. 21

DC

Several DC postal workers may have anthrax. By 25 Oct, two DC postal workers were dead and two more ill, as well as a State Dept. mail processer, all with inhalation anthrax.

 Oct. 24

US media

Increasing concentration on domestic source for letters.

 Oct. 31

NYC

Dead from inhalation anthrax: Kathy Nguyen, hospital worker. No source found; presumed cross-contamination of mail, although clinical observations suggest a large initial dose.

 Nov. 9

US Media

FBI released profile of sender of anthrax letters, implying the source is domestic.

 Nov. 15

UK

Mailing of hoax letter to Daschle office in Capitol.

 Nov. 16

DC

Anthrax letter to Leahy found unopened in bag of Congressional mail held without distribution since Daschle letter received.

 Nov. 16

CT

Connecticut woman dies of inhalation anthrax; source probably cross-contamination of mail.

 Jan. 03, 2002

DC

Daschle's Capitol office opened hoax letter (delay in receipt due to irradiation of Capitol mail).

 

 

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Some other key facts.

1) The anthrax was genetically identified as being the Ames strain. All the anthrax came from this strain. Ames is a very potent variety developed in American germ labs. This strain has since been distributed to about 20 labs. It is always possible that other labs in the world may have attained access to it illicitly. However, to the best of knowledge, this is a specifically American anthrax.

2) The anthrax was expertly weaponized. Some of the letters contained anthrax equal in quality to the best attainable by American labs. More revealingly, the process by which this quality was attained appears to mirror that used by American bioweaponeers. Specifically, the anthrax was not milled, used a very particular form of silica and had a special coating. All of these trains are unique to the state-of-the-art used by American labs. In contrast, the anthrax definitely did not use the inferior processes used by some rogue states, such as Iraq.

3) About 10g of anthrax was used in the attacks. Weapons scientists and experts testified that it would be extremely difficult for 10g of anthrax to be stolen from a weapons lab by outsiders, given the extraordinary security layers at these labs. However, these same experts testified that it would be easy for an insider to take a miniscule sample and then grow the anthrax himself at some other location.

4) Working with anthrax is dangerous. In particular, the process of placing the spores in an open letter is extremely hazardous. Therefore it is highly probable that the terrorist had been vaccinated for anthrax. As of 2001 only a very few people received this vaccine, all of them workers in American labs.

5) A classified report from 1999 discussed the possibility of an anthrax attack through the mail. In the scenario this report described, 2.5g per letter was modeled as optimal (assuming anthrax somewhat less potent than American weaponized anthrax). The actual attacks used more potent anthrax, at 2g per letter. Thus in general the actual attacks eerily paralleled the model described in this report. Did the attacker read this report, thus implying he had a U.S. security clearance?

6) The attacker worked hard to cast suspicion on others. The letters blamed Islamic terrorists - thus conveniently riding on the post 9/11 hysteria. Another anonymous letter sent to authorities blamed an Egyptian scientist recently terminated from a weapons lab. Obviously someone had close connections to the U.S. system and was working hard to misdirect attention elsewhere.

From all this five facts can be deduced:

1) The terrorist was an expert. He was also an insider. He was either a member or had connections within the US biowarfare community. All the evidence points in this direction.

2) The intent of these attacks were not to kill. If murder had been the intent, then the best tactic would have been to mail the letters without any enclosed warnings. Without these warnings far more people would have died. Those deaths that did occur appear to have been unintentional byproducts of the means of delivery.

3) The terrorist wished maximum publicity. The choice of high-visibility targets with powerful media connections was obviously intended to facilitate rapid and maximum publication of the attacks.

4) Therefore the goal of these attacks was to instill fear - and raise the alarm of a possibility of a real biological attack. In other words, the terrorist was a patriot who used these attacks as a way to warn Americans of the broader dangers they faced.

5) He succeeded. Since the attacks biodefense spending has increased by a factor of 20. Biological warfare and terrorism has passed from the realm of science fiction to that of clear and present danger.

As of February 2003 no one has been arrested for these attacks. Further, no suspects have been named. At one time the FBI named a Dr. Steven Hatfill as a "person-of-interest" and has therefore interviewed him and searched his property on several occasions. However, no evidence was produced and Hatfill has not been charged with any crime.

Finally, it is hard to escape the sense that this case presents a deep dilemma for some. If the perpetrator does turn out to be an insider, could there be unintended ramifications? Such as exposing secret American weapons programs? Perhaps this is one reason why this situation is particularly difficult for the United States government.

Dark Winter, Scenarios

Dark Winter was the code name for a bioterror simulation exercise conducted in 2001. Beginning as a localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City, the simulation quickly spirals out of control, as the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. Not understanding the spreading scope of the attack and lacking effective response mechanisms, the United States soon faces a catastrophe of biblical scale ...

Five lessons were learned from this exercise. First, a biological attack at this level would result in massive loss of life. Second, current governmental structures are not capable of managing such an attack. Third, U.S. health care infrastructure lacks a surge capability, thus leaving it open to complete failure in the event of mass casualties. Fourth, managing the media and providing citizens with the right information would be an enormous challenge. Fifth, Americans are totally unprepared for the myriad social, political and ethical challenges posed by this threat.

Perhaps a more elemental lesson was that people have an innate dread of plagues. It is therefore easy for a situation such as this to quickly degenerate into social breakdown and mob violence. Particularly with diseases such as smallpox, which are particularly ugly in their symptoms and virulence, it is a fine line between mass fear and total panic.

It is no accident that smallpox was chosen for this simulation. It is known that a number of nations have covert stocks. The old Soviet Union was particularly fond of this virus and weaponized it on an industrial mass scale. Always keen in improving their technology, the Soviet's developed smallpox strains resistant to vaccination as well as chimeric viruses resistant to just about anything that could be thrown at them. These viruses are now in the hands of a number of nations, including rogue states. Thus the Dark Winter scenario may in fact be much too rosy. What would have happened if the terror attack employed such a super-virus, rendering the all emergency vaccination and treatment programs ineffective?

This simulation has been enormously influential in changing American attitudes and policies with regard to biological defense. Some of the key recommendations have been adopted by the Bush Administration. However, we remain woefully undefended and open to an attack of this sort.

Dark Winter is not science fiction - it is considered a real and present danger. Read the simulation yourself and consider how your family and your community would react in this situation. Are we prepared?

Civil Defense

Effective civil defense requires early and accurate warning, quick response and effective counter-measures. Therefore since 9/11 11 a number of countries have worked to upgrade their civil defense to deal with the newly perceived dangers of bioterrorism.

The United States has been particularly aggressive in its early-warning efforts; a system was trialed during the Salt Lake City winter games and is now being rolled out nationwide. It's hoped that this system will aid in the early detection and diagnosis of the inevitable biological attack. Even though quite basic, it is tremendous improvement to the current (non-existent) capabilities. Smallpox and anthrax are particular focuses of this system, but many other pathogens will be tracked as well.

In conjunction with this, the United States has also worked hard in getting a fast-response system in place. A core part of this system are 12 "push-packs" that are positioned in various parts of the country. Each push-pack is a self-contained and highly mobile inventory of equipment, drugs and vaccines designed specifically for use in a biological terrorist attack. These push-packs are sufficient to treat millions of people and are positioned in such a way that they can reach any part of the country within 12 hours. The U.S. has also aggressively inoculated its emergency medical staff workers against the most-likely pathogens (such as smallpox), and is also working to increase the surge capability of its medical facilities

Various other research and governmental bodies are researching and delivering novel counter-measures to bioterrorism. The United State's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is one of the leaders here. (DARPA is often tasked with such leading-edge innovations and has a fine track-record in this regard. For example, the internet began as a DARPA project). Among other things, DARPA is tackling the problem of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. MDR has arisen naturally in many organisms over the years as the result of natural evolution. However, it is expected that bioweapons will incorporate these MDR genes as well, thus rendering the weapons immune to current treatments and vaccines. Therefore DARPA is coordinating the development of new broad-based antibiotics that can handle a number of pathogens at once. It is also working on a new class of drugs that can block pathogenic enzymes, including those found in anthrax and tularemia. It's hoped these new drugs will also be broad-based and thus applicable to a number of pathogens. The idea here is to develop an array of new drugs that can be quickly deployed no matter what biological agent is used in the terrorist attack.

In addition much effort is going into automated biodetectors. These are devices that can quickly detect target pathogens in the general environment. Such devices could be critical in the successful early detection of an attack or natural epidemic. Unfortunately, this technology is very new. Basic military devices have been in service since the Gulf War, but widespread successful deployment of devices with the required spread and accuracy is some ways off.

Of course, other efforts have been less successful. For example, the infamous "Color Alerts" probably serve more of a political than civil-defense purpose. Also, the United States government has been less-than-effective educating the public on what it should do in the case of attack. (Beyond buyng duct tape, that is).

On this topic, how should you and your family effectively prepare? What is sensible preparedness and what is paranoia? Basically the answer is this: every family should be prepared to look after itself for at least a month. Yes, standard advice is for three days. However it is simple prudence to prepare for longer, given that a biological attack is likely to be extremely destructive and would probably disrupt services for quite some time. It's also important to keep in mind that a a variety of disasters (either natural or man-made) could similarly create situations that interrupt food, energy and water supplies by at least a few weeks. To this end, every family should have a 30 day's worth of food, cooking supplies and water storage/purifiers. It is also essential to have a first-aid kit and camping supplies (such as sleeping-bags and tent) given evacuation from your home is always a possibility. A number of sites provide detailed information on how to set up such preparations (See the ZKea Resources section).

Of course, a worst-case biological attack could easily swamp such preparations. In the end, there is little a family can do to defend themselves if an attack is particularly deadly or if they are particularly unlucky. Even so, it is definitely prudent and realistic to take basic precautions.

In a dark fashion, 9/11 was a blessing: despite years of warnings from many biologists and medical scientists, few policymakers took the threat of biological attacks seriously. After all, who would be crazy enough to want to kill millions of innocent civilians with weaponized viruses or bacteria? It seemed quite unlikely. But not nearly as unlikely as the notion that suicidal terrorists would crash multiple airliners into skyscrapers and the Pentagon.

Smallpox, Native Americans

Smallpox has a long history with our species. The virus probably evolved from a closely related pox (such as camelpox) in dim antiquity. Barring advances in comparative DNA sequencing, the exact date may never be known. But certainly the disease was present in the early days of Egyptian civilization; a number of mummies show its characteristic scars.

Smallpox is perfectly adapted to humans and lives nowhere else. There is no animal reservoir to which the virus can retreat - only human beings can carry smallpox. Given this, human populations had to reach a certain critical mass before smallpox could reach our species. Only when there was a sufficiently concentrated population was it possible for the chain of infection to continue unbroken. Given this, the successful evolution of smallpox had to wait until large cities were developed. Once these were available, however, the perfect ecology was thus available to the virus. Smallpox settled in and spread death and terror for countless centuries.

By the 1500s smallpox had long been established in the Old World. Although the virus there caused significant mortality, the Old World populations had evolved some level of immunity. Thus it was not possible for smallpox epidemics to completely wipe out a given population. However, this was not the case with the New World. Here smallpox was unknown and thus all Native Americans were biologically naive - immunologically susceptible to the most lethal forms of the disease.

Smallpox was accidentally introduced to the America's during its first contact with the Europeans. The broad exchange that followed is known as the Columbian Exchange and resulted in a two-way transfer of a number of plant and animal species - as well as virulent pathogens. This exchange of pathogens, particularly smallpox, was devastating to the Native American societies. Due to the resulting epidemics, they suffered a demographic implosion. Some regions lost over 90% of their original native population.

At the time of the Columbian Exchange the estimated population of North and South America was at least 40 million. Due to imported pathogens, in a few centuries these populations fell to just a few million. This demographic catastrophe had some obvious ramifications, such as paving the way for easy conquest of the America's by European settlers. But it also had some less-obvious ramifications. For example, the introduction of slavery was largely due to the lack of enslaveable natives. Native Americans were simply too few and tended to die too easily. Thus the forced import of Africans became necessary to provide labor for the plantation economies.

Smallpox is devastating when introduced naturally, but it is also a preferred weapon for "artificial" epidemics. The virus is deadly and easily transmitted, and can easily generate enough fear and panic so as to overwhelm any society. This is particularly true for biologically naive populations, such as the original Native Americans, where smallpox usually means death or permanent disability.

Generally smallpox was spread inadvertently, well ahead of the Europeans. For example, by the time explorers reached the remoter parts of the Andes, all they found were empty cities where rich civilizations had previously flourished. Likewise the east coast of North American was largely depopulated by smallpox by the time European colonial efforts ramped up. Similarly, early explorers of the Pacific Northwest found empty villages instead of thriving communities. Those Indians who were left exhibited the reasons for this carnage: most were deeply scarred from the smallpox lesions and many were at least partially blind.

But, at least once, smallpox was used directly as a weapon. This was the infamous case of General Jeffrey Amherst in 1763, for which Amherst Massachusetts is named. The good general was in command of troops in the Ohio area. Certain native tribes in the area had become increasingly hostile. In response, the general wrote a letter to a subordinate outlining a plan to "Extirpate this Execrable Race" via the dispensation of smallpox-infected blankets. The order was carried out with military efficiency. A smallpox epidemic duly took hold amongst the tribes. Mortality was very high. Some tribal groups virtually vanished, and the rest suffered severe population losses. The virus did a very thorough job in breaking the rebellion.

The colonial Americans took this little history lesson to heart; George Washington was sufficiently concerned about artificially-spread smallpox that he instituted special measures to protect the Revolutionary Army. These included efforts to check the source of all blankets and clothing, so that the British couldn't repeat the Amherst feat with the American forces.

Sometimes the use of smallpox was a bit more implicit. For example, a smallpox epidemic began in Victoria British Columbia in 1862, afflicting both whites and natives. However, medical authorities allegedly only vaccinated whites against the spread of the disease and very few natives. As a result the epidemic took root amongst the native tribes, killing about half the population from Victoria to Alaska.

What happened to the Native Americans might seem like just an interesting piece of history, sad perhaps, but of no relevance to the modern world. After all, isn't smallpox extinct in the wild?

Probably, but smallpox is certainly not extinct in the weapons lab. The tangled history of these lab viruses and the threat they pose to the world is not widely known. However the threat is real and sufficient to keep experts awake at night. It is known that a number of countries possess the virus, and it is known that this virus has been weaponized in the past. What would happen if smallpox were used in a terrorist attack? Such an attack could dwarf the apocalypse that befell the first American people, possibly killing hundreds of millions of people. As 9/11 and recent history has demonstrated, there is no lack of motivation for such an attack. And given the cessation of smallpox vaccinations and the advent of engineered super-poxes, the entire world is now biologically naive. Today we are all Native Americans - completely susceptible to the most lethal aspects of smallpox.

Diseases & Symptoms

This section documents viruses and bacteria that are most likely to pose critical threats to our species. These dangers could arise in one of two basic forms.

First there is the threat that a naturally occurring pathogen could inflict a devastating pandemic. Evolution never sleeps. Pathogens are constantly altering their structure and characteristics. Should an evolutionary change increase lethality and/or infectivity to a sufficient degree, then that pathogen becomes a candidate as a species-killer. All it would then take is the right combination of environmental conditions before a global epidemic was ignited.

But evolution isn't the only danger - there is perhaps an even greater threat from the creationists. In this case the "creationists" are the biological scientists. Pathogens can arise biological research via enhancement and weaponization of an already-existing pathogen. Or, completely novel microorganisms can be created through genetic engineering. Such super-organisms, finely designed and tailored, are perhaps the ultimate weapon. This topic, while also documented here, is covered more thoroughly under the Science And Technology category.

There are countless pathogenic microorganisms in the environment. But only a relative few pose well-documented dangers. The best known of these include smallpox, anthrax, influenza, bubonic plague and tularemia. The first four of these are proven mass killers, responsible for the deaths of billions of human beings throughout history. They combine the twin attributes of contagion and lethality required for a disease to become a true mass plague. In addition there are the more novel recently-discovered pathogens. These include such diseases as ebola and marburg fever. These are of interest primarily due to their novelty and high mortality rates, although there is relatively little scientific knowledge of them compared to the other pathogens. It is believed that specific circumstances are required for these viruses to spread. Exactly what these circumstances are though is presently largely unknown. However these viruses represent a true wildcard. As environmental degradation and population growth continues, they might, like HIV, reach a point of critical mass and unleash themselves on the world population. It is all a question of time and probability.

Speaking of HIV, why is it not on the list? HIV is terribly lethal, but is not very contagious. Compared to the diseases above, it currently isn't a candidate for mass plague. This is not to diminish the terrible cost of AIDS; over 20 million people have died in this pandemic. Yet this is a small number relative to the billions who have perished from smallpox or influenza.

Even so, there is a an ongoing threat of viral "improvements". Although there is no known weaponization work around HIV (its non-contagious aspect makes it uninteresting from the military perspective), it is conceivable that a natural mutation could someday increase its ability to spread. What would happen if HIV developed the capability to spread by air? In evolutionary terms, such a capability would be quickly selected for, leading to a mass plague of virtually guaranteed lethality. How likely is such a scenario? Probably not very, but no one really knows. Could a clandestine lab could effect such a change? Again, no one knows. However, with the genetic mechanisms for contagion and lethality being increasingly well understood, there is little to stop rogue regimes or even individuals from applying this knowledge.

In addition to obvious candidates such as HIV, any pathogen which currently afflicts humanity could, by either natural or artificial means, be enhanced. Thus viruses that cause diseases such as whooping cough, malaria, or measles, might one day pose a much more critical threat to mankind. Even if this is not the result of weaponization work, such a mutation could arise from natural evolution. The success of such a mutation would be facilitated by ecological situations where populations have increased and become concentrated, where environments have been disrupted, and where poverty and pollution have led to a systemic decline in health standards and immune systems. Such situations are perfect laboratories for viral mutation and spread. And such situations, of course, already exist in much of the world.

For instance, most new forms of influenza come from China. Because of its concentrated population and high-intensity food production involving pigs and poultry (which can harbor the influenza virus), China is a gigantic petri dish for viral recombination and mutation. Every year new varieties of influenza are naturally generated in China and then make their way outwards to the world. What would happen if one of these varieties expressed a particularly lethal mutation? That happened once before, in the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed 30 million people. And influenza is not the only threat. The recent emergence of a new respiratory virus (SARS - Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in Southern China reinforces the fact that this ecology can generate new epidemics at any time.

What would be the effect of a truly lethal epidemic in our crowded and interconnected world? Each year the world simply rolls the dice; the onset of a new plague is a matter of time.

Then there are the pathogens that target agricultural crops. Many viruses, bacteria and fungi are quite specific to the crops they attack and quite devastating. Although not a direct threat to humans, such plant diseases could wreck havoc with the food supply. The early American biological warfare effort was particularly focused on such agricultural diseases. More recently, some of these agents have reportedly attracted the interest of rogue weaponization programs. A virus which wipes out rice or corn crops around the world could conceivably be just as deadly as one which attacks humans directly. From the terrorist standpoint, such agricultural attacks have the advantage of somewhat greater stealth and deniability. Agricultural fields are easily susceptible to attack, plus plants suffer mortality from epidemics all the time. Who is to say if a mass die-off of all wheat in the United States and Canada is the result of a naturally-occurring mutation or a result of clandestine genetic engineering and biowarfare?

Finally there is the threat of the complete unknown: a brand-new pathogen that appears out of nowhere, a terribly lethal "Andromeda Strain". It is difficult to quantify the immediacy of this threat, but it is not just the stuff of science fiction. Consider: HIV certainly came out of nowhere, as did ebola. And looking back in history, all diseases have a beginning and thus the element of total surprise. For instance, bubonic plague was quite novel and devastating when it hit Europe in the 14th century (eventually killing a third of the population). People were both lost and aghast at this brand-new scourge. Similarly, smallpox was unknown to humanity until it made its jump into Homo sapiens at the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. The effect there was apocalyptic, as it was for the Native Americans in the 16th and 17th centuries. History, in fact, is full of such "Andromeda Strains".

The following links describe all these pathogens in greater detail. Some are of scientific nature, while others are for the general reader. One warning: some of these materials can be gruesome. The medical effects of these diseases, and their toll on societies, does not make for pleasant reading.

Archive Keys

Anthrax

Anthrax is not a common human disease. Its preferred victims are large herbivores such as cattle, sheep, goats and camels. Such diseases are known as zoonotic illnesses, due to the fact the pathogen normally resides in an animal reservoir.

In the past anthrax was only passed on to individuals who had close and continued contact with infected animals such as these, or infected animal products.

Usually such contact resulted in cutaneous anthrax, or anthrax of the skin. This is easily treated with antibiotics such as Cipro. Left untreated, the mortality rate is 10-25%. Cutaneous anthrax is by far the most common form.

Rarer - and much more deadly - is inhalation anthrax. In this case the individual inhales anthrax spores, which then proceed to infect the lungs and the rest of the body. Treatment for inhalation anthrax is more difficult. Left untreated, this form of the disease is almost always fatal.

These spores are one of the reasons why anthrax makes such a good weapon. The spores evolved to survive for long periods in dry grasslands, waiting to be ingested by a grazing animal. Thus these spores are very tough and long-lasting, making the organism quite easy to store and weaponize. Among other things, this makes anthrax easy to ship via United State's mail.

Anthrax has other military pluses. For one thing, it naturally comes in many different strains. One can literally take a shovel out to grasslands in much of the world, get some soil, and find several varieties of anthrax contained within it. For another, anthrax is easily modified genetically. Because of this variability and adaptability, engineers have been able to create anthrax weapons of extreme virulence that are also resistant to antibiotics and vaccines.

Given all these positive traits, anthrax is invariably found in bioweapon programs. The Soviets were particularly fond of it and created a number of potent varieties. Unfortunately the Soviets could also be a bit clumsy with their bioweapon. For example, in 1979 workers forget to replace a filter in an exhaust system of a bioweapon plant. A few anthrax spores escaped and floated downwind to the city of Ekaterinburg. Officially 94 people became ill and 64 died. However, given the years of Soviet cover-up of this accident and the destruction of records, it is possible that the true death toll was far higher.

There has been a great deal of controversy with regard to anthrax vaccine. The vaccine has been blamed for everything from causing impotence to Gulf War Syndrome. The fact is that, while anthrax vaccine has definite negative side-effects and a clear risk profile, no reputable study has supported these claims.

Even so, in the advent of the use of sophisticated weaponized anthrax, it is likely that current vaccines will provide little or no protection. Bioweapons labs have successfully created a number of strains with anti-vaccine capabilities. Given the genetic basis for antibiotic resistance is also increasingly well-understood, it is expected that these strains how also been altered to include immunity to all antibiotics (such as Cipro, which is usually cited as the primary defense against anthrax).

It remains to be seen how far these strains have spread to rogue nations and sub-state actors. It's likely that terrorists won't have the sophistication to develop their own strains of vaccine and antibiotic-resistant anthrax. However, it is always possible that they could procure the spores from rogue states, which likely do have that capability. A solution of anthrax spores can be very compact. A one-liter container would be sufficient for a mass attack on a city. Thus the transfer of such a weapon to a terrorist group would be extremely hard to detect.

Botulinum, BT

Is botulism the ultimate terror-weapon? This might seem a surprising question. But, in fact, botulinum toxin - a naturally generated poison from the common bacterium C botulinum - has some ideal characteristics in this regard. A number of nations and terrorist groups are therefore focusing their efforts on this lowly microorganism.

Botulinum toxin (BT) is a protein. C botulinum secretes it in order break down the cells of dead organisms, allowing it to feed. Thus this toxin often appears in poorly-preserved foods. When an unlucky or careless human ingests such food, botulism is the usual result. Food-ingestion is the typical way a human gets botulism, although the bacteria can sometimes also directly infect an open wound.

Botulism is quite deadly. Symptoms include double or blurred vision, slurred speech, trouble swallowing and overall muscle weakness. Left untreated, symptoms progress to paralysis. Death comes from respiratory failure. Botulism is particularly dangerous to infants and elderly people.

If diagnosed early botulism can sometimes be managed by induced vomiting, which helps purge the toxin from the body before it can be fully absorbed. An antitoxin serum is also available. However, even if caught early, full recovery from botulism can take weeks or months of intensive medical care.

Botulinum toxin attracted early interest from bioweaponeers. The pioneers were the Japanese, who started growing BT in the 1930s. The toxin was then tested on prisoners-of-wars, with universally horrific effect. Pleased with these positive results, toxin was weaponized and then used on Chinese civilians during the years prior to World War 2. No account of casualties was kept, although it's believed that the results were quite positive from the Japanese perspective.

After the war, picking up where the Japanese left off, the Soviet Union and the United States weaponized large amounts of toxin and greatly improved the aerosolization and dispersion technology. The Soviets were particularly fond of BT and folded it into a number of different delivery vehicles.

Beyond being exceptionally deadly, botulinum toxin has certain other advantages. For one thing, it is extremely easy to mass-produce. C botulinum is not a finicky organism and will grow quickly if given the slightest encouragement. In addition, the bacteria are ubiquitous in the environment and thus very easy to procure. In fact, if you take a shovel of dirt from your yard you will likely have sufficient bacteria to start your own biological weapons factory.

These facts have not been lost on rogue regimes and terrorists. BT has therefore been produced by a number of states. Iraq, Syria and North Korea are known to have very large quantities. Mounted on a missile and delivered to a city, BT has the potential of killing hundreds of thousands of people.

Meanwhile terrorists haven't waited; they've already tried to use the toxin. Between 1990 and 1995 the Japanese Aum cult attempted a number of attacks on US military installations and Japanese civilian centers. All these attacks failed, in fact, they passed unnoticed. Apparently Aum made a number of basic mistakes, including using a relatively benign bacterium as the source of their toxin. Their aerosol-generating equipment probably wasn't up to the job either.

It's believed that other cults and terrorist groups have or are procuring the toxin. Al Qaeda has expressed a special interest. Manuals for the production of BT were discovered in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, countries with more advanced biotechnology are investigating new avenues. In particular, it's known that the Soviets were able to isolate the BT gene and then insert this gene into other microorganisms. This allowed them to turn common benign bacteria, such as E. Coli, into killers. It's believed that a number of other nations and groups are now following up with their own efforts in this arena.

Bubonic Plague

Like anthrax plague is zoonotic, found primarily in animals. The normal reservoir for plague is various species of burrowing rodents. Usually fleas transmit the yersinia pestis bacillus between such rodents. However, under the right conditions the fleas can also bite humans, infecting them with plague as well.

Thus plague is normally a problem when humans live in close proximity to rodents. Historically, this has meant rats. Slum populations, with poor hygiene, were thus at greatest risk.

The typical sign of the most common bubonic form of human plague is a swollen and very tender lymph gland, accompanied by pain. The swollen gland is called a bubo. This is usually accompanied by fevers, chills and extreme exhaustion. Natural plague has not evolved significant resistance to antibiotics, and thus remains treatable in most cases.

The ancestral home of the plague is the grasslands of central Asia. In these original ecologies, human inhabitants had clearly always been aware of the plague, since in ancient times they had evolved reasonably effective traditions to avoid acquiring the disease. In particular, they had taboos against eating rats and related rodents. They also had taboos against handling any dead animal that had not been freshly killed. These strictly-enforced traditions helped the indigenous societies co-exist healthily with the plague bacteria. Over the centuries, due to human migration and ecological dislocations, the plague gradually spread out over the planet. However, the traditional ecological knowledge of the plague did not similarly spread. Thus when plague reached new populations, the afflicted societies rarely had any effective response or defense.

The results were demographic disasters that often reached apocalyptic proportions. Early Chinese epidemics destroyed up to 98% of the population in afflicted areas. Indeed, ancient Chinese chronicles speak of provinces wiped clean of all inhabitants. The impact elsewhere was often of the same magnitude. In Europe, the disease was absolutely devastating, literally changing the course of history. In a series of epidemics spanning many decades, the plague annihilated entire populations. Over time the aggregate loss of life was approximately 1/3 of the entire European population. Not for nothing was it called the Black Death. This mass death tore apart the the fabric of society, resulting in sweeping social and economic changes. These changes in turn had massive consequences, including the Protestant Reformation and the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, it might be claimed without too much exaggeration that modern industrial society has its roots in the Black Death.

In these epidemic situations plague often spreads in its pneumonic form, directly from person to person. This form is quite distinct from the usual bubonic form of the disease, and generally involves the lungs to a much greater degree. It is also much more lethal and difficult to treat.

Since plague is zoonotic, eliminating it from the ecosystem is not possible. The bacteria could always lie latent in its animal reservoir even if somehow eliminated from the human population, thus preserving the possibility of future human infections. This contrasts with other strictly-human diseases, such as smallpox. These non-zoonotic diseases can theoretically be driven extinct by vaccines, since the causative pathogen has no refuge outside of human beings.

Plague has never made a particularly effective weapon. It is relatively difficult to disperse in a fashion that can affect a large group of people. Even so, the Japanese and Soviets both worked on plague weapons. Also the plague genotype is of great interest to biological weapons designers for use in chimeric organisms.

Cholera

Cholera is an efficient historical killer of people, but it is a well-understood killer. The key to prevention of the disease is simple: clean water. Given clean water supplies and good public hygiene, cholera is virtually never a problem. Because of this cholera was one of the first diseases to be "conquered".

Over the past few years, however, the conquered bacterium has returned. In India and Africa, mortality from cholera is increasing rapidly. And the disease has even spread to previously unaffected areas. In 1991 cholera hit Peru and then spread down the west coast of South America. Eventually the disease even made its way to North America. The New World, once a cholera-free zone, now appears to be permanently afflicted.

What is causing this resurgence? As is usually the case, the answer is complex: failing health systems, pollution of previously clean water supplies, wars and population dislocations, changing weather patterns. Even globalization contributes - the cholera bacterium that hit Peru may have been imported via a ship from India.

Ebola, Marburg

Viral hemorrhagic fever is a collective name given to a group of viruses, including Ebola and Marburg. These fevers range in seriousness from the mild to the usually fatal. Ebola and Marburg are particularly deadly and mysterious.

Ebola was named after the Ebola River in Zaire. It was in this region that the first epidemics occurred in the 1970s. Ebola is thus a classic "emerging disease" - one which has only recently entered the human ecology. Emerging diseases are becoming increasingly common as human populations swell, the environment is degraded and the climate warms.

Today's tip: you really don't want to get Ebola. It's a nightmare become real. The first symptoms are a low-grade headache. This quickly progresses to a debilitating fever and muscle pain. Then things get truly bad as the major organs, the digestive tract, the skin, the eyes, the gums, all begin to break down and bleed. The body begins to dissolve. Blood pours out of body orifices while the victim writhes in pain. Death usually comes from systemic shock and blood loss. Researchers were shocked when they first autopsied people who died from these fevers. Their insides had literally melted into a necrotic mess of black fluid.

Because of the particular brutality and lethality of this disease, it causes instant panic whenever it occurs. Towns and villages in affected regions have quickly emptied whenever a case appears.

It's not definitely known where Ebola resides in the ecology. Recent research indicates that some species of fruit bats harbor the virus, but its not known if these bats are responsible for spreading the disease to humans. Nor is it clear if there are other natural hosts in addition to fruit bats.

The initial means of transmission (from animal or insect to human) are also unclear. However, once a person has contacted Ebola, it's believed that the virus isn't particularly contagious. Close personal contact appears to be the only avenue for transmission. Therefore, because the virus is so deadly, it often kills the victim before spreading. In this fashion Ebola epidemics tend to "burn out" very quickly. In a perverse way, this is rather fortunate. Otherwise Ebola would be a good candidate for an apocalyptic pandemic.

Marburg is another member of this class of mysterious viruses. It's named after Marburg, Germany, the site of one epidemic. This virus induces symptoms similar to that of Ebola, although it may not be quite as lethal. Compared to Ebola, Marburg has generated fewer epidemics. That said, a recent Marburg outbreak (April 2005) caused hundreds of deaths and widespread panic in northern Angola.

There is no treatment for either disease. Mortality ranges up to 85% for Ebola, and 30% for Marburg. These statistics, of course, only hold true under conditions of extremely intensive care; without such care, both diseases are close to 100% lethal.

Interestingly, such lethality isn't uncommon among emerging diseases. There are two reasons for this. First, the new host population simply hasn't had a chance to develop any immunity to the newly emergent pathogen. The new disease constitutes a biological surprise attack. Second, the pathogen itself hasn't fully adapted to its host, and so has an innate tendency to run rampant. Thus, newly emergent diseases tend to be bad news.

Generally speaking (but not always), the level of a pathogen's lethality decreases over time. Over many generations the host species develops resistance while the virus itself evolves into more benign forms. The idea of evolving immunity probably makes sense to you, but why would the virus itself become friendlier? Although it might seem counter-intuitive, this in fact makes evolutionary sense. The pathogen, after all, really doesn't care if you live or die - but it does have a vested interest in its own life. Once it kills you, the party is over. No more happy reproduction, no more spreading of the genes. Once you're dead, the virus needs to find a new host pronto or die itself. Failing to spread, the virus will share your own fate. (Faint consolation, perhaps, as you witness your liver drain out of your anus).

Conversely, the longer the pathogen allows you to live, the more time it has to spread to other hosts. Therefore, over time, diseases such as this tend to be selected for relative gentleness. This increases their spread and survival prospects and, by happy coincidence, decreases overall suffering.

Unfortunately, Ebola hasn't been around people long enough to evolve into something more akin to the common cold. Unless the doctor is unusually hurried, it will never be mistaken for a case of the sniffles.

Given its ferocity Ebola is of special interest for biological weapons. Seeing the opportunity, a number of nations and cults have made shopping-expeditions to Ebola zones in attempts to acquire the virus. If successful, presumably they've been very careful with the resulting product. Handling ebola is about as safe as handling plutonium, and requires a similar attention to strict standards of protection.

Research efforts have been made to "tune" Ebola down, so that it has a chance to spread before killing its victim. It is also reported that Ebola has been genetically combined with other microorganisms, such as smallpox, to create chimeric weapons of tremendous spread and lethality. Therefore, even if natural Ebola itself isn't a great threat to most of the world, the Ebola genotype could be a different matter.

HIV, Emerging Disease

HIV is the classic emerging virus. As mankind's population grows, as the environment degrades, as health systems break down, viruses are presented with new evolutionary opportunities. A few decades ago the ancestor of HIV took such an opportunity and established itself in a human host. Aided by poverty, fast transportation and a breakdown in social traditions, the virus quickly spread worldwide and became a pandemic. AIDS was born.

The epidemic has come in waves. The first wave hit Africa - particularly southern Africa - and remains the most advanced. As of 2003, the epidemic in this region had already dramatically affected population structure and longevity. Economic growth is slowing and the social fabric is beginning to tear, as the burden of so many deaths erodes the structure of these societies. This effect is particularly exaggerated by the fact that AIDS tends to strike young adults in their economic prime.

There are tremendous web resources focused on AIDS. It is by far the most visible of emerging diseases, largely since it has touched the western world in addition to its impact elsewhere. However, given the social and ecological factors driving AIDS, we can expect to see many more emerging diseases of this type in the future. It is probable that some of these coming plagues will be far worse than the AIDS epidemic.

Influenza, Spanish Flu

The Spanish Flu (a misnomer, since it had nothing to do with Spain), would perhaps be better called the "Forgotten Plague". Despite devastating the planet in 1918, causing over 30 million deaths, this epidemic has been completely forgotten except by a few researchers.

It's interesting to speculate about the causes of this global amnesia. Certainly the fact that the epidemic happened in the midst of World War I might have had a lot to do with it. Amid the slaughter of this period an additional 30 million deaths might have been seen as just another tribulation, much less visible than if it happened in peacetime. Another factor might have been a collective psychological need to forget everything that happened during this period and get on with the Roaring 1920s. Why dwell on the past? Certainly there was little profit in it, since this terrifying plague had magically disappeared along with the war.

And terrifying it certainly was. The virus struck quickly. Healthy people would feel mildly feverish in the morning, go to work, and then drop dead on the commute back home. Soldiers in the prime of life fell in the thousands. The virus struck randomly, indiscriminately, killing some and sparing others, in a global pandemic that in a few months reached every corner of the planet. There was no escape and no cure. One could only hope to not become infected.

The Spanish Flu had an odd characteristic: it seemed to preferentially target young healthy people. Usually influenza is lethal only to the old or immune-compromised. Yet this virus was spectacularly deadly to young men and women in their 20's and 30's. This is one of the key reasons why this virus became so interesting to biological warfare researchers of later decades.

What was the origin of the Spanish Flu? It appears to have been an extraordinarily simple thing: a point mutation or recombination in the influenza virus, transforming a normally humble organism into a lethal killer. Influenza is genetically unstable. It has a very high mutation rate, technically known as a fast antigenic drift. This serves the virus well, allowing it to constantly evade the immune systems of its hosts. When you recover from a viral infection your immune system becomes primed to recognize that particular virus in the future, granting immunity from another attack. Normally this translates to lifelong immunity, since your body can now recognize and deal with the given pathogen for the rest of your life. This is why, for example, smallpox and measles can only strike you once. Once you've recovered from such an infection your immune system successfully shrugs off any further attack.

Such is not the case with influenza. Its rapid mutation defeats the immune system, presenting it with a new look each season. This is why people get sick from the "flu" year after year. They're always one step behind in an evolutionary arms race. No matter what the prior state of their immune system, they are always easy targets to the season's new and improved model of virus.

Given this, it's easy to see what happened in 1918. Somewhere in the world a single influenza virus underwent a mutation. This particular mutation, quite by chance, made this particular virus extraordinarily virulent. The virus found an unfortunate human being, reproduced and spread. A chain reaction began, soon engulfing the world.

Thus the Spanish Flu was, ecologically speaking, nothing special. It was just the standard microorganism, doing its standard thing, living the happy life of a influenza virus. Mankind simply got unlucky in this particular cycle.

For this reason, and because Influenza is highly infectious, the disease is very carefully monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO). Health professionals are very aware of its latent capabilities. This close monitoring has caused a few false alarms, including the infamous 1976 "swine-flu" scare. Yet no one doubts that such careful attention is merited.

China is a major source for novel respiratory viruses. This is due to a number of factors, including the dense and mobile population, the temperate climate, social habits (such as spitting), and the proximity to large numbers of poultry and pigs. The influenza virus infects both birds and pigs, and their density in China allows the virus to more-easily recombine and evolve into new forms. Because of this, influenza monitoring systems are particularly focused on this country.

A good example of this dynamic occurred in 2003, when Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome jumped into the human species in southern China. From there it quickly spread to the rest of the world. Although not nearly as lethal as the Spanish Flu, the SARS pandemic vividly illustrates the ongoing threat.

Currently there is no effective cure for influenza. However, vaccines are quite effective in preventing acquisition of the disease.

What would happen should another virulent mutation strike? In a world much more populous and interconnected than in 1918? It is not clear that modern medicine and health systems are any better prepared than in 1918. And, of course, influenza isn't the only viral threat we face. There are other viruses out there, some of which are even scarier.

Another source of influenza-angst is bioterrorism. Given the relative simplicity of the 1918 mutation, it is believed that the modern virus could be engineered to incorporate that genome. Why wait impatiently for the next influenza apocalypse, when you can use technology to hurry it along? Because of this, there was a great deal of trepidation when the nature of the mutation was discovered a few years ago. While interesting from a pure scientific standpoint, some asked a fundamental question: might this knowledge be simply to dangerous for mankind to possess? History has not yet provided an answer to this question.

Smallpox, History

Down through the ages smallpox has been one of mankind's greatest terrors. It is difficult to overstate the horror and misery this disease has inflicted. If the disease didn't kill you, it would generally blind or scar you. In many traditional societies it was commonplace to not bothering naming a child until he or she had survived smallpox. There was simply no point in doing so until the parents knew that the child would live.

Smallpox is perfectly adapted to humans and lives nowhere else. Unlike many pathogens, there is no animal reservoir to which the virus can retreat. In addition, smallpox is relatively fragile and can not survive long outside a human being. Further, the virus never lies latent; it either quickly kills its host or moves on to a new victim. These facts make smallpox uniquely susceptible to eradication, for once eliminated from human bodies it has no where else to flee. Therefore, through a global program of vaccinations lasting many years, the virus was gradually corralled into ever-smaller geographic zones. This massive coordinated effort was perhaps the most successful health program of all time. It reached it's conclusion in 1977, when the last wild smallpox virus was tracked down and killed in Somalia. Since then no cases have ever occurred, anywhere in the world. Vaccinations soon ceased and the world rejoiced. Smallpox is extinct.

Well, almost. Just in case, two storage sites were permitted to keep the last surviving frozen samples of the virus. One of these sites was in the United States, the other in Russia. Needless to say, both sites had the highest biosecurity levels and were heavily guarded.. The demon might be captured and on ice, but no one doubted what would happen should it escape. In a world of unvaccinated billions with absolutely no immunity, a global apocalypse was a certainty should the virus ever reach the open air. A small laboratory freezer held prisoner a monster that could literally destroy the world. Presumably the freezer door had a padlock on it.

As you might guess, this made people a bit uneasy. Proposals were put forward to destroy these last remaining stocks. Why keep something so insanely dangerous? Various counter-arguments were put forth. Some felt that it was ethically wrong to drive any species to extinction, even a killer virus. Others felt that the value to future genetic research outweighed any hypothetical concerns about viral escape. The Clinton administration, however, seemed inclined to destroy these stocks because of their intrinsic danger. The Russians agreed.

But then reality interfered, as it often does. Intelligence reports began to indicate that the virus had been acquired by other countries, including Iraq and North Korea. Where did these countries obtain the virus? No one is sure, but one likely candidate is Russia. It turns out that, for many years, the Russian viral store was not so well-guarded after all. Through theft or bribes a few test tubes had gone missing. Once seed stock was in the hands of a rogue regime, it was easy to breed up fresh stores. In this way the demon was given a fresh lease on life.

Smallpox is just too good at killing people and thus makes a terrifyingly perfect biological weapon. Mankind couldn't pass up such an opportunity.

Because of all these developments the American policy went into sudden reverse. The U.S. smallpox stores were not destroyed. Instead, an emergency vaccination program was initiated. A number of other countries followed suit. In the space of a few years smallpox went from a historical abstraction to a clear and present danger. The sunny optimism that once surrounded the biological weapons treaties has been replaced by a gritty realism.

It takes very little to get smallpox - breathing in just a handful of viral particles is sufficient. After you acquire the virus, it takes 12-14 days for symptoms to appear. The classic course of the disease is this: first, you develop a fever, then a splitting headache. A couple days later a rash develops. Unlike chickenpox, smallpox lesions develop uniformly and all over the body (whereas chickenpox comes in crops, are much more superficial and more variable in size). At this stage patients often develop a "worried" face - an expression that is considered diagnostic of of the disease. You become very sick.

The rash spreads, covering the body. The lesions are hard and filled with pus, and painful to touch. Just lying on a sheet causes excruciating pain. Sometimes the lesions spread down the throat, constricting breathing. Often they infest the eyes, the mouth, the throat, the anus. Convulsions are common at this stage. In some cases the rash then merges into sheets. These sheets blacken and peel off the body in bloody layers. You begin to bleed internally. This is known as "black pox" and is invariably fatal. (Weapons designers prefer this form, of course). A sweet and penetrating stench comes from your body which can be discerned from quite a distance. This is the "smallpox smell". Those who have smelled it never forget the experience.

After a week the lesions begin to crust and harden. The patient may take this as a good sign and feel they're recovering. In fact, this is one of the more dangerous stages. Patients often die at this point from immune system shock.

Should you survive smallpox, you will forever bear marks from the experience. If lucky, this means your face will be deeply scarred. If unlucky, you will be both scarred and permanently blinded. The mortality rate for adults and children is similar. However, should they survive, babies and children often exhibit less scarring than adults. In indigenous societies that survived smallpox epidemics, it was often noted that entire generations had partial or full blindness, plus the deep facial scarring.

Even if scarred and blinded, once a person survives a bout with the disease he is no longer contagious. However, smallpox scabs themselves remain infectious for up to two years. Given these scabs invariably rub off onto a number of surfaces during the course of the disease (such as beds, clothing and blankets), the potential for disease spread remains very high.

There is no cure for smallpox. However smallpox vaccine is quite effective in preventing the natural form of the disease. Also, it's important to note that this vaccine can be effective in preventing death even if given a few days after acquisition of the virus. Once the disease is in full course, however, there is no treatment. Also, note that it may be the case that weaponized smallpox is immune to the vaccination.

Of course, much research is going into finding anti-virals for smallpox. To date no drugs are available, although Cidofovir (Vistide) has shown promise in early testing.

Typically smallpox comes in 14-day waves: an initial wave, a lull, a bigger wave, another lull, and so on, building to a terrifying crescendo. The virus can attack at any time and any season, but seems a bit partial to cooler and drier weather. Because of the nature of the virus and these waves, the usual health tactic for a smallpox epidemic is ring-vaccination. In ring-vaccination the primary carrier of the virus is isolated, while all those who had contact with him are vaccinated. In this fashion vaccinated "rings" are established around the virus, preventing its further propagation. This method was quite effective in dampening and eliminating natural smallpox epidemics. However, it is not likely that it would be effective in the case of a full-blown attack: there would simply be too many primary carriers and thus too many rings. The entire population would have to be vaccinated instead to be effective. That is, of course, if the smallpox had not been specifically engineered to resist this vaccine.

Today, with smallpox officially extinct from the wild, it is easy to for us to be sanguine about such a seemingly remote topic. Yet this is not a remote topic. The weaponized virus is out of the freezer and is perhaps growing more deadly over time. Few doubt that this virus will appear again, one way or another.

The following links document the history, progression and symptoms of the disease. It is a fascinating read. But be warned, this archive can also be a bit gruesome.

Tuberculosis, TB

Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been present in human populations since antiquity. Early Egyptian and ancient Chinese civilizations already thought of the disease as ancient. Hippocrates identified it as being a very widespread disease in the Greek city-states and usually a fatal one. Indeed, "consumption" - a common term for TB, is derived from the Greek term "phtisis".

For a period in the 17th and 18th century it almost became fashionable to suffer from consumption. It sometimes seemed to favor the artistic - poets, writers and their admirers. This fashion may have been helped by the presence of sanatoriums - basically health clubs, usually located in clean dry climates, where combination of rest, climate and good food could sometimes effect a cure.

TB fell easily to early antibiotics. A rapid succession of such drugs virtually erased TB as a serious health threat by the 1960s (in the developed world, at least). In fact, the conquest of TB was often held up as a role model of what scientific progress and strong health care could accomplish.

Beginning in 1980s a worrisome trend began to develop - TB rates began to rise worldwide, even in the developed nations. This was driven by a number of factors, including the slow erosion of health systems, rapid immigration, and growing intractable poverty in some locations. But the greatest factor in this spread was the rise of Multi-Drug Resistance (MDR). Essentially, TB turned out to be quite nimble in the evolutionary sense. Therefore strains evolved that were impervious to one or more of the commonly-used antibiotics. As the years passed this problem became more acute, until by 1990 all TB was resistant to some antibiotics, and some strains were resistant to virtually every drug. This evolutionary surprise set off alarm bells in the medical community. Suddenly the world faced a new TB epidemic. But this time there were few options for treatment.

TB turned out to be the harbinger of the future, for now many pathogens exhibit MDR. This is one of the greatest health challenges mankind faces - and a grim warning for how flexible and mutable disease organisms can be.

Tularemia, Rabbit Fever

Tularemia is caused by the Francisella tularensis bacterium. This bacterium is found in a variety of wild animals. However, a principle reservoir appears to be rabbits. Hence tularemia is often called rabbit fever. The bacterium is very widespread and found in most places in the world.

In the natural state tularemia is usually contracted by working with an infected animal. Trappers and hunters are the traditional risk groups. Transmission of the bacterium is often affected during skinning of a fresh carcass. Again, rabbits are particularly risky. However, tularemia is quite widespread and a number of species can harbor the bacterium. Transmission can also be accomplished via tick or flea bite, by drinking infected water (contaminated with a dead carcass), and by eating meat from an infected animal that has not been well cooked. The bacterium is tolerant of low temperatures and can survive in water. It is never spread from person-to-person.

Tularemia is one of the most infectious pathogenic bacteria known. Indeed, it has become infamous in laboratory settings for causing infection amongst researchers at the slightest opportunity. The inhalation of as few as 10 organisms is enough to initiate a full-blown case of the disease.

Typical symptoms appear within 3-5 days. If contracted by skin these symptoms include a slow-growing ulcer at the infection site and swollen lymph nodes. If the bacterium is inhaled, additional symptoms include a fever, sore throat, abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting. This inhalation form of the disease is far more dangerous than the skin form of the disease.

A range of antibiotics are used in treatment, with streptomycin and gentamicin being most commonly used. Usually infection will confer long-term immunity to an individual. A vaccine is under development but not currently available.

Tularemia comes in a number of strains, some far more virulent than others. Therefore lethality varies quite a bit. In its typical wild form and with suitable treatment however, tularmeia is rarely fatal.

Even so, tularemia is easily aerosolized, thus making delivery of its dangerous inhalation form possible in a bioweapon. Due to this and due to tularemia's extreme infectious capability, tularemia has therefore always been a very desirable biological weapon. The Japanese pioneered the use of weaponized tularemia before and during World War 2. After the war both the Soviet Union and the United States actively created pursued their own research here, eventually deploying a number of Tularmeia weapons. The United States destroyed their arsenal in 1970. The Soviets intensified their own efforts in their Biopreparat program.

The Soviets may have been inspired in this effort by their own history. During the siege of Leningrad in World War 2, a major tularmeia plague afflicted the area around the city. Although firm evidence has never been produced, some believe that this plague was artificially induced by the Soviets as a means to weaken the Nazi onslaught.

It's believed that a number of countries currently stock tularemia weapons. Given tularemia's relative ease of access and aerosolization, it is also likely that terrorist groups are attracted to this agent. To date, however, there is no open literature indicating that terrorist groups indeed have such weapons. Models indicate that a terrorist attack via a virulent weaponized tularemia would kill up to 60% of a population in a target city.

Drug Development & Vaccines

Humanity has held a variety of beliefs about the origin of disease. In the past, illness was variously attributed to animistic spirits, witchcraft and the imbalance of the fluids or "humours" of the body. The ancient Chinese devised a complex system revolving around a set of abstracted basic elements, such as wind and water, and their relative place within the energy fields of the body. The Greeks and Romans blamed disease on the effects of bad air. (The Latin term for which evolved into the word "malaria".) Mankind never lacks for explanations on any given phenomena, and disease was no exception.

Treatment of disease was determined by the prevailing medical theory of the time. Bad air was treatable by perfumes and vapors, whereas animistic causes demanded charms and spiritual intervention. Imbalanced humours often required more direct action, such as bloodletting. These methods were usually not very effective, but were rarely questioned. This is also a hallmark of our species: we tend to believe things that make us feel comfortable but have no foundation in empirical fact.

That said, by simple observation and trial-and-error, some societies evolved effective strategies against a few diseases. For example, the Chinese invented a form of vaccination many centuries ago. This vaccination method became very visible during the early Islamic period when traffic along the old Silk Road was at a peak. Then it was commonplace for merchants to have a deep cut made between their thumb and first finger, into which cut was rubbed the dried scabs of a smallpox victim. Usually the patient developed a mild form of smallpox. Sometimes the patient was unlucky and developed a full and fatal case of the disease. But the risk was worth it, for the shock of this procedure flooded the body with smallpox antibodies, enabling the merchant to traverse Asia with immunity to this deadly disease.

Other societies applied different techniques. For instance, ancient hunting-and-gathering people had intimate knowledge of medicinal plants, many of which had powerful and precise antibiotic and antifungal properties, that were quite effective against a range of pathogens. In addition, such societies were often quite aware of the ecological matrix of disease. Tribesmen of New Guinea knew to stay above a certain elevation at all times - for descending into the lower elevations meant certain death in the form of deadly disease transmitted by insects. Virtually the entire New Guinean population lived in the mountain plateaus whereas the lowland jungles were uninhabited. Similarly, nomads in Mongolia knew to keep away from indigenous rodents, which were carriers of bubonic plague.

With increasing urbanization, much of this lore was lost. Individuals lived divorced from their environmental context and therefore had little feel for how illness spread. Simultaneously, mankind became much more victimized by disease due to concentrated population. The ironic effect was that "civilized" man suffered far more illnesses and greater mortality than his primitive ancestors; the average lifespan of a city-dweller prior to the 19th century was much lower than that of contemporary forest tribesmen or ancient mammoth-hunters. Cities were good for many things, but not for human health. They were, in fact, usually population sinks; deaths exceeded births. If not for regular migration from rural areas, such cities would not have been able to maintain their population levels. It is little wonder that wealthy urban families, from Roman to modern times, usually kept a rural villa as well. The countryside was far safer.

This situation continued well into the 19th century. Only then, as a result of improvements in public health, the adoption (over fierce medical and religious resistance) of the Germ Theory of Disease, and the early beginnings of effective drug treatments, did pathogens become more manageable. Interestingly, many of these early efforts were in fact rediscoveries of ancient practices. For example in the early 18th century, Mary Montague, a British aristocrat, learned of the ancient Chinese practice of smallpox inoculation while living in Turkey. She introduced the practice in Britain. Eventually the technique was picked up, refined and popularized by Dr. Edward Jenner, who thus became the "inventor" of vaccination. (Mary Montague received no recognition and, in fact, avoided the public eye because she suffered severe facial scarring from her own bout with smallpox.)

Similarly, the gold-standard of malaria treatment for many centuries was quinine. This drug was "discovered" by monks in the Andean forests, who observed that the native Incans made a beverage from the bark of an indigenous "fever tree", the chichona. The active ingredient of this preparation - the alkaloid quinine - eliminated the symptoms of malaria. As there was no alternative treatment for malaria at that time, quinine was rapidly accepted. Beyond saving Europe itself from the ravages of malaria, quinine became essential to European colonial efforts. Without it, it would have been impossible for Europeans to inhabit many of their malarial tropical outposts. Quinine literally became a life-saving drink for the white man.

In the 20th, century drug-discovery and development became big business. With the basic scientific foundations in place, antibiotics and vaccines eliminated disease after disease. It was a golden age, and it was widely assumed that epidemic disease was relegated to the past. By the close of the century, the plagues that had terrorized humanity for ages became footnotes in books - not even a memory to most people. Most new anti-bacterial and anti-viral drug research ceased. Vaccinations for childhood diseases became increasingly "optional". (With the general fall in education standards and backlash against science in the U.S., some even doubted that vaccines and drugs worked at all. Witness the recent efforts to deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS.)

But beneath this bright surface, dark forces were rising. As the global environment deteriorated and populations multiplied, the quality of public health began to decrease over much of the globe. As a result new viruses such as HIV and ebola appeared, for which there was no cure. In addition, old diseases silently evolved resistance to drugs and became more menacing. This evolution was greatly aided by over-prescription of antibiotics by physicians and the increasingly compromised immune systems in individuals, providing millions of ideal genetic recombination labs for mutating viruses and bacteria. Very quickly mankind's defenses against disease began to weaken. For example, quinine is now totally ineffective against malaria - as are a host of other drugs that once provided protection. There exists in the world today untreatable malaria, a situation not seen in two centuries. Other diseases such as tuberculosis developed similar resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics. As a result, illness and mortality from disease is increasing around the globe. Even in the best hospitals in the western world, viruses and bacteria that are resistant to all known treatments are becoming increasingly common.

Even darker trends are now at work, for the advancement of biological science is increasingly put to negative as well as positive use. The molecular basis of pathogenesis is increasingly well understood. It is now possible to engineer deadlier diseases, more virulent and resistant to all forms of treatment. Such pathogens, released either by war, by terrorism, or simply by accident, would devastate our species. Medical science currently has no answer to this threat.

Some individuals are addressing this situation and working towards solutions. A few drug companies have begun development of new classes of antibiotics. Public policy is very slowly becoming more aware. For example, physicians are now encouraged to avoid the overuse of existing antibiotics, so as to slow down the evolution of bacterial resistance. Various non-profit groups are working to introduce new treatments to the developing world, where the options are limited and becoming fewer. Also, smallpox vaccines are now being redeveloped and applied on a large scale.

Even so, we face a massive crisis, a "Revenge of the Germs". This section documents efforts in developing new drugs and treatments, and also provides a historical perspective.

Archive Keys

Drug Development, Vaccines

There have been increasing legal and economic hurdles to the development of new drugs against infectious disease. American vaccine makers, in particular, have been exposed to hordes of lawsuits, most of them frivolous, which have blocked or delayed vaccine use and development. In addition, there has been a growing "anti-vaccination" movement. Unscientific and driven by myth and emotion, this movement has also had a discouraging effect on vaccination. As a result, the risk of tragic infection increases yearly for many sectors of the population.

In the third world there has been the additional problem of social or governmental breakdown. India is one example. In India the rate of polio is increasing. Given polio is easily blocked via childhood vaccination, how is that possible? The problem is one of education and governmental failure. Among Indian poor (especially Muslims), there is growing distrust of vaccination. Rumors have been spread that polio vaccination in particular will cause sterility. Others detect a conspiracy against them. Therefore many families are hostile to these programs and refuse to get vaccinated. As a result, polio has returned with a vengeance. India, at least, has a functioning health-care system, albeit one that must wrestle with great poverty. Other nations are less lucky and now face even greater challenges.

There has also been a problem with new-drug development, particularly for diseases that primarily afflict poorer areas. Bluntly put, poor people in undeveloped countries lack the money to buy drugs, and thus there is little economic incentive for drug firms to pursue research in these areas.

This problem is exacerbated by the rapid increase of drug-resistance in many diseases. Unfortunately, microorganisms are a moving target. They rapidly evolve and develop genetic counter-measures to currently available drugs. Thus as multi-drug antibiotic resistance (MDR) has evolved in a variety of diseases there have been little or no new drugs to fall back on. The result is increasing tragedy for millions of people.

A number of non-profit organizations are attempting to fill this void by funding research into cures for diseases that otherwise would attract little for-profit interest. A good example of this are the various groups focused on malaria, such as the Bill Gates Foundation. There have been some inspired governmental efforts as well.

In addition, some drug companies have adopted two-tier pricing, selling their drugs more cheaply in third-world countries compared to in the richer developed world. This is particularly true for HIV medications. Even so, it is rare for such cheaper generics to be fully available everywhere. Such a drug might be found cheaply in Thailand, for example, while remaining unavailable in Botswana. It is very difficult

Some activist groups accuse the drug-companies of predatory pricing and seek avenues in which to force low-priced availability of expensive drugs. While laudatory in goals, these efforts are usually short-sighted and do not take into account economic realities. Drug development is expensive and risky. If firms that do such development discover that they can not recoup their investment, then obviously new drug development will slow even further. One possible solution to this riddle would be for governments and world health bodies to shoulder the burden, subsidizing effective drug access for the world's poor. Unfortunately, there is little political will to do this. This failure is doubly unfortunate. Beyond the obvious moral issues, such an attitude presents health risks for the entire planet. No country is an island. Allowing disease to spread, entrench and evolve in one population means that eventually this disease will strike other populations as well. Microorganisms do not respect national boundaries or discern between rich and poor. This is an ancient lesson we may need to relearn soon.

Drug Resistance, MDR

The core organizing principle of modern biology is evolution. The theory of evolution occupies roughly the same spot in biology as the atomic theory occupies in physics. That is, it is the foundational stone upon which all further work is built.

Microorganisms are a wonderful laboratory in which to witness evolution in action. Given their numbers and lifespan, they can react quite quickly to new environmental influences. Thus one can see them change with extreme rapidity. Using a variety of genetic techniques, they have the capability to very quickly acquire biochemical traits to take advantage of new situations or to defend against new threats.

In evolutionary terms, these new situations constitute selection pressures. That is, they are environmental pressures on the organisms which select certain individual organisms as being better suited to this new environment than others. These selected organisms then pass on their beneficial traits to their offspring. In this manner, beneficial traits accrue in the population while loss which are less-beneficial disappear. Given enough such changes and given other criteria (such as geographic isolation) these changes can add up to the point where a population can no longer interbreed with its ancestor population. Because of different selection pressures over time, these populations are now so different that they are genetically isolated in the reproductive sense. They can no longer mate and produce viable offspring. In this manner new species are created.

From the perspective of a microbe, anti-bacterial and anti-viral drugs are selection pressures. They present the pathogen with a range of hostile environments. Given this, those microorganisms that have through chance mutation or recombination acquired traits that resist these selection pressures have a great advantage. While all their fellow organisms might be destroyed, they survive. Thus it is more likely that their genes for resisting these hostile environments will be passed on to the next generation.

This is exactly what has happened over the past few decades. Pathogens have rapidly evolved resistance to the modern technology of antibiotics. As antibiotics have become more widespread - and abused - microorganisms have increasingly developed resistance. In addition, new drugs have become rare and increasingly expensive. Therefore a host of diseases once easily treatable are now potentially fatal.

Consider malaria. Human malaria first arose in West Africa in prehistoric times. In a sign of how ancient the disease is, west African populations have evolved significant genetic resistance to the parasite. This resistance takes the form of the Sickle Cell gene. One copy of this gene alters red blood cells in a way which discourages parasitization by the malarial organism. (Whereas two copies of this gene induce Sickle Cell Anemia, an often-fatal result.)

In historic times malaria has spread to all parts of the globe. Once considered a tractable disease, it has recently evolved resistance to many antibiotics. As a result, malaria is a growing affliction. For example, chloroquine - once the first-line treatment for malaria- is no longer effective in over 80 countries. But evolution doesn't stop there. In addition, many malaria strains have evolved Multiple Drug Resistance (MDR). That is, they are resistant to not just a single medication but to a broad array of such treatments. Thus there now exists in this world untreatable malaria, a situation which has not existed for centuries. For malaria, modern technology is in retreat in its fight against evolution and microbes.

MDR is now a pervasive problem throughout the world. For example, dysentery is now 90% immune to the two first-line drugs. Typhoid epidemics are increasingly immune to treatment. Tuberculosis is now often untreatable. Epidemics of MDR-TB (Multi-Drug Resistance) are now being reported all over the world, from the poorest shanty-towns of Brazil to the plushest suburbs of Chicago.

Drug-resistance is pervasive amongst viral diseases as well. Here HIV is a textbook example of evolution in action. HIV is genetically unstable and has an extremely high mutation rate. Because of this, even small HIV populations rapidly evolve resistance to anti-viral drugs. This is the reason why anti-viral "cocktails" (a mixture of multiple drugs) are the only effective treatment for AIDS: the virus evolves so rapidly that it quickly finds ways to defeat a single anti-viral agent. Therefore only by administering multiple drugs is the virus held in check.

This rapid evolution is also the reason, by the way, why there are more HIV strains (technically known as clades) in Africa than in the rest of the world. Since HIV originated in Africa it has had more time to evolve greater diversity relative to the rest of the world, where just a few viral strains predominate. Because of this, HIV is much more difficult to treat in Africa than in Europe or America. The higher innate diversity of the wild African HIV strains makes them more likely to resist a given treatment or vaccine.

The implications of MDR are most immediate for non-developed world. Here cost is a more important factor and so options are limited. But don't think the problem stops there. In 1999, 14,000 patients in the US died from drug-resistant bacteria. The fear of MDR haunts the finest hospitals in the developed world. Illnesses that just a few years ago were easily treated now can cause panics, as physicians race to determine which - if any - drugs can still deal with the problem. Indeed, MDR organisms are increasingly dragging the world back to the terrors of pre-modern days.

Environmental Impacts

The threat of catastrophic diseases is fundamentally intertwined with our impact on the environment. Disease and environment cannot be decoupled, for the problem of infectious disease is a systemic one. All pathogenic microorganisms arise, mutate and spread within an ecological context. As environments change and degrade due to human influence, new diseases arise and old diseases increase in lethality. This problem is further exaggerated by mankind's increase in population, mobility, and by the degradation of the urban environment, all of which are further engines for viral exploitation. Already, as we read in the newspapers every day, new diseases are attacking the world. So far none of these have been 100% fatal for Homo sapiens, but in statistical terms, such an outcome is inevitable. The genetic roulette wheel is remorseless.

Let's look at a few ongoing examples. Many diseases rely on insects as vectors in their life cycle. As insect ranges alter - due to global warming or habitat alteration, for instance - the range of disease can alter as well. We see this dynamic with certain species of mosquitoes. Over the past few decades the range of virus-carrying mosquitoes has expanded all over the world. Thus people in temperate climates are beginning to see a range of diseases that were historically confined to tropical climates. Malaria has spread to new regions of the globe, while also increasing its virulence and resistance to treatment. Likewise, dengue fever has reached Texas via Mexico (after spreading from its ancestral home in Southeast Asia). Dengue fever is at best a miserable experience, and is increasingly a fatal one as well.

Another example is lyme disease, spread by a species of deer tick which harbors the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Deer populations have soared in the United States due to the elimination of their natural predators. This has led to an explosion in the number of ticks, which in turn has led to an explosion of Lyme cases. Lyme often leads to permanent neurological damage and disability.

The deadly disease AIDS also came about due to ecological disruption. The original ancestral HIV, known as SIV, inhabits certain African primates. In them the virus is apparently benign. Local human populations had no problems with this virus. But then massive deforestation and mankind's increasing numbers put him into increased contact with these primates. There was a mutation and a virus jumped from primate to man. HIV - and AIDS - was born.

Such mutations happen all the time; they are one of the prime engines of evolutionary biology and are usually inconspicuous against the broader fabric of life. Most such mutations are negative. They either grant no advantage or are actually detrimental to the organism. Such mutations are therefore not selected for and never gain a foothold in a populaton. Such was not the case with HIV. Facilitated by widespread poverty and lack of healthy services in Africa, plus increasing population and mobility, the new virus established itself deeply in the population. And then in a few decades, made its transition into the world population, with devastating results.

Another case is that of the West Nile virus. The recent introduction of the this virus into the United States could be catastrophic for parts of the environment. Endemic to parts of Africa it had never established itself in the temperate world. But, with climates warming and mosquitoes spreading, West Nile suddenly found a home in the United States. Finding virgin territory and biologically naive populations, it continues to spread unchecked. While rarely killing people, it is a broad-based and fearsome virus for many other creatures; it infects hundreds of different species and kills many of them extremely quickly. "I've never seen anything like it," says one biologist. "Crows, eagles, birds of all sorts are susceptible to it. It seems to be extremely deadly - crows are literally dying while in flight." West Nile looks set to destroy a large part of the ecosystem of North America.

Of course, people aren't crows. Although crows in North America may be in for a rough time, West Nile is rarely fatal to human beings. But will we be so lucky next time?

Other disease outbreaks are the direct result of overpopulation, lack of sanitation and the pollution of agricultural lands. A case in point here is hepatitis. The hepatitis virus comes in a variety of types. All these types infect the liver, and some types are particularly virulent and lethal. Fortunately, hepatitis is not very infectious under normal conditions. Unfortunately, conditions are increasingly abnormal. In particular, sewage contamination of crops can easily spread the virus into agricultural produce. In fact, it is just such contamination that has been responsible for a series of hepatitis outbreaks in Russia and the United States. As cities increasingly encroach upon agricultural lands, such outbreaks grow more likely.

And the examples continue: spreading water-borne diseases in China, new forms of cholera in South America, mysterious and deadly ebola outbreaks in Africa. The pace continues to quicken, as a world out of ecological balance spins off new viruses and new epidemics.

Unfortunately, environmental issues are often politicized around the world, especially in the United States. "Environmentalism", to some people, means preferring trees and animals over human beings. But, as we can see, Homo sapiens is deeply reliant on this planet, whether we acknowledge it or not. Environmental trends have a deep and direct impact on our species as well.

Archive Keys

Environmental Disruption

Ecological disruption is a major force behind the spread of established and emerging diseases. As mankind alters the environment he is therefore literally sowing the seeds for his own destruction. The increased ferocity of disease we now face is a direct result of our ecological impact on the planet. The World Health Organization estimates that this ecological impact is the root cause for between 25-50% of new infectious diseases.

This becomes clearer when you consider the ecological matrix in which all organisms live. Just like Homo sapiens, pathogenic organisms are integral parts of the environment. They exist in complex and often quite subtle relationships with their vectors and hosts. These relationships have evolved over millions of years and are thus usually quite stable. However when environments change quickly, when ecosystems are transfigured or eliminated, pathogenic organisms are themselves transformed and disrupted. This creates opportunities for microorganisms to jump into new species and into new pathogenic behaviors.

The disruptive pressures can be subtle. For example, when microorganisms are unusually stressed, their mutation rates can increase. This is an evolutionary tactic that allows them to move on to new habitats, should the current habitat become inhospitable. Antibiotics are such a disruptive pressure. In an antibiotic-rich environment, microorganisms naturally mutate into forms that can resist the antibiotic. Over time this means that diseases that once were curable become effectively incurable. This can be seen today in diseases as far-ranging as Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Global warming is another example of pervasive environmental disruption. The links below note a wide range of effects on disparate areas of our planet, such as the extinction of native birds in Hawaii and dying of oyster fields in Maine. While seemingly isolated events, all are connected to the increasing spread of novel pathogens due to environmental disruption, specifically global-warming.

However, it's fair to say that not all scientists are convinced that global warming will necessarily lead to an increase in all diseases. For example, malaria mosquitoes require both warm and wet weather, and some climatic models predict future drier conditions for the warming temperate zones. Thus, increases in malaria may be more isolated and sporadic than simple models might suggest.

However, in aggregate the best scientific information now is that global warming will lead, on average, to a much-higher disease burden for Homo sapiens as well as other species. This is due to the fact that systematic planetary warming will necessarily have systematic effects on all parts of the globe. History and experimental data show that such disruptions invariably lead to rapid adaptation and radiation of microorganisms and their vectors. This combined with the rapidly growing world population and increased urbanization, means that mankind will inevitably be hit with a wider variety of more-virulent diseases.

Other disruptive pressures include air and water pollution, deforestation, and rapidly-expanding human populations. These all alter the natural balance, leading to an increased possibility of epidemic or pandemic disease. River Blindness (resulting from bad irrigation practices increasing the spread of the snail host), is one of many examples of this dynamic.

The extinction or severe depletion of species is another form of disruption. When the host for a pathogen is increasingly rare and stressed, or in increasing contact with expanding human populations, then a jump to Homo sapiens becomes an increased possibility. HIV, which jumped from diminished Chimpanzee populations to swelling human populations, is an example.

This is a general phenomenon. Pathogens, which are widely present in undisturbed forests usually, do not constitute a threat, given that man is not a natural host. However, if the preferred non-human host is removed then that creates a selection pressure for the pathogen to jump to another host. The total elimination of an ecosystem, such as a forest, is one way to eliminate a wide range of natural hosts, thus forcing pathogenic organisms into the human ecology. This particular dynamic is most vivid in the African rainforests and in the Amazon, where large scale ecological disturbances are literally shaking ancient viruses out of the trees and into local human populations. From there it is a short airplane ride to all the urban centers of the world.

Emerging Disease, Animals

Humans are not the only species targeted by emerging diseases and increased pathogenic virulence. From crows and eagles in North America, to lions in Africa, to frogs and amphibians around the world, environmental stresses are taking a heavy toll. The tempo of this problem is increasing rapidly, as increased environmental pressures affect both humanity as well as other organisms.

One example of this is the unexplained spread of Phocine Distemper virus(PDV) amongst seal populations around the world. PDV is closely related to canine distemper and has apparently always afflicted seal populations to one degree or another. However, in recent years there have been a series of increasingly lethal PDV epidemics amongst seal populations including one in 1998 that wiped out half of Europe's seals. What is causing this epidemic? No one is sure, although it is suspected that pollution and global warming may be combining to depress seal immune systems.

An even more amazing instance is the massive global decline in amphibian populations. Around the world - even in relatively pristine areas - amphibian populations have been crashing. Frogs are particularly hard-hit. In some areas entire species have vanished without a trace in the space of just a few years. The causes appear to be quite complex and remain to be clarified, but the spread of increasingly pathogenic viral and fungal infections seem to be a key element. Amphibians have fragile physiologies and therefore are extremely sensitive to environmental disruption. They thus act as sentinels for coming biological events. Right now these sentinels are flashing red warnings everywhere on the planet.

Another recent example is the introduction of the West Nile virus into a new ecology - North America. As its name implies, West Nile originated in tropical Africa. Apparently it recently jumped to the United States, found the warming climate to it ts liking, and proceeded to sicken and kill a number of people. However, it's far more deadly to other species. In some situations it appears to kill 100% of infected American Crows. Many other bird species, in particular raptors and owls, are also extremely vulnerable.

Yet another example is the recent cancer epidemic afflicting Australia's Tasmanian Devils. Tasmanian Devils are a predatory marsupial confined to - you guessed it - Tasmania. In prehistoric times they ranged in mainland Australia as well, but were apparently eliminated by the aboriginal introduction of the dingo. In any event, the devils are now faced by a retrovirus which induces a fast-growing and fatal form of cancer. The species will probably survive this onslaught, even though it looks like the majority of the population might eventually succumb.

The plant world is just as vulnerable to such epidemics and the results are evident. For instance, in the western United States oak trees are rapidly dying due to a new disease called, appropriately enough, Sudden Oak Death. This disease is caused by the previously unknown fungus Phytophthora ramorum, which is genetically closely related to the species that caused the great Irish potato famine (another classic example of a plant epidemic, by the way). Phytophthora infects over 20 species of plants, including redwoods, although it appears to be particularly deadly in three of these species. Again, no one knows why this fungus has appeared and is exacting such a huge cost. But, as in the previous examples, it is likely that environmental disruption is the key catalyst.

Epidemics and population die-offs are hardly abnormal in the natural world. Ever since multicellular life first evolved during the Cambrian Explosion (and probably before), all species have had to deal with viruses and epidemic disease. Therefore this dynamic is hardly new; pathogenic organisms are nature's crowd-control mechanism and have no rival in efficiency when the time comes to cut a given population down to size. However, what is different in the modern world is the extent and degree to which these epidemics are taking place. The world's natural environment is now in a profoundly stressed state. It is impossible to predict what the final outcome might be.

The cynic might think the previous examples are only of interest to nature-lovers. Who cares if frogs and oak tress die off? That will hardly affect the price of beer or next season's sports schedule. This attitude overlooks the fact that Homo sapiens, whether we like to admit it or not, are as tied to the environment as every other species. We live on this planet too, breathing the same air and drinking the same water. We too are exposed to these same environmental stresses. Further, pathogenic organisms do not greatly respect artificial boundaries. History is full of diseases which crossed over from animal populations into humanity, with devastating results. Among many others, these diseases have historically included smallpox (which evolved from a related pox in the Egyptian era), bubonic plague and influenza. As the world grows ever more out of balance, the pace of these new diseases has increased in recent years. Thus we have the AIDS epidemic, Ebola and during late 2003, SARS.

The world is sending us a message. It remains to be seen if we look up early enough from our television and pizza in order to take action.\

Link: CDC Report On West Nile Virus

Link: Nature: Distemper killing lions

Link3: Canine Distemper Virus

Science & Technology

Through millennia of observation and trial-and-error, many early societies evolved mechanisms for managing disease. The explanations for these customs were generally obscured by taboo or supernatural explanation. Even so, these practices could sometimes be beneficial.

Perhaps the most widespread of these was the notion of quarantine. Many diseases were obviously contagious and so isolation of the diseased individual was often practiced. Those diseases that were particularly repellant or inspired the most fear, such as leprosy and rabies, were the ones most likely to force such a quarantine. In addition to stopping the further spread of disease, some societies had at their disposal a variety of medicinal plants and fungi. The biological basis for their effectiveness of such natural cures was of course unknown, but that did not prevent their adoption. Keen observation and experimentation could accomplish a great deal, even in the absence of a scientific conceptual framework.

Many early human groups also evolved reasonably effective sanitation customs. For example, even when nomadic tribes could remain in an area for a long time - say due to an unusually stable and rich food source - it was generally custom that camp would be moved every few weeks. This prevented an undue build up of human waste and garbage in the living vicinity, effectively eliminating a major health risk. Similar taboos prevented people from venturing into malarial swamps and lowlands, or handling the possibly diseased carcasses of certain dead animals. These customs and taboos, built up through time, acted as automatic barriers to disease acquisition and propagation.

In a few early cultures some sophisticated medical traditions developed. Probably the premier example here was the Ayurvedic medical system of ancient (and modern) India. Ayurvedic medicine anticipated many concepts once thought original to western medicine. Among other things, these included a germ theory of disease, an accurate model of the human circulatory system and an extensive system for surgical procedures. Ayurvedic medicine also codified the use of herbal preparations for the treatment of disease. To this end almost 300 species of plants were brought into service. Amusingly, marijuana (Cannabis) was one of these plants and was held in particularly high regard. It was successfully used to treat a long list of maladies.

Ayurvedic medicine aside, the growth of human populations soon inflicted a great cost to human health and happiness. As cities developed mankind was faced with a new high-density environment. In such urban environments there was no systematic science of sanitation, nor was there usually an appreciation of the underlying mechanisms of disease and epidemic. In addition, new diseases continued to adapt themselves to mankind, finding a fertile ecology in this suddenly-populous mammal. Finally, "civilized" diets were often much worse than that of primitive hunting groups, thus leading to an overall decline in health and immunity. (Judging from ancient skeletons, Paleolithic man was taller and more robust than his settled agricultural descendants. Civilization, built on agriculture, generated high populations but wasn't necessarily healthy for the individual). Therefore as populations slowly rose, mankind faced the triple perils of increased disease variety, increased disease opportunity, and decline in disease resistance.

This situation lasted for centuries, imposing extreme mortality rates upon urban populations. Indeed, until the 19th century, most cites were population sinks: more people died in cities than were born. Only the continued immigration of population from the relatively healthy countryside, driven by urban opportunity, kept city's populations from declining. When this demographic shift from the countryside stopped, due to whatever cause, entire cities could and did vanish. For example, Constantinople - which was perhaps the largest city in the world between the 8th and 11th century, was virtually deserted by the 14th. Cut off from its Anatolian agricultural heartland by the invading Turks, and decimated by repeated epidemics, the city depopulated itself within a few decades. Over the centuries similar demographic implosions struck countless other ancient cities. Only in very modern times has man had the notion that cities invariably increase in population.

Gradually this situation changed as the scientific framework began to make progress on disease. The first milestones were in sanitation. In 1854 John Snow discovered the reason for the spread of cholera, demonstrating its link to polluted London water supplies. Energetic reformers, such as Sir Edwin Chadwick, popularized broader measures to ensure sanitation throughout urban areas, leading to the landmark UK Sanitary Act of 1866. These innovations spread quickly worldwide, becoming standard practice by the 20th century. Today we take basic urban sanitation practices for granted. But they are in fact quite recent, and responsible for saving untold millions of lives over the past couple centuries.

In parallel, great progress was made in understanding the mechanisms of transmission. In 1796, Edward Jenner demonstrated the first modern system of vaccination. By 1801 almost 100,000 individuals were vaccinated against smallpox in the UK. In 1847 Ignal Semmelweiss observed that patients of physicians who performed autopsies suffered from a higher rate of infections than patients of midwives - who did not perform autopsies. In 1857, Louis Paster first noted that microorganisms were responsible for fermentation and putrefaction. Over time this led to the Germ Theory of Disease, first advanced by Robert Koch in 1876.

Moving into the 20th century the distinction between viruses and bacteria was elucidated, and for the first time, the specific organisms underlying specific diseases were discovered. Once these were determined, researchers began to test various compounds that killed these organisms. Thus, in 1905 Paul Ehrlich systematically tested compounds to kill the recently-discovered bacteria that causes Syphilis. Salvarsan, an arsenic compound, turned out to be effective, becoming the first of a series of such compounds. Although not always effective and given to a host of unpleasant side-effects, these compounds were far better than any previous treatments.

The 1940s saw the adoption of penicillin, the first true mass-produced antibiotic. Within a few years a number of other antibiotic compounds came to market. The effectiveness of these against various bacterial infections was stunning. For the first time in history, mankind had the means to effectively deal with a wide range of diseases. The event of mass vaccination, particularly for childhood diseases, brought another source of ancient terror under control. Optimism soared that a new age of medicine had dawned, in which all infectious disease would be vanquished.

Even at this early date, however, some scientists noted that microorganisms were developing resistance to these new antibiotics. As Darwin would have predicted, evolution already was reacting to these new environmental pressures, selecting for microorganisms that could resist these drugs.

In 1953, Watson and Crick published their seminal paper on the structure of DNA. This was the key catalyst that propelled a series of discoveries over the coming decades, at ever-increasing velocity. These included the first DNA cloning in 1972, the perfection of DNA sequencing in 1975, the discovery of the first human gene in 1977 and by 1987 the use of the first genetically-engineered microorganism in field trials.

Biotechnology was just getting started. The 1990's witnessed an absolute revolution in genetic engineering applications. The accomplishments were myriad. Among other things, scores of genetically-engineered insects, plants and animals were produced and commercialized. Computerized genetic scanning machines sequenced the complete genomes of several species - including humans. Transgenic organisms (those which have genes from another species spliced into their genome) became commonplace. For example, researchers spliced spider genes into goats, and then harvested spider silk from the transgenic goats milk. The possibilities were, indeed, endless.

But there was a dark aspect, and in the 1990's quiet but urgent voices began to speak about it. It has always been the case, throughout human history, that any technology can be put to both positive and negative uses. And these uses, positive or negative, are only limited by the strength of the technology itself. Biotechnology promised to be greatest and most pervasive invention since fire. If put to sinister uses, what were the ramifications? Had mankind finally crossed a fatal threshold, attaining technological prowess beyond his wisdom to control?

The outline of these elemental threats became increasingly clear as the century closed. Among other things, the genetic and biochemical basis for pathogenesis was now clear. In other words, the precise mechanisms that made some bacteria and viruses deadly became understood. These mechanisms could be - and were - manipulated and improved. In addition, it was now possible to create transgenic pathogens that combined optimal characteristics of multiple organisms. In theory, at least, one could combine infectiousness of the common cold and the potency of ebola. Further, the technology to execute on these threats was already worldwide, found in countless labs across the globe. Unlike nuclear energy, biotechnology did not require great expenditures of capital or personnel. It could thus be easily hidden, it could be done cheaply. A number of countries had already discovered this deadly calculus. By the 1980's massive germ-warfare efforts were underway in the Soviet Union. Over the following years these efforts dispersed to countless other countries.

Even when the intent was not hostile, basic experiments kept turning up discoveries with immediate and potentially apocalyptic implications. For instance, in 1999, researchers in Australia were attempting to discover better contraception drugs for mice. As part of their research they made a simple genetic alteration to the mousepox virus. To their astonishment, the altered virus turned out to be a killer - destroying 100% of all mice, even those that were vaccinated against it. Could the same experiment be done on a human virus, such as the closely-related smallpox? It appeared so.

And so we enter a new century, armed with powers beyond the imagination of previous generations. Where will this take us?

Artificial Organisms, Synthetic Viruses

In 2002 scientists from the University of New York at Stony Brook made history. Using the genetic blueprint of the polio virus as their guide, they downloaded the required sequences from the internet and stitched these sequences together using well-known splicing techniques. The result was the world's first totally artificial virus, created not via natural reproduction but via cookbook. This synthetic polio virus was indistinguishable from its natural cousins and completely viable.

Did the Stony Brook team succeed in creating synthetic life? This is a grey zone and a matter for debate. Viruses, by definition, can not reproduce outside of their host. They are essentially naked genetic material wrapped in a protein coat. Their life-cycle requires them to take over another cell, inject their genes into the host's chromosomes and in this manner redirect the cell's protein manufacturing capabilities into the production of more viruses. Only in this fashion can viruses reproduce. Thus, in a deep sense, viruses are incomplete organisms. Bacteria, on the other hand, are not merely their DNA. A bacterial cell has a complex array of other structures that support its metabolism and allow it to live an independent existence.

For this reason, creating artificial bacteria would be orders of magnitude more complex than creating a virus. Even so, in principle there is no reason why the methodologies used on viruses can not one day be scaled up to larger and more complex organisms. In fact, work towards this goal is proceeding very quickly. Scientists at TIGR (The Institute for Genomic Research) are deconstructing the simplest bacterium known, Mycoplasma genitalium. Given its benign habitat - the human urogenital tract - this bacterium has shed genes over its long evolution to the point where only 470 are required. Thus it makes a perfect template for creating a basic synthetic life-form. Work is going on to achieve this goal. (Although some might question the wisdom of creating an artificial bacterium based off one that natively inhabits human beings, a 1999 review of this program by a panel of religious figures and ethicists conveniently turned up no fundamental objections).

Future advances, ethics and philosophical questions about life aside, why was the Stony Brook experiment conducted in the first place? The reasons were quite practical. Simply put, viruses have an increasingly productive role in biotechnology. For example, modified viruses, in which the disease-causing elements have been switched off, could be used to ferry useful genes into a target organism. A synthetic virus allows full control of all aspects of the genome, allowing the virus to be completely tailored to the required task. Thus this experiment was a very important accomplishment enabling future progress towards improved therapies and medicines.

Of course, viruses are good for other uses as well. For example, they are very good at killing people. Thus this experiment - while fully ethical and valid from the scientific perspective - also was an important marker from the bioweapon vantage point. It adds a new and incredibly potent tool to the development of germ arsenals. It serves notice that is now possible to create fully artificial bioweapons, specifically tailored to particular effects, modes of transmissions and targets.

Imagine this scenario: in the near future, in some scrubby backwater, a dictator or terrorist leader tells his biological technician that he'd like a virus tailored to just kill members of a particular ethnic group. The virus should be 100% lethal and easily transmissible by air and water. In addition, the virus should be immune to all known anti-virals. Finally, the virus should be invisible to current detection methods, hardy, and easily weaponized and spread.

The technician fires up his web browser and goes shopping for gene sequences. These sequences, technically known as oligomers, are easily available in internet databases. These databases are growing exponentially as laboratories around the world isolate and characterize more sequences. The technician picks and chooses; a virulence gene there, some hardiness patterns here, some oligomers known to produce pathogenic results biased towards the target group over there. Finding a suitable collection he combines them and stuffs the completed RNA into a generic viral envelope. He then replicates the resulting virus and hands the final product over to his leader. Pleased, the leader gives the hard-working technician a bonus gift certificate redeemable at McDonalds, a camel and two new wives.

Is this reality yet? Not quite, but neither is it science fiction. The techniques to accomplish such work are still not widely known, nor are all the required oligomers necessarily yet available. It will probably take a few years before critical mass is reached and the scenario above becomes an everyday reality. Even so, the technological foundations have been established. As the past few years have proved, biotechnology is rushing forwards with unstoppable momentum. What is top-echelon research by elite labs one day becomes commonplace manipulation by average technicians the next. The trend is clear and inevitable.

In the meantime, as defenders of these kinds of experiments rightly point out, there are far easier and lower-tech ways to procure or create apocalyptic biological weapons. It is much more likely that billions will die from one of these modified natural agents than from a fully artificial weapon. Apparently this thought is meant to be comforting.

The Australian Experiment

It was a classic purely scientific experiment. Australian researchers were interested in, of all things, mouse contraceptives. To this end they modified a mousepox virus to contain the gene for interleukin-4 (IL-4) as well as the mouse egg shell protein (ZP3). The egg shell protein was there to encourage a contraceptive response against the mouse's own eggs. The IL-4 gene was there to increase the immune response against ZP3 protein, so as to make the contraceptive response more effective. The mousepox itself was a relatively benign virus, of little threat to the health of the mice themselves.

The results were, to put it mildly, unexpected. When the genetically engineered mousepox was put into mice the mice simply died. The supposedly benign mousepox virus was discovered to have become a killer. And not only a killer, but a super-killer: 100% of the mice died. The scientists thought they might learn something useful about mouse contraception, but instead they had learned how to create a universally fatal virus. And this killer virus had been created via a very simple genetic manipulation, accessible to every country with a few PhD microbiologists. Imagine their surprise.

After much debate, the results were published 18 months after the experiment. And the results were easily replicated and verified in independent labs. The result was widespread terror within the defense and medical community. If this technique could be used on a mouse virus, why not a human one? Smallpox and mousepox are very closely related. Would smallpox+IL-4 create a superpox? This is very likely. As one scientist said, "if some idiot put IL-4 into smallpox, they'd increase the lethality quite dramatically ... I wouldn't want to be the one to do this experiment."

He won't need to. Others have volunteered; no doubt this question is being answered right now in clandestine labs around the globe. The technology is easily accessible, the technique is published. All it takes now is intent and a modest lab. And, if this particular technique doesn't work, perhaps another one will do the trick ...

This mousepox experiment is hardly unique. Other techniques are being pioneered and other biological products are being produced, which are at least as troubling. For example, a number of firms are working on modifying the common cold virus so that it can combat cancer. These modifications take a variety of forms. In some the virus is modified so that it can only attach to cells that have a deficient defense of some sort, of a a type seen only in cancer cells. One such defense is the p53 gene, which is preferentially inactive in certain cancerous cells. Another such defense, called the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (pRB) pathway, is known to be defective in nearly all human cancers.

Once a targetable difference is determined, the virus is engineered such that it can only attack cells with that particular defect or expression. Once in the cancer cell the cold virus is further modified to increase its lethality. For instance, in some implementations the cold virus is given genes that, when expressed in the target cancer cell, make it more susceptible to anti-cancer drugs.

Another interesting recent medical approach involves chimeric viruses. These are basically combinations of multiple organisms, thus ideally presenting the strengths of both. One such chimera - a combination of the common cold and polio - has shown great promise in brain cancer (curing it, not causing it).

In aggregate, these viral therapies appear to be a very promising avenue in anti-cancer research.

Why is this a problem? Aren't new anti-cancer techiques a good thing? No doubt about it. However, the problem is not in these particular implementations, but the overall technology itself. For example, applying these same techniques, why couldn't the common cold virus be engineered to more effectively attack non cancerous cells? The common cold virus is exactly that - common. If it could be made generally lethal as well, then it would make for an absolutely devastating weapon. Why not a chimera of the common cold and HIV?

One might argue that mankind would never develop such a virus, given it would be in no one's interest. Well, World War 1 was in no one's interest too, and yet it happened anyway. The historical record is not particularly comforting on this point.

All these experiments and products clearly illustrate the paradox we face: basic scientific research, one of mankind's purest and most noble endeavors, increasingly reveals the seeds of our own destruction.

Bioethics, Censoring

The world must face two fundamental problems. If these are not addressed soon, the result will be catastrophic for our species.

First, basic biological research is increasingly granting fantastic power to humanity - power that can then be quickly applied to creating doomsday biological agents. For example, researchers recently constructed a polio virus from scratch. Using mail-order and the internet, they spliced together the required genetic segments, creating a brand-new polio virus. They then injected the virus into mice. It worked: the mice died.

Other viruses are more complex, but the technology is there and improving rapidly. As this study illustrates it is already it is possible to create simple killer viruses, engineered precisely in the laboratory. Soon it will be possible to create more complex ones. These could be tailored specifically to the task at hand, including the task of mass-murder.

It doesn't take a trained microbiologist to see where this is leading. "The world had better be prepared", said Dr. Eckard Wimmer, leader of the team that assembled the virus.

In another infamous case, Australian researchers working on mouse contraceptives inadvertently created an incurable superpox. Fortunately the starting benign virus only infected rodents and so the resulting superpox only killed mice. But the technology can easily be repurposed to human viruses as well. Similarly, other researchers have recently published the genetic basis for antibiotic and antiviral resistance. This is an important topic and deserves research. Once again, however, it is the proverbial double-edged sword. For the results of these studies can now be applied to the other side of the blade: engineering this resistance into pathogens such as anthrax and smallpox, making them incurable to all known drugs.

All these studies were published in the open literature. The techniques were instantly broadcast on the internet and reproduced in other labs. Now, anyone on the planet with sufficient laboratory skills can take these results and apply them as they desire.

These are just a few examples of a sweeping trend. Around the world, in countless labs, the basic engineering of life is being laid bare. And there is very little to prevent this knowledge from being applied for military and terrorist purposes. Indeed, the only thing that prevents such work is the good will and ethics of the researcher. And their infallible ability to not make an unforeseen mistake ...

The second fundamental problem is that of public health. Particularly in the United States, there is growing resistance to vaccination. The rights of the individual - and the threat of lawsuits - have eroded the ability of government to guarantee the overall health of the public. Without a sufficiently vaccinated population, adhering to basic standards of public health, history teaches that epidemics are an eventual certainty.

This situation is exacerbated by "third-worldization", that is, the overall decline in health standards and enforcement in the west. Increasingly, large parts of the population can not get effective medical care. Social and governmental breakdown furthers the negative trend. For example in some poorly-governed cites, such as San Francisco, it is now commonplace for people to live freely on the streets, subject to no health controls or protocol. This is accepted as normal, and little or no thought is given to the latent threat this poses to public health.

Eventually western countries will need to rebalance the rights of the individual and the group, as well as reform their health systems. The only question is whether this will happen before or after the coming plague.

Chimeric Organisms, Chimera

A chimeric organism is one which contains genes from a foreign species. The genetic basis for desired traits are identified and then recombined into another organism, adding novel characteristics in a useful way. Today there are a number of techniques to accomplish this mixing of genomes.

Chimeric organisms are extremely useful in genetic and medical research, and are quite widespread. Commercialized chimeras are also increasingly common. Some of these could have tremendous value. To given just example, one chimeric organism - a combination of the common cold and the polio virus - has shown great promise in curing brain cancer. Similar combinations with HIV show promise for other diseases. This is very mature technology and the required expertise can be found throughout the world.

Although it may not seem particularly wise to combine lethal pathogens with the common cold, a sufferer of some terminal condition which might be cured by a chimera might see the situation a bit differently. In any event, it is certainly the case that the scientific community takes great precautions with this research. Everyone is aware of the danger and these researchers have the best of intentions.

But, as you may have noticed on occasion, not everyone in the world has the best of intentions. This is certainly the case for those who are in the professions of biological warfare or biological terrorism. (Although, even here, many of those involved believe they have the best of intentions. Such is the human condition).

How can chimeras serve the needs of biological warfare? Basically there are countless ways for chimeric organisms to be of use here, but let's just look at one simplified example to get a sense of the enormity of this threat.

The problem with many killer viruses is that they are fragile. Conversely, many other viruses are quite robust, yet benign. Similarly, no virus is universally lethal. There is always the unfortunate possibility that a victim might survive.

The obvious question arises: what happens when you construct chimeras from known pathogenic organisms? Given the increasing understanding of the genetic and biochemical basis for virulence, is it possible to combine the "best" qualities of various diseases? Can you create mega-diseases in this fashion? Could a bioweapons researcher, for instance, make HIV infectious through air by combining it with influenza? Or make smallpox more deadly by combining it with Ebola?

This last example has already been accomplished. And it may have been given to North Korea and other rogue states. This, at least, is the claim of Dr. Ken Alibek. He should know: he was a top Soviet germ scientist and saw the work himself. Alibek defected to the United States in the 1990s. Initially his claims about the threat of biological terrorism and warfare were considered wild and unsubstantiated. A number of experts publicly discounted his claims. But as the years went by and more amazing details were discovered about the Soviet program, the United States began to listen very closely to him. You don't hear much from the doubters anymore.

But that is not all that the Soviets were up to. They have been quite busy during those harsh Russian winters. Among many other things, they also created "hardened" Ebola that can be transmitted like the common cold and plague that is immune to all antibiotics.

There are dark rumors of other super-chimeras as well. In particular, it's believed that both the Russians and the Americans have veePox: a combination of smallpox and Venezuelan encephalitis. This chimera is believed to combine the pathogenic qualities of both viruses, thus rendering it universally fatal. What happens if such a virus were to escape by accident? What happens if a terrorist group gets such a virus and sprays it on a major city?

Given the technology for creating a chimera is public domain and widely understood, we can expect to hear much more news about chimeric organisms in the future. This news will doubtless be unpleasant, but also will be no surprise.

Historical Background

In ecological terms, mankind is a herd animal. Like many species of fish, mammals and birds, we are highly social and tend to congregate into large units. Such congregations provide ideal environments for the spread of herd diseases, that is, microorganisms which rely on such high-density populations in order to spread. These pathogens rely on the mathematical fact that, once they've infected one organism, there will be a sufficient set of others nearby to infect as well. In this fashion the pathogen can spread and not die out with its host. From the viewpoint of the virus or bacteria, it's a statistical issue. Such situations can be very precisely modeled. For example, computer simulations indicate that measles requires a population of at least 10,000 people living within a few square miles, in order to be viable. A population less than that would be insufficient, resulting in the eventual extinction of the virus.

Therefore, before the dawn of civilization humans suffered relatively little from epidemic disease. Since our population was low and dispersed, there was insufficient environmental kindling in which to start the fires of an epidemic. Further, given Homo sapiens was a relatively rare animal, few pathogens had yet bothered to adapt themselves to our species. So not only did our lack of population prevent large-scale infectious disease, but there were few candidate pathogens that could even make the attempt. From the standpoint of epidemic disease, we simply weren't worth it yet.

This is not to say that prehistoric man had an easy life, or was never exposed to illness. Certainly insect-born diseases often afflicted some individuals. And it was always possible to get a one-off infection from an animal source. For example, rabies contracted via animal bite has certainly been with humanity from the beginning, given that rabies is a very ancient virus linked to a variety of mammals. But the specific herd diseases, those that relied on the proximity of larger populations, did not yet exist for mankind. Thus virtually all the diseases we take as given, ranging from the common cold to measles to smallpox did not exist until fairly recent times.

Given these diseases did not exist until recently, what is their origin? Most of these pathogens already existed in some form in other species. As mankind progressively urbanized in close proximity to other domesticated herd creatures (such as pigs, horses, cattle, fowl etc) the pathogens in these animals eventually adapted and made the leap to our own species. Thus, most of our illnesses can be traced to similar (or identical) illnesses in our domesticated animals. These diseases are called zoonotic. Measles, for example, originated from pigs. Influenza, from fowl. As these pathogens grew better adapted to Homo sapiens, they eventually gained the ability to be transmitted directly from one human to another. In this fashion, herd diseases jumped from other herd animals to mankind.

The mechanism for this jump is evolution. Evolution is the core unifying principle of modern biology, explaining all facets of organism structure and behavior. Very simply put, what happens in the case of a new human viral disease is this: a virus, happily living in its usual host, suffers a mutation. (I say "suffer" since mutations are almost invariably detrimental to the organism. Given the random nature of mutations, it's likely that any change will cause more damage to the organism than improvement). But in this case the mutation is beneficial - it allows the virus to infect a Homo sapien. Normally such a mutation would not be selected for, given the chance of a Homo sapien being around in the lifetime of the mutated virus is vanishing small. But given enough viruses, and enough mutations, and given enough Homo sapiens in close proximity, eventually the inevitable happens. A single virus makes the jump. Finding the new home to its liking, it quickly spreads. Eventually the virus may evolve further improvements to its new home, becoming a disease quite specific to our species. In this fashion mankind has slowly gathered an increasing burden of infectious diseases.

The origin of some pathogens is obscure, even though we understand the general mechanism. Smallpox is a good example. The world is filled with a swarm of pox species. There are camel poxes, there are monkey poxes and mouse poxes, and a multitude of insect poxes. Poxes are very effective in keeping a species population under control and are found everywhere. But for most of its existence humanity did not have a pox to call its own.

This happy state of affairs continued until the first urban centers were created. The evidence is inconclusive, but it's believed that smallpox might have first jumped to our species sometime in the Old Egyptian period. Mummies have been found with smallpox scars, and certainly after the Old Egyptian period smallpox was already an ancient disease. Presumably a very unfortunate Egyptian peasant had a close encounter with an animal diseased with a pox, one which through mutation was sufficiently capable of jumping to the human. What was the animal? No one knows, although it is interesting to note that recent sequencing data indicates camelpox is an extremely close relative. Whatever the ancestral virus, smallpox has evolved since then and become highly tuned to our species. In fact, smallpox can only infect Homo sapiens and would itself become extinct upon our demise as a species.

In addition to just pure population growth, a prime engine for the increase of human pathogens was ecological disruption. As environments was shifted or changed by human activity, new ecological opportunities arose for pathogenic exploitation. For example, the destruction of Central Asian grasslands facilitated the spread of the bubonic plague, while the conversion of North African marshlands to irrigated zones created the ecology for blood diseases and river blindness. Through the dynamic of increasing population, urbanization and environmental change, humanity slowly accumulated its share of diseases.

These diseases played a critical role in our population history and migrations. In fact, no other element has so determined human destiny as that of epidemic disease.

Epidemic disease repeatedly ravaged ancient Chinese populations, leading to mass migrations, famine and the collapse of dynasties. Epidemics played a key role in Roman history, cutting down populations and leading to political turmoil. In fact, much of the decline of the Roman Empire was due to the role of increasing epidemics and their fatal effect on the Roman population structure. Similarly, the Black Death had an epic effect on European society, wiping out over a third of the population and leading to widespread economic and political fallout that echoed for centuries thereafter.

As mankind spread around the globe, pathogens that had been localized to one area became worldwide - often with apocalyptic results. For example, it's generally believed that syphilis originated in the New World. Unknown to Europe, it suddenly appeared upon return of Columbus' expeditions, with horrific results. Millions perished and many more millions suffered debilitating effects and shortened life spans. The social and cultural dislocations resulting from these sexually-transmitted diseases continues to this day. But then the Old World more than returned the favor, introducing a number of novel pathogens to Native American populations, including malaria, smallpox and measles. These diseases ravaged the New World, killing up to 90% of the population and completely annihilating entire cultures.

It is indeed a historic pattern than novel diseases - no matter what their origin - usually had dramatic and often fatal consequences to the culture to which they were introduced. With little in the way of natural immunity or traditions to protect them, societies that suffered new diseases have often been fatally battered by such epidemics.

Even so, the human population continued to slowly rise. This growth was driven by slowly-improving technology plus the opening up of new habitats. The growth was fitful - there were centuries where populations crashed quite spectacularly - but on average mankind's numbers increased. And then, a few centuries ago, an exponential growth phase was reached, the so-called "population explosion". The explosive metaphor is apt. For plotted on a chart, this growth is absolutely stunning and unique. It is also non-maintainable.

Driven by a historic upsurge in technology, improved food sources and a basic scientific understanding on how to deal with disease, human populations swelled. From just 1 billion in 1800, populations grew to 2 billion in 1940, to 3 billion by 1970, to 6 billion by 2000. Much of this growth was in ecological areas ill-suited for maintaining large populations. And throughout the world the environmental degradation increased at a similar exponential rate. Forests vanished, deserts spread, agricultural land grew increasingly impoverished and fisheries collapsed. Mankind kept ahead of this negative curve through increasing inputs of technology and capital. Like the tuna fish - which is warm blooded so that it can swim faster, and swims faster so that it get enough oxygen to keep it warm blooded - Homo sapiens found itself on a technological treadmill, just one step ahead of contracting environmental constraints.

Even so, among most people there was, and is, great confidence. After all, we've come this far, haven't we? Hasn't technology always saved us? Isn't the direction of the future ever-upward? Such people are not aware of history. Nor are they aware of how deeply embedded and dependent mankind is on the environment. Already the warning signs are apparent. As in the past, ecological dislocation and population growth are the two great engines of epidemic illness. Thus as mankind's herd increases and as the environment deteriorates, pathogens increase in novelty and virulence. Already, public health is going backwards for large proportions of the world's population, as infectious diseases reassert their historic dominance. Already, new epidemics, such as AIDS, are making their mark on our ever-upward future. Already, old diseases thought defeated, such as smallpox, are casting dark shadows on daily headlines.

And then, for the ultimate irony, man's technology itself is being turned against him in the form of genetically engineered pathogens specifically designed to cause his extinction. One way or another, new and extraordinarily lethal plagues are heading in mankind's direction. This is what history teaches.

This new century will be indeed by pivotal and historic for humanity. But not in the way most people envision.

Summary

The historical record is unclear, but it is possible that the first European epidemics were of bubonic plague. Plague originated in the arid steppes of central Asia. There the plague bacterium lived in ecological balance with the resident wild rodent population. It appears that the Mongols - who frequented this region - had internalized some notion of how plague was spread. In particular, they had a taboo to never touch the body of a dead rodent. This, along with their relative lack of urbanization, probably served them well in avoiding infection with the disease.

The plague began to spread in ancient times. Incited by ecological disruption of the grasslands and following the trade routes west and south, it appears that the plague first reached Europe in about 2,500 years ago. Unfortunately, the taboos did not spread with the bacterium; ancient people had no notion of where the disease came from or how to deal with it. This, along with their high urbanization, was a recipe for disaster.

Athens was hit in the summer of 430 BCE. Thucydides recorded its dire effects, and suffered from it himself. The plague devastated the city and was a major contributing factor in its defeat by Sparta. (Note: it's not completely certain that the epidemic of 430 BCE was, in fact, plague. Not all the symptoms line up, in particular the evident direct spread person-to-person. Even so, the best guess is that it was plague, perhaps the pneumonic form)

But there is no doubt that plague then hit Rome in the subsequent centuries. And plague was instrumental in the empire's eventual downfall. Among other things, the army was depopulated, leading to increasing reliance on barbarian mercenary troops. And the elite was also badly hit, even thought the plague originally started in the roman slums and initially primarily affected poorer parts of the population.

Indeed, Rome was particularly vulnerable to highly infectious diseases of this sort. By ancient standards the city was huge. For a long time the urban population exceeded one million people. Further, even by ancient standards, most of this population lived in crowded and sub-standard conditions. Tenements were usually crowded and badly constructed, with poor light and even worse sanitation. A survey in 50 CE found over 3,500 such buildings within the urban core. Even worse, the Roman population was famously diverse and mobile. As the historian Tacitus famously observed, Rome "that great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity" welcomed people from all over the world. No wonder the city was a hotzone for disease.

Because of this the wealthy usually preferred their rural manors. It was well-known that a man lived far longer and healthier if he avoided Rome and spent as much time as possible in his country estate.

Bubonic plague receded, not to be seen again until the Black Death. But over the intervening centuries Europe was hit by a number of other plagues. Given Europe's geographical position (exposed to migrations and invasions from both Asia and Africa) and its high-density urban environments and trading culture, European populations suffered heavily from epidemic disease. Smallpox, in particular, was very devastating. Other diseases also had impact. Measles, whooping cough (pertussis) and typhoid fever all inflicted great mortality. Some other diseases killed fewer people and yet left more profound scars on the collective consciousness. Hansen's Disease (leprosy) is a good example. This disfiguring bacterium probably originated in Egypt, spreading to India by 600 B.C. But leprosy was apparently unknown in Europe until the return of Alexander the Great's armies from India in 326 B.C. Starting in Greece the bacterium rapidly spread throughout the continent. By the time of the Roman Empire leprosy was already considered ancient and was widely feared and discussed. The Bible mentions it no less than 56 times.

Interestingly, leprosy appears to have become less lethal over time. This pattern is not uncommon. As evolution proceeds it is often the case that pathogens and their hosts become more tolerant of each other. Even though the pathogenic microorganism remains, it exhibits less disease and lethality. Modern Europeans are largely immune to leprosy whereas populations which have had less historic exposure - such as Asians - suffer from it to a greater extent.

Thus while destructive of countless lives through history, this constant exposure to novel pathogens did grant Europeans one advantage: they eventually built relative immunity to many of the great epidemic diseases that afflicted our species. Thus, as European colonial powers moved outward after the 15th century, they usually introduced new diseases to non-European populations, rather than the reverse. Since the non-European populations did not have natural immunity to these new diseases, the result was often a demographic disaster.

Syphilis was the great exception. Brought back to Europe after the Columbus expeditions, it ravaged Europe for centuries. Like leprosy, however, it gradually diminished in severity as the human population and the virus co-evolved some level of tolerance. Today syphilis remains a serious disease, but is not nearly as lethal as it was a few centuries ago.

Summary

To fully understand the disease dynamic of Africa, one has to review the evolution of our species. Africa is unique in having been the cradle of Homo sapiens. This has directly led to a disease ecology far different than seen on the other continents.

Mankind is a member of the extended family of Hominidae. Besides humans, this family includes bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas. All of the species in Hominidae arose in Africa, in a long line stretching back to African primates over 40 million years ago. Thus mankind's roots in Africa go back very far indeed.

About 5-10 million years ago the genus Homo diverged, along the evolutionary line that led to humans. During the course of the following millions of years a diverse set of hominid species proliferated in Africa and left plenty of fossils. However compared to some of evolution's better efforts, such as cockroaches, these hominids were never very successful. Although brainy compared to the rest of creation, they were also big, slow and clumsy. In addition, judging by the teeth-marks left on innumerable fossils, they were also quite tasty. These hominids had no natural defenses against predators save for their wits. And apparently wits often came up short against anything possessing big enough teeth and claws.

Ice-ages came and went. The hominids struggled, succeeded modestly for a while, and then slowly diminished. Generally prospects were not looking so good for the hominid side. Even so they kept spinning off new species, looking for that golden recipe that would ensure success.

About 200,000 years ago yet another new hominid species emerged. These were the archaic Homo sapiens. Basically these hominids were us, albeit with a few primitive features scattered here and there, such as a fondness for rap music. This new species was tall, dark-skinned and hairless, and physically feeble even by the undemanding standards of the hominid group. True, they possessed an exceptionally large brain, but they had little else to recommend them. Therefore Homo sapiens often joined their hominid cousins in the scattered bone heaps that littered the landscape. Large cats, in particular, really enjoyed the company of our early ancestors. Why not? We were fat and tasty, could not run very quickly, and we made such amusing noises when cornered.

But then the Homo sapiens got their big break. About 70 thousand years ago, give or take, mental complexity passed a key threshold. Somewhere, somehow, a mental switch was thrown and a completely new dynamic emerged. This new dynamic was culture. Like the invention of life billions of years previously, the invention of culture gave its possessor invincible power and advantages.

Suddenly, in a geological instant, mankind invented complex art. Cave walls that were previously bare spawned an astonishing array of drawings. New ideas flourished and were transmitted with incredible speed. Weapons that were previously bare and strictly utilitarian suddenly sported artistic flourishes. Clothing became popular, as did clothing lice. The rate of technological innovation massively accelerated. Concurrently, highly symbolic artifacts were created that clearly had significance beyond that of everyday living. Often these artifacts were even interred with those dead bodies. In fact, for the first time, for mysterious reasons that must have boggled the mind of every other species on the planet, great care was now taken in disposing of the remains of newly-deceased Homo sapiens. This was unique behavior not seen in any other animal.

Because of these and other adaptations, mankind was ecologically invincible. He left Africa in waves of migration, populating first Asia and Australia, and then later Europe and the Americas. In a short period of time we left our African cradle and became a global species.

This rapid change led to some unforeseen results. In particular, because of mankind's long association with Africa, other species in the region had ample time to co-evolve with our species. For example, prey animals in Africa learned long ago that humans were bad news. They adapted and, among other things, learned to greatly fear our hunters. Thus prey species in Africa were usually able to survive our presence, despite countless thousands of years of relentless hunting pressures. A similar thing happened in the world of microorganisms and parasites. Because Homo sapiens roots stretched deeply into the African past, these species had a long time to adapt to our presence. Gradually they moved in and set up residence in our bodies, fine-tuning their adaptations to exploit this new ecological niche (us).

These two preceding evolutionary facts explain two curious outcomes that occurred when human beings finally left Africa.

First, early humans were very healthy. This is because we largely left our diseases and parasites behind. These were adapted to the African environment and so many of them could not migrate with us. Thus early migrants to the other continents tended to be relatively disease-free. It took a long time for these diseases to "catch-up" and follow us into these new habitats, or for new localized diseases to evolve.

Second, prey animals that humans encountered outside Africa had no time to adapt to this new super-predator called Man. As a result humanity devastated the large fauna wherever they went. A wave of extinctions followed the migrations of early man. Scores of large species were wiped out due to our hunting prowess.

The first fact became very pertinent in modern times. Again, because of Homo sapiens long habitation of Africa, the overall environment is tuned to biologically exploit us. The pathogenic load in Africa is therefore very high relative to the rest of the world, and further, there were many other pathogens that were primed to cross over into our population should circumstances warrant it.

As modern Africa became more populated and urbanized, therefore, this situation became more acute. This problem has been exaggerated by absolute poverty, poor government and a and rapidly-deteriorating general environment. These environmental and demographic stresses are much more severe than found on the other continents.

For these reasons Africa is an epicenter for historic and newly-emerging diseases. Two historical examples are smallpox, which probably evolved into our species during the Old Egyptian period and malaria which probably spread from its West African origin about ten thousand years ago due to the advent of agriculture.

The classic modern example, of course, is HIV, which apparently crossed over into a small group of Africans in the 1950s and then went on to kill millions of people . However, other diseases, such as Ebola and Marburg fever have also made scary forays into our species. As the environmental situation in Africa becomes more acute, we can expect more emerging diseases of this sort.

Summary

The London Cholera epidemics of the 19th century were a turning point in the science of epidemiology and public health. Cholera had afflicted man for countless centuries. It was frequently deadly, particularly to infants and young children. As urbanization and pollution spread, cholera became increasingly deadly, especially in Europe.

Cholera originated in India. Over the centuries it spread slowly around the world, tracking the patterns of urbanization. Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The bacterium's natural ecology is warm sea-water where it exists in close association with plankton. However, sometime in the deep past it also developed an affinity for polluted fresh water - and human beings.

These links summarized the pivotal London epidemics and the key role Dr. John Snow, a London doctor, played in discerning the true engines of the disease and solving the puzzle of its spread. The prevailing theory of the day - which was true since ancient times - was that all disease was due to "bad air". In contrast, Snow believed that Cholera at least was spread via polluted water. Against the weight of medical opinion, he set out to prove his theory. It makes for a fascinating scientific and detective story.

Summary

Until recently, scientists believed that the Americas were very sparsely populated prior to the arrival of Europeans. Thus accepted population estimates of Native American societies prior to European contact tended to be rather low. Most estimates varied between 5 to 20 million, and 20 million was considered to be at the high range. However, recent historical and archaeological evidence points to populations much higher than these estimates. More modern and refined estimates vary between 40 to 150 million. A few researchers now believe even these numbers may be too low.

No one will ever know the exact numbers, but it's clear that Native American populations were certainly larger than originally thought. Aztec and Incan cities, in particular, were large and extremely sophisticated. And yet, in a few short decades, these cities and their supporting rural populations were virtually destroyed. Subsequent European immigrants thus became use to thinking of the Americas as being sparsely populated by a few nomadic tribes. They had little or no memory of the original urban populations. This heavily biased their later demographic estimates, helping to explain why the notion of a densely-populated America took so long to become accepted.

What caused this demographic disaster?

It's now known that emerging disease - in the form of novel infections brought over by the European invaders and colonialists - was responsible for this catastrophe. Europeans had been exposed to these microorganisms for centuries. Therefore their immune systems had some degree of resistance to the more lethal effects. In contrast, Native Americans had no immunity to these diseases. Their immune systems were biologically naive, unprimed to resist these imported microorganisms. Thus the first European explorers brought to America a form of biological genocide. The combination of large populations and naive immune systems created a perfect ecology for epidemic diseases such as smallpox, measles and others. Once these microorganisms reached the New World, the result was apocalyptic for the Native American cultures. North and South America were never conquered by invading armies, they was conquered by invading microorganisms.

Smallpox was probably the first invader. It's believed that the primary carrier was one of Cortez's men. This individual transmitted the virus to a few Native Americans who then, in turn, infected others. In this manner the virus gradually moved north and south over the next century, decimating the local population with each incremental advance. Generally the virus explored the continents much more quickly than the Europeans. Therefore, by the time the Europeans fully reached a given region, they'd find it already depopulated.

No testimony can convey the devastation. Native populations in some areas fell over 90% in just a few years. Beyond the obvious demographic toll, there was fatal psychological and cultural impact as well. With political and religious leaders dead and the culture destroyed, surviving natives were simply incapable of resisting the Europeans any further. This opened the continents to European conquest and domination. This included the imposition of foreign languages and religions. It also, by the way, opened the door towards the institution of slavery. With the continents depopulated, a serious labor shortage ensued in the newly established plantations. Remaining Native Americans were simply too few and too weak to ease this shortage. Africans, however, broadly shared the same immune defenses as Europeans. Thus they became the preferred "import", and the slave trade began.

This effect was dramatic. Some heavily populated islands - such as Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) - lost their entire native populations to disease. The natives went extinct. In their place came African slaves. Within a few years these islands were demographically totally transformed from populous Native American tribal societies to black plantation economies administered by a small white aristocracy.

Elsewhere the result was much the same. For example, until quite recently the Amazon Basin was thought to have always been a sparsely populated jungle wilderness. Recently uncovered early historical accounts, however, speak of the banks of the Amazon as teeming with fishing villages and towns. In addition there appears to have been a large farming industry. Recent discoveries of extensive bands of fertile farming soil - leftovers from the days of intensive agriculture - now indicate that a very large settled population inhabited the region as well. It seems probable that this modern wilderness was in the past a settled region with millions of inhabitants.

Later explorations of the Amazon Basin found something quite different. Rather than vibrant fishing and farming communities, all they found was jungle and a few scattered tribal groups. Viruses had proceeded then in the previous century, wiping out these river civilizations long before they could be "discovered" by Europeans.

The America's received a number of new diseases during this period. It is likely that, in return, some American pathogens were then imported back to Europe. Syphilis, in particular, is believed to have originated in the Americas. This exchange of microorganisms between the two cultures was part of a broader interaction involving many plants and animals, known as the "Columbian Exchange". However, in general the Americas received the worst end of the bargain. Far more lethal diseases immigrated to the Americas from the Old World rather than the reverse. In retrospect this result was predictable: the Old World (including Africa) had much longer in which to evolve human pathogens, whereas the New World had only recently been settled by humans and thus had developed a very limited range of human diseases. When these two populations finally connected, therefore, pathogenic microorganisms flowed largely in one direction.

The biological annihilation of the Native Americans is a story that is just being told. Beyond serving to correct the historical record, this story also contains profound warnings about the broader fate of mankind. What happened in the America's a few centuries ago may soon be repeated on a more global scale. For not does the world population face the dark legacy of existing diseases, but new organisms are being increasingly engineered as well.

Health Policy

We tend to ignore history, especially the commonplace tragedies that once afflicted our species. Who remembers the terror of polio, or of yellow fever? Who considers what life must have been like in the days of the Black Death? We forget what happened only a few decades ago - let alone what happened centuries ago. We think every day is just like this day. We lack perspective.

This lack of perspective is a fault of our species. In evolutionary terms, Homo sapiens had little reason to evolve fine discrimination of long term trends and patterns. Life was short, and it was more important to know how live on a daily basis. This served us well when we lived in caves, ate mammoth meat and considered 30 years a ripe old age. Worrying about the longterm future or ruminating too much on the past didn't profit a person - for the past, present and future were always pretty much the same. Therefore why waste precious calories even considering them? But in this modern world, changing at ever-increasing velocities, this attitude can be fatal. Yet we still live with a Neolithic consciousness.

We see the effect of this in the case of health care and governmental health policy. Our sense of history is skewed and our understanding of the relative nature of threats is lacking. Because of this we are ill-prepared to face the coming biological storm.

Throughout history infectious disease has been the great killer of humanity. Billions have perished, nations and entire cultures have been destroyed, untold lives have met with tragedy. No one needed to be educated about this threat - it was a clear and present danger in everyone's life prior to the 20th century. Even ignoring the great epidemics, daily life was burdened by the latent fear and reality of disease. Letters to relatives invariably started with anxious enquiries about their recipient's health. Even in the hottest war, soldiers were more likely to die from disease than actual combat. Children in some societies were not named until they were a few years old, given it was more likely than not that a childhood virus would kill them. Why bother giving a baby a name until you knew he'd live to be five years old? Disease was the foundational terror of humanity.

Therefore, with very good reason, modern health policy had a very disciplined focus towards disease. This took a variety of forms, such as ensuring non-polluted water supplies (managing cholera), rat and mosquito control (managing plague and malaria), widely-distributed health clinics and antibiotics (for early warning and quick management of outbreaks) and wide-spread mandatory vaccination programs (for many viral diseases). These and other programs grew organically, withstood the test of time, and in many countries largely eliminated the terror and huge mortality these diseases inflicted. Because of this such epidemics have passed into dim history. No longer do we need to worry about millions dying one month from a viral outbreak, no longer do we need to hide our children at home during periodic polio epidemics. We believe all that is ancient history, no longer a threat to our lives.

Therefore in much of the world, health care has been cut back or refocused to other issues. In an era of "small government" and hyper-capitalism, health care for the poor is increasingly marginalized. Meanwhile, the wealthy segment of the population fears other things, such as cancer, heart disease and geriatric diseases. Health care is therefore increasingly focused on these illnesses, to the exclusion of the classic pathogenic challenges.

Thus drug companies, for their part, have largely abandoned new antibiotic and vaccine development due to the lack of investment return and concerns over legal liability. Meanwhile, governments increasingly view basic health management has an optional expense, one that can be cut or perhaps privatized with no health cost to the public. And there have been pernicious social changes as well. For example, there is now widespread resistance to the very idea of vaccination. Some even doubt that viruses and bacteria cause disease, instead preferring crazy New Age explanations or conspiracy theories (witness the belief by some that HIV does not cause AIDS). Although these are personal stances, they will eventually have fatal repercussions for the ability of societies to manage disease and avoid future epidemics.

In many countries outright governmental and social failure is another critical contributer to the problem. In large parts of Africa, for instance, failed states have largely abandoned their health systems. What does function is often financed instead by western donors and aid agencies. The problem is less acute in Asia and Latin American, but even here weak states are increasingly unable to fulfill their basic health system obligations.

As a result of this, infectious disease is on the increase throughout the world. Pathogens are increasingly immune to current drugs and new drugs are no longer being developed. New pathogens are emerging due to human population growth and environmental degradation. Some richer people in the western world might believe these problems are far away and could not possible affect them. These people need only consider that fact that microorganisms pay little heed to national boundaries. Nor are they confined to a specific social class or race. Thus a seemingly abstract problem with the breakdown of health care in southern Africa can have direct implications for a wealthy person living in Dallas. We live in a very small and interconnected world - something our Neolithic consciousness hasn't quite yet grasped.

Already the effects are stark and far ranging. Deadly pathogens, having evolved resistance to most drug regimes, now stalk the world. Hospitals are one of their prime incubators. In fact, a heart-transplant patient in a U.S. hospital is nowadays far more likely to succumb to a drug-resistant virus or bacteria than to any effects of the surgery itself. Similarly, drug-resistant malaria is now creating new threats in much of the developed world. However, few new drugs are being developed to deal with the rapidly-evolving microbial world. And degraded health systems are increasingly unable to monitor and detect new threats. Mankind is on the precipice.

And yet, this risk is still largely unfelt. Having little sense of history and relative risk, the public is largely oblivious of these approaching dangers.

BioWatch, Detection

Biological warfare agents have unique properties. Two of the most pertinent are their invisibility and the built-in delay between the actual attack and the first visibility of symptoms. In these respects biological agents are fundamentally different from chemical and radiological weapons. Nerve gas and tactical nuclear weapons are noisy and quite overt. The killing clouds of vapor, or the radiation and the signature mushroom cloud, are indisputable signatures. If a nuclear warhead goes off in your neighborhood one sunny day, you'll have little doubt what happened.

Biological attacks, in contrast, are silent and subtle. After an agent is deployed it may take many days before the first people begin to become ill. By this time it is too late. Those who are ill could be beyond saving. Even worse, if the agent is infectious, the seeds of a runaway epidemic have then already been planted. Of course, it is these very attributes (silent dissemination plus follow-on epidemic) that make biological weapons so attractive in the first place.

Therefore it is imperative that biological attack be detected quickly, well before its physical manifestations become apparent. To this end there is a furious effort going on worldwide to enhance existing devices, as well as accelerate the development and deployment of new technology. Not surprisingly, the United States is leading this effort. Although all nations are at risk from biological terrorism, the United States obviously constitutes the #1 target. And since 9/11 few believe that terrorists - particularly those who have God on their side - will hesitate to use whatever weapons are handy. In terms of inflicting mass terror and mass casualties, no weapons can rival a biological one. Therefore this threat is a prime civil-defense focus.

Tests have shown that the first 12 hours of a biological attack are the most critical. For instance, in one simulation a few pounds of anthrax were tossed from the roof of a city skyscraper. If this attack were detected within 12 hours, most of the people who were exposed were located and treated. Also, further infections were containable. If caught beyond this window, however, then the casualties from such an attack scenario quickly spiraled out of control. Indeed, other attack scenarios have reinforced the absolute necessity of quick-response. For this to happen, the right sensor technology has to be both available and broadly deployed.

The first biological sensors were deployed with U.S. troops during Gulf War 1. It was known that Iraq had an anthrax capability and it was felt that this would be the most likely bioweapon. Thus - beyond being vaccinated against anthrax - U.S. troops also carried anthrax detectors. These were bulky devices with limited efficiency. They were not fast nor were they reliable. They also had a tendency to give a false positive, that is, signal that anthrax was present when in fact it was not. Detectors that cry "wolf" too often are worse than useless. Thus, after this war, these devices were slowly improved. However, there was no particular urgency to this effort. And it was strictly focused on the military.

In 1995 the Japanese Aum cult famously attacked the Tokyo subway system with nerve gas. Less famously, this same cult had previously tried to attack cities with botulism and anthrax. Fortunately, the cult scientists were incompetent. Neither agent was formulated correctly. Even so, this event led some people to seriously consider the risks of biological attacks on civilian targets. Still, most policy-makers ignored this issue. Who would be crazy enough to want to kill millions of people for no rational reason? It was impossible.

After 9/11 , the definition of impossibility shifted. Concurrent with this, research into biological detection devices went into warp drive. Now portable DNA devices are available that can reliably detect a pathogen within 30 minutes. These devices are already available to military forces. But, for the first time, these devices are also increasingly standard equipment for civilian defense and health authorities.

In 2001 the United States instituted the BioWatch program. As of 2004 this was a network of 500 sensors in 31 cities, representing about half the US population. The technology used in this network is, for obvious reasons, not public. However it is believed that it relatively low-tech and relies on daily collection of samples from sensor stations. These samples are couriered to labs, where they are analyzed. Apparently these labs can detect a wide range of agents, including smallpox, anthrax, tularemia (rabbit fever) and plague. The system has never given a false positive and, in fact, has once given a true positive: in 2003 sensors in Houston detected tularemia in the air. As it turned out, this was a modest natural outbreak, insufficient to pose any human health risk. But the fact that it was detected certainly is a boost to confidence in the system.

Biowatch is no panacea. However, it is an excellent first step in addressing the present danger of biological weapons.

Health Systems, Breakdown

Health systems evolved over time to prevent and manage infectious disease. Of the two, prevention is by far the most important. A prevented disease is much less harmful, economically and physically, than a cured one. The main tools for disease prevention have been public hygiene, monitoring and vaccination.

However, pathogenic organisms have not remained still. New ones have evolved and old ones have attained new capabilities such as antibiotic resistance. Further, due to social or governmental breakdown, health systems in much of the world have declined. This is also true in some western countries, in addition to the third world. Thus, many populations around the globe face deepening threats from infectious disease.

Cholera is a good example. Cholera is an efficient historical killer of people, but it is a well-understood killer. The key to prevention of the disease is simple: clean water. Given clean water supplies and good public hygiene, cholera is virtually never a problem. Because of this cholera was one of the first diseases to be "conquered".

Over the past few years, however, the conquered bacterium has returned. In India and Africa, mortality from cholera is increasing rapidly. And the disease has even spread to previously unaffected areas. In 1991 cholera hit Peru and then spread down the west coast of South America. Eventually the disease even made its way to North America. The New World, once a cholera-free zone, now appears to be permanently afflicted.

What is causing this resurgence? As is usually the case, the answer is complex: failing health systems, pollution of previously clean water supplies, wars and population dislocations, changing weather patterns. Even globalization contributes - the cholera bacterium that hit Peru may have been imported via a ship from India.

Vaccination is another area in trouble. Vaccination is by far the most cost-effective way to prevent a whole range of diseases. However, some populations are increasingly unvaccinated. Sometimes this lack of vaccination is driven by the mistaken notion that a disease no longer poses a threat (such as smallpox). Other times, such as in the United States, it's driven by religious or personal-liberty convictions against vaccination, even when these convictions are contrary to a family's own children or the public health at large. Sometimes conspiracy theories among less-educated people block vaccination, such as the belief among some that vaccination itself causes the disease in question. Lastly, sometimes failure is simply due to governmental ineptitude or by fundamental tears in the social fabric.

This is the case in much of Africa. Poor government over decades has eroded the original colonial infrastructure. This, combined with the effects of the HIV epidemic, has catalyzed a wave of secondary epidemics in a number of countries. This is also true in parts of Asia and Latin American, such as India. Here the situation is exacerbated by ethnic and religious tension. An example of this dynamic in India is the problem with polio.

In India the rate of polio is increasing. Given polio is easily blocked via childhood vaccination, how is that possible?

The problem is one of education and ethnic violence. Among Indian poor (especially Muslims), there is growing distrust of vaccination. Rumors have been spread that polio vaccination in particular will cause sterility. Others detect a conspiracy against them.

Therefore many families are hostile to these programs and refuse to get vaccinated. As a result, polio has returned with a vengeance.

India, at least, has a functioning health-care system, albeit one that must wrestle with great poverty. Other nations are less lucky and now face even greater challenges.

In the United States, objection to vaccination largely comes from the poorly-educated and from certain religious sects and cults. Generally, an exemption is granted in cases of religious objection, even when such an exemption places both the individual and the larger society at risk.

Preparedness, Monitoring

Early-warning monitoring systems are a critical part of the global health system. An example of this is the World Health Organization's (WHO) monitoring programs for current and emerging diseases. This is a worldwide health reporting network that monitors and reports disease outbreaks. This network is critical in helping to manage against possible epidemics or pandemics.

Some microorganisms get more monitoring focus than others. Influenza, in particular, is very carefully tracked. This is due to the fact that influenza is highly mutable, highly contagious and has a proven history as a mass-killer.

In the United States the CDC (Center of Disease Control) coordinates all disease monitoring. However, despite what politicians might thing, bacteria and viruses do not respect national boundaries. Therefore, the CDC maintains a very active international program as well. It has been particularly instrumental in the detection and research of emerging African pathogens such as ebola. The CDC also coordinates the national preparedness network. This not only includes preparation for natural epidemics, but also for biological, radiological and chemical terrorism.

All these American systems are being rapidly beefed up. For years the CDC struggled with funding. But nowadays it does not need to worry about getting sufficient funding, given the specter of biological terrorism.

Indeed, since 9/11 a number of countries have worked to create early-warning systems for biological attacks. The United States is one of the leaders in this effort; a system was trialed during the Salt Lake City winter games and is now being rolled out nationwide. It's hoped that this system will aid in the early detection and diagnosis of the inevitable biological attack. Smallpox and anthrax are particular concerns, but there are many other possibilities.

In a dark fashion, 9/11 was a blessing: despite years of warnings from many biologists and medical scientists, few policymakers took the threat of biological attacks seriously. After all, who would be crazy enough to want to kill millions of innocent civilians with weaponized viruses or bacteria? It seemed quite unlikely. But not nearly as unlikely as the notion that suicidal terrorists would crash multiple airliners into skyscrapers and the Pentagon.

Untreatable Infections, MDR

MDR (Multi-Drug Resistance) is a critical worldwide problem. Increasingly, common pathogens are evolving resistance to antibiotics. This is leaving many diseases effectively untreatable - diseases that just a few short years ago could be easily cured.

A key factor behind MDR is overuse of antibiotics. This overuse effectively turbo charges evolution by exposing more pathogens than necessary to selective pressures. As a result the microbes evolve even more quickly, soon overwhelming all possible treatments.

The MDR syndrome was first commonly noted with Tuberculosis, which now is reaching epidemic proportions in some regions of the world due to its resistance to treatment. MDR-TB is also a common killer in hospital settings, even in the developed world.

But the problem is now pervasive. Chloroquine - once the first-line treatment for malaria- is no longer effective in over 80 countries. Dysentery is now 90% immune to the two first-line drugs. Typhoid epidemics are increasingly immune to treatment.

The implications are most immediate for non-developed world. Here cost is a more important factor and so options are limited. But don't think the problem stops there. In 1999, 14,000 patients in the US died from drug-resistant bacteria.

What about developing new antibiotics? Unfortunately, due to a combination of complacency and economics, very few new drugs are coming to market. For years little research went into new drug discovery for antibiotics, since this was considered a solved problem. Further, there wasn't (and isn't) much money in such drugs. This provided little incentive to firms, who therefore tended to focus on the more profitably degenerative and geriatric diseases.

It's worth noting that MDR is of great interest for biological warfare. A great deal of work is going into outfitting weaponized pathogens with the genes for MDR. There is great value in having an anthrax weapon, for instance, that is invulnerable to all treatments and vaccines.

Treaties & Protocols

Historically treaties have come about due to catastrophic events. Only after a catastrophe, it seems, does humanity come to its collective senses and try to manage or contain new weapons. Rarely are we proactive in anticipating bad outcomes.

World War I - the first of the continuing series - was such an event. In this war, for the first time, chemical weapons were developed and applied on a mass scale. The Germans were the pioneers here, leveraging their superior chemical industries to create and use a number of novel chemical munitions. This granted them a short-term advantage in a few early battles. However the allies quickly responded to the new situation and followed suit. Thus in a short time chemical weapons and chemical defensive gear became ubiquitous on every front.

Concurrently the Germans also pioneered a new form of biological attack. In a little-known episode, German agents attempted to spread glanders to French and Russian horses. At this time the horse remained the key form of military transport. Therefore the Germans hoped that a glanders epidemic could seriously limit the mobility of opposing forces. For reasons that are unclear, this attack largely failed.

Meanwhile the chemical weapons likewise had no real impact on the outcome of the war, but they did greatly increase the overall casualty rate for all sides. After the war it didn't take a futurist to see which way the chlorine clouds were blowing. Technology was granting mankind terrible new weapons of unparalleled destructiveness. Should weapons such as this become a normal part of war, then war would become an entirely more costly thing than in the past. And so, for this and for other reasons, the Geneva Protocols of 1925 were signed.

Like the proverbial road to Hades, these protocols were paved with worthy rules and good intentions. And they were quite forward-looking. In particular, taking note of the failed glanders attack and the recent progress in microbiology, these protocols predicted the advent of a new generation of biological weapons. Many felt that such weapons could end up becoming far more deadly than their chemical cousins. Thus the protocols explicitly forbade their military use by an aggressor. For this and other good reasons, the protocols were widely acclaimed and were signed by almost every nation on the planet.

But there were two problems in paradise. First, the treaty effectively forbade first-use only, not their use in defense. Thus if a state was attacked by prohibited weapons it had the right to defend itself - with prohibited weapons. Second, given every nation had an innate right to self-defense, there were no real limitations to their actions in the case of another party breaking the first-use clause. Thus there were no real disincentives to the development of these weapons. In fact, the reverse was the case.

And so, particularly with regard to biological agents, these protocols were a failure. Research and deployment only accelerated as the decades filed past and the technological capabilities increased. By the late 1930's a number of countries, particularly Japan, had significant biological programs. (And the Japanese used their weapons against China in World War II, despite having signed the 1925 protocols. More than one Chinese must have wondered about the efficacy of this treaty, as anthrax and plague was dropped on top of their heads).

After World War 2, a number of nations took note of the success of the Japanese efforts. The United States was particularly aggressive. As the main victor in this war, the Americans took the Japanese technology and used it as the foundation for its own germ-warfare program. Other nations began similar programs at this time. Although often different in scope and goals, these programs were all characterized as defensive in nature and thus permitted under the 1925 accords.

Thus biological weapons development continued to gather steam in the decades after World War 2, despite the theoretical treaty limitations. However, concern about these weapons also continued to grow. Therefore a number of concerned scientists and political leaders never ceased their efforts to improve the 1925 protocols. The threat was obviously growing. Something had to be done to contain it.

These efforts finally came to fruition in 1972, when a landmark treaty was signed by 144 countries. This was the Biological And Toxic Weapons Convention (BWC). Among other things, this treaty forbade both the use and the possession of biological weapons and associated agents. In sweeping terms it abolished the development, acquisition and stockpiling of all such weapons and made their use, in any circumstance, illegal.

As in 1925, there were just two problems.

First, the treaty provided no means of validation and enforcement. If a nation simply swore it had no biological weapons, that was good enough for the treaty.

Second, many nations resolved to cheat. Despite signing the treaty they had absolutely no intention of ever doing something as simplistic as actually abiding by it.

And so, taking political cynicism to new heights, a few countries jumped to the head of the class and begun intensive new biological programs.

A classic example of such a cheater was the Soviet Union. Just a few months after signing the treaty the Soviet Union created a huge biological weapons program, known as biopreparat. The ambitions of this program were impressive and, as befitted the socialist paradise, everything was done at industrial scales.

Anthrax was a particular success. The Soviets developed a number of particularly potent strains, including varieties immune to all known vaccines. They then perfected the difficult art of drying the anthrax spores and encapsulating them in fine aerosols. Extremely potent forms of smallpox was similarly weaponized and then mounted onto specially constructed ICBM warheads. Indeed, there were few pathogens that Soviets did not try to improve and weaponize.

After the demise of the Soviet Union this program was officially disbanded. However, many of the scientists and materials have subsequently "disappeared". A number of them are now known to be working in weapons programs in other states.

There were and are many other cheaters, of course. A partial list includes the United States, France, China, Russia, Cuba, Israel, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria.

Because of the BWC's manifest failures and because the threat of biological weapons has grown increasingly fearsome, pressure grew for amendments to the treaty. So in 1999 a draft agreement was formulated to set up a strict and reliable inspections regime for biological weapons. No longer would a nation's word be sufficient. Instead, periodic intrusive inspections would insure that the letter and the spirit were enforced. This was obviously a huge improvement on the trust-based system. 140 nations signed this draft agreement and again there were hopes that the terror of these weapons could be rolled back.

At this stage in our story, enter George W. Bush. The Bush administration of the United States did not like this new agreement. It violated the principle of state's rights. It violated the spirit of unfettered capitalism. Why should the United States allow its pharmaceutical plants to be inspected? What if other nations used this procedure to steal trade secrets? And, at a more philosophical level, why should the world's only hyperpower need deign to allow foreign inspectors onto its soil? Therefore the United States refused to sign, effectively killing this agreement. Other nations took their cue from this and another fierce round of weapons development has begun.

Thus we are left in our current situation: biological weapons research and production is accelerating around the world. Knowledge on how to build them has become widely available. Thus weapons are yearly growing more potent and destructive, while more nations acquire them. Meanwhile, terrorist groups are actively trying to procure their own arsenal. Perhaps it is time for another treaty?

CBW Treaties, Overview

As far as international law goes, CBW efforts are currently in a state of disarray. There are many reasons for this, but the lack of leadership of the United States is currently a key factor. My view is that it will take a world disaster - a viral Hiroshima - before we see much new progress here. Assuming, of course, there is anyone left alive for which to make progress.

There are two key Chemical/Biological Weapons (CBW) treaties: the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. The 1925 protocols were incited by the tragedies of World War 1 and the desire to derail the obvious march to weapons of ever-greater destruction. World War 1 saw the first mass use of chemical weapons in warfare plus even a few attempts at biological war (such as the German attempt to infect French horses with glanders). These events were warning shots that could not ignored. Hence the ground-breaking 1925 agreement, which effectively forbade the use of biological weapons for offensive warfare.

Unfortunatly these protocols provided little in the way of enforcement. There was also the gaping loophole of allowing defensive biological weapons. For these reasons the treaty was widely flouted.

The 1972 agreement attempted to rectify these on of these weaknesses. It illegalized the development and ownership of all such weapons, not merely their use. Unfortunately it provided no inspection protocol. In other words, the treaty relied on the goodness and kindness of strangers. Given human nature and geopolitics, it should come as no surprise that this improved treaty was also largely ignored. (The United States being an exception, although not necessarily for altruistic reasons).

The first two links are to Harvard Sussex studies on the Chemical/Biological Weapons (CBW) treaty. Harvard Sussex is a collaboration between Harvard University and the University of Sussex, designed to research and inform public policy around CBW weapons and proliferation. For those interested in the nuances of the development of international law, it's probably the best organization to visit and click through.

Their papers summarize the history and development of the CBW regime. Note the increasingly broad agreement as to what constitutes an effective regime.

Subsequent links in this archive give different perspectives as well as the full text of the treaty itself.

USA, Russia, Proliferation

Why did the United States reject the new Biological Weapons Treaty (BWC)? After all, for years the U.S. has rightly maintained that all such international treaties are fatally flawed - unless they include rigorous verification and enforcement protocols. Partly as a result of this stance, the international community agreed upon a much more strict set of inspection requirements in these amendments to the BWC. However, in the summer of 2001, the Bush Administration rejected these amendments, stunning the world.

This move effectively killed the Biological Weapons Treaty. It is now, in the words of one diplomat "a dead letter". Among other things, this effectively blocked - and possibly terminated - 70 years of biological arms control efforts. With these out of the way, it is now open-season for biological weapons. No constraints and no limitations. Rogue states and terrorist groups around the globe took note and probably got to work.

This seems to be a very perilous path. Why did the United States embark upon it?

The Bush administration gave three reasons. 1) Inspections wouldn't detect secret weapons programs - only declared ones. 2) Inspections would interfere with legitimate drug programs, and possibly lead to commercial espionage. 3) The protocols would prevent biodefense work.

None of these objections hold much water. True, inspections could never detect everything - but they'd be a step in the right direction and would increase transparency. As to protecting commercial trade-secrets, the United States made no effort even to test this proposition, whereas other western countries had worked with industry and mutually agreed upon satisfactory safeguards. As to biodefense work, no American ally can make sense of this objection. They all have biodefense programs, most of which are unclassified, and the treaty does not forbid such work. Could there be a hidden reason for the U.S. position?

This article argues that the true reason for the U.S. stance is simple and stark: the Bush Administration believes that the proliferation of biological weapons is inevitable, treaty or no. Therefore, it's essential that the United States have complete freedom to develop its own weapons and defensive measures. Given American superiority in technology, the United States could thus be sure to take a commanding lead in these weapons, therefore ensuring our continued security. In other words, America would henceforth trust its security to the superiority of its science rather than to the vagaries of international agreements.

This might be a reasonable strategy for conventional weapons. The enemy builds tanks, but we build better tanks. The enemy builds planes, but we build better planes. It's arguably worked so far. But are biological weapons in the same category? Will this let the genie out of the proverbial bottle (or flask)?

Somewhat ironically, the United States meanwhile continues with its efforts to contain foreign programs and technologies via other means. Specifically the United States is desperately trying to defuse the Biopreparat bomb.

At issue is Russia and the Cooperated Threat Reduction program. This is a joint effort by the United State to reduce the threat of the ex-Soviet Unions arsenal of biological and toxin weapons. In exchange for American aid and scientific cooperation, Russia is obligated to open up its labs, ensuring transparency and that it is adhering to the 1972 BWC Treaty.

Crucially, the aid the United States provides under this program includes various types of employment opportunities for Russian biological scientists. This is a very good idea: few things are more dangerous than unemployed Russians with this skill set. There are too many nations and groups that would like nothing more than to employ them for their own clandestine programs. Already, a number of them are working outside of Russia. So, the program makes very good sense for the security of the United States, and the world at large.

Unfortunately, snags have been hit. Russia is not being as cooperative as it should be, and the United States under the Bush administration is playing political games. If treaties are renounced and unilateral and bilateral containment fails, what does the future hold?

War & Weaponization

Ever since people realized that harmful viruses and bacteria could be artificially spread, we have attempted to apply this knowledge to kill fellow humans. Over the centuries such efforts have met with, at best, mixed success. Yet technology marches forward, and over the past few years, a dark threshold has been crossed. Biology is now the most potent latent force in war.

Theoretically pathogenic agents have always been the perfect potential weapon: they are inexpensive, relatively easy to manufacture, and can inflict extremely high casualties on the enemy. In fact, nothing beats a biological weapon in pure killing power: the right weapon applied at the right time can literally annihilate an entire population. (In fact, history demonstrates that the unintentional release of pathogenic organisms can destroy a nation). Further, such a weapon has the tremendous side-benefit of not destroying infrastructure. Valuable buildings and capital are left intact - it is only the hated enemy themselves who are destroyed. The conquerer can thus move right in and make use of the enemy's houses, televisions and recreational vehicles. Who could ask for more?

These weapons also deliver a potent psychological element: fear. Fear of disease is fundamental, particularly disease that manifests itself in a widespread epidemic. Thus the mere presence of a weaponized disease in the ranks of an army or populace can create a extraordinary amount of panic and chaos, far above and beyond the actual mortality of the sickness itself. Such chaos in the ranks of the enemy is, itself, militarily useful.

Of course, nothing is ever as easy as it seems. So despite these compelling advantages, there are major technical roadblocks to these weapons. Two of the most important are viability and dispersion.

Living organisms require special loving care. Unlike a nuclear weapon, you can't simply mount a biological warhead on a missile and fire it. The organisms in the warhead must be kept in a viable and infectious state in order to remain effective. Therefore, basic environmental parameters such as temperature and pressure must be carefully controlled. This can be very difficult and expensive to accomplish, especially in the confines of a deliverable weapon.

Then there is the problem of delivery. In practice it is quite difficult to ensure efficient delivery and dispersion of weaponized organisms. Wind, humidity and thermal patterns can easily frustrate a weapon. And then there are even more subtle problems. While devastating, pathogens require very specific environments and constraints in order to infect. It is usually not enough simply present the microorganism to the enemy and then wait for them to die. The pathogen must be presented in the correct ecological fashion. Some organisms are stricter than others in this regard, but it is always the case that the ecological nature and epidemiology of the disease must be understood before it can be utilized for war.

Unfortunately, over the years all of these technical hurdles have been met and solved. The ecological nature of pathogens have been elucidated and those most suitable for warfare have been selected. Special air-conditioned delivery systems, allowing biological weapons to be delivered by missile or plane, have been constructed and deployed. Advanced methods of drying, encapsulation and aerosolization of pathogens have been perfected, such that they can be viably delivered to millions of people. The purely scientific and mechanical issues of weaponization are solved problems. And this technology is now widely available to any nation with an interest in developing such weapons.

Yet there are other drawbacks. Perhaps the most elemental one is that biological weapons are, as we said, biological. Living organisms have their own agenda and are thus not so easily controlled. A pathogen that is applied to an opposing army may easily spread to friendly forces or to a friendly civilian population. Or a military pathogen might be successfully used, only then to lie latent in a field. It does little good to use a biological weapon against a city if that city is then denied to the attacker, due to the potential for further epidemics.

Of course, this calculus only applies militarily. Terrorists may not find these issues to be drawbacks. In fact, they might even be advantages. Even so, given the nature of these weapons, the line between "terrorism" and "military" is a very fine and perhaps artificial distinction. As discussed in the Biological Terrorism archive, historical application of biological weapons in wartime has always had a terrorist element. The Japanese use of biological weapons in World War 2 against China is a case in point. Going forward, this distinction between military use and terrorism may be an academic point.

Because of these issues, professional military men have usually found biological weapons to be unattractive. Not only are these weapons innately awful in the moral sense, but they simply do not fit into the classic military mindset of what constitutes a legitimate weapon. Therefore their development and use has been denied or delayed on countless occasions. Unfortunately, there have also been numerous exceptions to this conservatism. Despite moral repugnance as well as formal treaties barring their development, weapons have been developed and even used. And, as the decades wore on, opposition to biological weapons has gradually faded away.

Therefore national weaponization programs gradually began to accelerate. A standout in this area was the Soviet Union. Under their Biopreparat program the Soviets pioneered biological weaponization on a truly epic scale. Some of the coungtry's brightest minds eagerly participated, as this work was both well-paid and of high status. Anthrax, smallpox and a host of other agents were engineered into stable yet deadly forms. Delivery mechanisms were perfected. ICBMS were loaded and pointed at the enemies of socialism.

And the Soviet Union was not alone. Many states have similar programs, although none to date quite as ambitious as Biopreparat. Particularly among smaller and weaker countries, biological weapons research and deployment has recently become a top priority. Such weapons are perceived as great levelers, allowing these weaker countries to threaten both their neighbors and the world at large with total destruction.

Today we stand at the vanguard of a grim new era. The treaties banning the development and deployment of biological weapons are dead letters. (See the Treaties And Protocols archive.) The United States has publicly renounced these treaties and is actively pursuing new offensive and defensive biological weapons. A handful of other countries have already developed horrific capabilities, armed and at the ready, including weaponized anthrax and smallpox. Dozens of other nations are busily constructing their own arsenals. Why shouldn't they? Biological weapons are cheap, easily deployed, and quite effective. Plus everyone else has them. Therefore it seems prudent to have such weapons as well.

And it does not stop there. Genetic engineering is now actively harnessed to the cause. Incurable forms of existing pathogens - as well as completely artificial organisms - are already deployed. Incurable anthrax, particularly vicious mutants of smallpox, horrific blood fevers, and universally fatal toxins, all these and more await their use in the next war.

So we move into an increasingly unstable world, with apocalyptic weapons spreading like viruses. And yet the world sleeps.

China, PRC

China has the distinction of being the only modern country to be intensively attacked by biological weapons. These attacks were carried out by Japan during World War 2 and cost untold numbers of lives. As a result China has a visceral understanding that biological weapons are a real and potent threat. Probably more so than any other country, China has never forgotten the evils of World War 2. This is partly due to the human and material losses of that war, but is perhaps even more due to the fact that Japan has never fully acknowledged the role its armies played in the many atrocities.

Despite being victimized by these weapons and despite having signed the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, China has its own extensive biological weapons program. This program is very secret; there are few open-source publications that discuss its current status and extent. However, it is known that China had a nascent biowarfare capability prior to signing the treaty and that this capability has since been greatly enhanced. It is generally believed that this effort is now very sophisticated. In fact, with the demise of the Soviet biopreparat program, it is possible that China might have most advanced modern germ warfare arsenal in the world today.

It is impossible to cleanly separate civilian biotechnology research from military research. This is one of the central challenges of genetic technologies. Even purely scientific research can have unanticipated military ramifications. This dynamic is striking in the case of China, in that the Chinese have an extremely robust indigenous biotechnology infrastructure. Biotechnology has been chosen by the government as a prime area of focus and the results are impressive. For example, China is already a world leader in genetically engineering plants. And it is second only to the United States in the breadth and depth of overall civilian genetic applications. However, such technology is equally applicable to military applications.

This is particularly stark when one considers technology imports. To catalyze and augment indigenous efforts, China created the "836 program". 863 is a massive and systematic attempt to procure the best western technology and apply it to China's own development. This program of imports is intensively orchestrated by the government and focuses on those foundational technologies most pertinent to advancing scientific and economic development. Among these technologies, China considers biotechnology preeminent. These imported technologies have, in fact, been very visible in enhancing China's civilian biotechnology program. However, it is also believed up to half of all these imports have been secretly directed to hidden military applications as well. Through this method the Chinese have created a potent array of biological weapons.

Discerning the particular focus of an effort - civilian or military - is an intractable problem. Even so, a few countries have tried. In particular, the United States has attempted to identify and block the transfer of technologies that (it felt) were destined to pure bioweapon applications. These attempts have been intermittent and probably not very successful. In a global economy there are always plenty of eager sellers. A country that is blocked in one area can usually easily find another source. There are always a myriad of creative ways to work around the lack of some primary technology. And, when a technology can not be bought, there is always the option of espionage. Indeed, the United States has been particularly concerned by this and in 1999 published the Cox Report - a summary and indictment of Chinese efforts to steal or otherwise procure American technology. Although primarily focused on the nuclear angle, this report also commented on China's interest in acquiring American technology for bioweapons.

China's biological weapons testing center is apparently co-located with to its nuclear program in Lop Nor. The open literature does not fully describe what agents China has weaponized. However, it is probably a reasonable speculation that the old standbys such as anthrax, Botulinum Toxin and smallpox are included in their program. It is also reported (from Russian sources) that the Chinese have weaponized some form of viral hemorrhagic fevers. In fact, the Russians report that the Chinese suffered at least two accidents with these agents in the late 1980s, resulting in localized epidemics in the civilian population.

Dark Winter

Dark Winter was the code name for a biowar/bioterror simulation exercise conducted in 2001. Beginning as a localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City, the simulation quickly spirals out of control, as the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. Not understanding the spreading scope of the attack and lacking effective response mechanisms, the United States soon faces a catastrophe of biblical scale ...

Five lessons were learned from this exercise. First, a biological attack at this level would result in massive loss of life. Second, current governmental structures are not capable of managing such an attack. Third, U.S. health care infrastructure lacks a surge capability, thus leaving it open to complete failure in the event of mass casualties. Fourth, managing the media and providing citizens with the right information would be an enormous challenge. Fifth, Americans are totally unprepared for the myriad social, political and ethical challenges posed by this threat.

Perhaps a more elemental lesson was that people have an innate dread of plagues. It is therefore easy for a situation such as this to quickly degenerate into social breakdown and mob violence. Particularly with diseases such as smallpox, which are particularly ugly in their symptoms and virulence, it is a fine line between mass fear and total panic.

It is no accident that smallpox was chosen for this simulation. It is known that a number of nations have covert stocks. The old Soviet Union was particularly fond of this virus and weaponized it on an industrial mass scale. Always keen in improving their technology, the Soviet's developed smallpox strains resistant to vaccination as well as chimeric viruses resistant to just about anything that could be thrown at them. These viruses are now in the hands of a number of nations, including rogue states. Thus the Dark Winter scenario may in fact be much too rosy. What would have happened if the terror attack employed such a super-virus, rendering the all emergency vaccination and treatment programs ineffective?

Panic is one certain outcome, as is martial law. In fact, if a terrorist group wished to truly destroy an enemy, they could not choose a better weapon than smallpox or a smallpox analog. This is probably the reason why a number of terrorist groups have shown an interest in these types of weapons. The appeal is obvious. Such weapons are cheap, devastatingly effective and easily transported into the target country (a vial of virus could be smuggled inside of a writing pen). Given that tons of illegal drugs are successfully across international borders everyday, illicitly moving a vial of virus should present no great challenge. If you wished, for example, to move a container of smallpox from Latin America into the United States, the solution would be obvious: outsource it. Simply contact the local drug lord and arrange to have the smallpox transported in the next consignment of cocaine.

This simulation has been enormously influential in changing American attitudes and policies with regard to biological defense. Some of the key recommendations have been adopted by the Bush Administration. However, we remain woefully undefended and open to an attack of this sort.

Dark Winter is not science fiction - it is considered a real and present danger. Read the simulation yourself and consider how your family and your community would react in this situation. Are we prepared?

History, General

Biological warfare has been around a very long time. Not surprisingly, given the close biochemical relationship, biological war has usually been highly correlated with chemical warfare. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between them, since sometimes biological agents are used to manufacture chemicals that are then distributed on the battlefield (or in the city) without the originating bacteria. An example of this is Botulinum Toxin, or BT. However, generally it is the case in biological war that the infectious organism itself is applied.

It is well-known that ancient and pre-modern people used biological warfare. However, given their limited technology and scientific understanding, their efforts met with only sporadic success. Even so, some of these "sporadic" successes could be quite huge. Witness the fall of Kaffa to the Tartars in 1346, which is generally credited to the systematic spread of plague. Even more horrific was the total destruction of hostile Indian tribes in the early colonial history of North America. These biological warfare efforts were generally unwitting or, at worst, carried out in a very basic fashion. Yet when the appropriate circumstances existed they demonstrated great destructive effect.

Yet modern biological warfare did not really exist until World War 1. This war is mainly known for its innovations in chemical weapons, although a few attempts were also made with biological agents. The best-documented of these was the German attempt to spread glanders among French horses. The goal of this attack was to cripple the French transport system, which was almost totally dependent on the horse. This effort failed for unknown reasons. Even despite these failures however, scientists and military men clearly saw the dangers (opportunities?) in improved biological weapons. It was felt, even then, that such weapons simply could not be allowed in this world given their capacity to run amok and inflict apocalyptic damage to friend and foe alike. For this reason the war catalyzed the first attempts to control bioterror by treaty.

Not surprisingly, the treaties were largely flouted. Biological weapons were simply too promising to pass up. The Japanese led the way here, creating a huge biowar effort in China during the Chinese/Japanese war. After World War 2, the United States took this Japanese effort and used it as the foundation for its own program.

History, World War 2

The biological pioneers in World War 2 (the second in the popular continuing series) were the Japanese. Although disguised as a water-purification unit, Japan's Unit 731 was in fact a joint military/scientific effort that succeeded in weaponizing anthrax, botulinum toxin, tularemia and plague. Centered 40 miles south of Harbin, in present-day Manchuria, the Japanese program was highly organized, ruthless and greatly admired by bioweaponeers of later decades. In fact, Unit 731 became the template for all subsequent efforts by other countries.

Applying the efficiency, thoroughness and concern for quality that are their cultural hallmarks, the Japanese pioneered the fundamental technology that ensured the purity and potency of weaponized biological agents. They also pioneered novel delivery mechanisms, including efficient aerosols and plague-laden bomblets. As in any new technology, the results needed validation by guinea pigs. In this case the guinea pigs were prisoners-of-war and captured civilians. Primarily Chinese and Koreans, these unfortunate souls were exposed to a variety of lethal pathogens under a variety of conditions. From these experiments the Japanese gained invaluable information on which weapons worked best under which conditions. They took copious notes.

The products of all this effort were then liberally used against the Chinese, first in the Manchurian campaigns and then later in the world war itself. The human cost of these attacks has never been fully revealed, at least not in unclassified sources. However it is a mark of Japan's esteem of the program that funding was increased yearly all the way to the end of the war. Another mark of its success was the intense American interest in the program.

After the war the United States pardoned the senior members of Unit 731 and gratefully took their weapons and research results. This became the basis of America's own biological warfare program. The countless dead Chinese and Korean civilians did not die in vain. The notes and research results gleaned from their deaths were put into the service of democracy and freedom.

All this is a good example of the cross-over effect: one man's terrorist is simply another man's good soldier. What is terrorism and what is military strategy? Japanese Unit 731 was acting on direct command and control of the Japanese military. Therefore, in a strict dictionary sort of way, perhaps some wouldn't think of them as terrorists. Beyond the actual military men, some were capable scientists who were highly regarded in the civilian sphere - hardly raving lunatics.

Of course, this starkly demonstrates the nature of the problem. Biological weapons are inherently dehumanizing. Evil arises naturally from their mere existence. But let's not blame the Japanese. Recall that Russia, the United States, France and a host of other countries have or are developing biological weapons. Comparatively, the intent of many of these weapons make the Japanese efforts look like a picnic of nuns. Of course, these more modern weapons are usually positioned as being strictly for "defense". But from there it is easy to cross the boundary to offense and mass-murder, as history shows.

Proliferation

Biological warfare efforts are breeding as fast as bacteria, rapidly filling up the globe with countless declared and clandestine programs and weapons. There are many compelling reasons for this proliferation. One of the most powerful reasons is that biological weapons are simply cheap and easy to make. For example, smallpox can be cultured in chicken eggs and then purified and weaponized in a lab the size of a dentist's office. In fact, such a lab could conceivably be mounted into a large truck. Such a truck could produce enough smallpox virus to launch an attack sufficient to kill hundreds of millions of people. Thus, beyond being cheap, biological weapons are also exceptionally lethal and easy to conceal.

The skills for biological weapons are easy to find. A PhD in molecular biology aided by a group of competent technicians can put together a very effective doomsday weapon. And the raw materials are also pervasive. Chicken eggs aren't particularly rare. And bacterial growth medium - of the type used for anthrax, for example - is almost as widely available. In addition, the scientific literature necessary for weapons construction is largely open-sourced and available to anyone. Given the inherent "dual-use" nature of biotechnology, it is impossible for it to be otherwise.

Where else can one find such effectiveness at such low cost and ease of secrecy? For the dictator or cult leader concerned with concrete results and return-on-investment, there are indeed few better deals than biological weapons.

Consider the comparison of bioweapons to nuclear weapons. Nuclear bombs require extravagant capital outlays, hordes of trained scientists and engineers, topnotch research and engineering, and large installations that are effectively impossible to conceal. Given this, one can easily see why many states and groups are putting such energy into biological weapons. They are not simply the "poor-man's nuke". They are the ultimate weapon.

What are these bioweapons intended for? For one thing, such weapons serve as fearful threats against one's immediate neighbors. Man's fear of epidemic disease is ancient and elemental. Thus such weapons inspire dread in a way that conventional weapons cannot. In addition, they are extremely useful deterrents against more-powerful countries such as the United States. Given the United State's absolute military and political dominance, biological weapons offer an irresistible vehicle for leveling the strategic playing field. Finally, bioweapons are excellent for mounting an attack without getting the blame. By passing a biological weapon to a terrorist group and letting them do the dirty work of dispersion, for instance, a rogue country could theoretically accomplish its political goals without risk of counterattack.

Which small rogue states are building biological weapons? Perhaps the better question would be: which are not?

North Korea and Iran have robust programs. Iran's program is particularly interesting, in that it is being turbocharged by the recruitment of ex-Soviet scientists. Many other countries, including Syria, Cuba and Libya also have efforts of varying intensities and success. Libya has probably one of the weaker programs, but only because it failed in the 1990s to recruit scientists from South Africa's biowar program (including Dr. Wouter Basson, the head of that program). Cuba's program, in contrast, is particularly potent due to Cuba's indigenous capabilities in genetic engineering.

Iraq is a particularly educational case. It is known that Iraq had an active bioweapon program up until the mid 1990s. At that point - so Iraqi records show - the program was terminated and pathogens were destroyed. But who can be sure? A vial of deadly virus is easily concealed in a small container, which can in turn be stored inside of a conventional freezer. How would one ever "verify" that all such stores have been eliminated? The question is simply impossible to answer.

Iraq aside, this list is by no means complete. Countless other countries - and terrorist groups - doubtless have their own initiatives.

How can these programs and weapons be contained? There are treaties, of course, but these treaties suffer from a number of fatal flaws, including the critical one of enforcing compliance. Military preemption might succeed in some cases, but given the unique portability and lethality of biological agents this strategy is obviously extremely risky. Technology might be of help in the form of defensive vaccines and antidotes, but it is far from clear whether defensive measures could ever keep to the rapid pace of offensive innovations. Already, for example, rogue states have anthrax strains that are immune both to all known vaccines and antibiotics.

And so mankind faces a lethal conundrum. The ultimate weapon is spreading around the globe, falling into more and more hands. And for the first time in history, there is no corresponding defense.

South Africa, Project Coast

Apartheid South Africa had a very extensive biological warfare program, code-named Project Coast. Unlike South Africa's terminated nuclear weapons program, the status of Project Coast is now unclear. Pathogens remain unaccounted for, and there are indications that "research" is continuing. It is also known that many of the agents have ended up in private hands. Incredibly, these agents may be for sale to the highest bidders.

Anthrax was a key focus in Project Coast, genetically modified to make it incurable by any conventional vaccine. The arsenal also included plague, salmonella and botulism, as well as antidotes for many of the diseases. The weapons were usually modified and packaged in a way that avoided traditional detection mechanisms. The original intent was that this stealth would aid in assassination efforts against opponents of the government, particularly in the black community.. However, this stealth technology also makes these weapons ideal for more global terrorism. For this reason this technology probably commands a particularly high price in the global black market.

Perhaps even more threatening were the pathogenic characteristics added to common human bacteria. For example, Project Coast isolated a toxin-producing gene from Clostridium perfringens. C perfringens causes a variety of fatal conditions including gas gangrene, a severe form of gangrene which attacks living tissue. Technicians spliced this gene into Escherichia coli, an intestinal bacterium found in every human being. Should this modified bacteria ever escape and establish itself in human populations, the result could be a universal epidemic of gangrene.

It's believed that Project Coast made similar modifications on other common human bacteria. The status (and whereabouts) of these agents is now unknown. Biodefense experts have long worried about the implications of such genetic modification for biological warfare and terrorism. In Project Coast their worst nightmares are realized: genetic modifications executed in an expert fashion, packaged and weaponized, and then "disappeared" into the global marketplace.

Also unknown is the location and disposition of many of Project Coast's scientists. A few are now believed to be working overseas in clandestine efforts. And there have been dark rumors of private transactions, various individuals coming to South Africa in order to buy weaponized agents. The public record does not state whether any of these transactions has yet been completed.

Amazingly, one of these private transactions involved the United States government. In 2002 Daan Goosen, a former Project Coast researcher, offered to sell to the United States government some biological weapons. As a measure of his good faith and mark of his credentials, he sent to the American FBI a sample of these weapons. Ironically, he chose the genetically-modified Escherichia Coli as his calling card. Freeze-dried and packaged inside a tube of toothpaste, he mailed the parcel to a CIA officer who couriered the microbes the rest of the way.

The Americans confirmed the potency of Dr. Goosen's sample. However they were more appalled than interested in making a buy. Therefore the deal was never done.

No matter. There are surely others in the world who will be interested in acquiring this pathogen, or others like it. Biological weapons are extremely valuable, easily hidden and easily transported. There are eager sellers and eager buyers. The situation is analogous to the global illegal drug trade. History teaches that, in such situations, a marketplace always develops and is virtually impossible to control.

Soviet Union, , Russia

Biopreparat was the Soviet Union's biological warfare program. As befits a socialist paradise, it was a massive effort and terrifying in scope. Despite being a member of the 1972 CBW Treaty. the Soviet Union cynically embarked on an industrial-scale weaponization effort shortly after the protocols went into effect.

Biopreparat had research labs and testing centers scattered across the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands of scientists and engineers were gainfully employed in the program. The work was prestigious and well-paid. Like the infamous Gulags, this archipelago of disease was a major industry in its own right and a symbol of the destruction that humanity is capable of inflicting.

Under Biopreparat the Soviets weaponized and tested anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, plague, typhus, Q fever, smallpox, botulinum toxin, ebola, marburg and venezuelan equine encephalitis. In addition the Soviets tested pathogens that targeted domestic crops and animals. Then many of these agents were duly loaded onto missiles and pointed at the United States and various other enemies of the people. The Soviets were nothing if not thorough.

The Soviets also pioneered the application of genetic techniques in the creation of their weapons. The simplest of these was to locate and preferentially breed strains of pathogens that either was more virulent, resistant to treatment, or both. For example, the Russians isolated strains of anthrax and smallpox that were unusually lethal and used these as the basis of their initial weapons. From there the Soviets applied more advanced techniques, such as isolating the basis for antibiotic resistance and then engineering the required genes into their weaponized organisms. The result was weapons that not only killed universally but were immune to any all known treatments.

Technology didn't stop there, however. Another Soviet innovation was chimeric organisms. In Greek mythology a chimera was a beast that was a combination of several different monsters. In modern bioweapon parlance, chimeras are organisms that combine "desired" characteristics from multiple sources, creating super-organisms far more terrible than ever occurred in nature. Among other things, the Soviets created veepox, which is a combination of Venezuelan equine encephalitis and smallpox. It is also reported they spliced DNA from ebola into influenza.

The main testing of weapons took place on Vozrozhdeniye ("Rebirth" in English, ironically enough) Island in the Aral sea. This island was chosen due to its remoteness, ease of security, and the fact the wind patterns would blow any unfortunate accidents into uninhabited areas. On the island aerosol agents and bomblets were tested in the open air, validating dispersion and infection designs. Needless to say, over the years the island became a biological disaster, particularly as the Aral Sea continued to dry up. Right now the island remains an island, but as the sea shrinks the endgame is clear. Soon this biological wasteland, covered with anthrax spores and other agents will join the mainland ...

There were numerous other weapons facilities dispersed from Belarus to Siberia to Kazakhstan. Some were research laboratories, some were biological factories, while others specialized in weaponization equipment. Security was extraordinarily tight. Yet because of the size and ambitious spread of Biopreparat, occasionally something would go wrong. For example, in 1979 a technician forgot to replace an air-filter in an anthrax factory near Sverdlovsk. Perhaps he was just innately careless, or perhaps he had drunk too much vodka the night before. In any case, a plume of anthrax spores duly escaped and floated downwind to the city. Shortly thereafter people began dropping dead in the streets. The city was sealed off and mass vaccinations and antibiotic treatments ordered. Because of the fast response, fatalities were limited a few hundred dead. Generally however, the Soviets succeeded in avoiding such disasters. (And when disasters did ensue, they were expert at covering them up. Officially the Sverdlovsk incident was attributed to "tainted meat").

There are persistent rumors of another accident in 1982, this one involving weaponized smallpox. An unknown number of civilians died when the virus escaped from a weapons lab. The epidemic was contained - barely - due to harsh military-style quarantine measures. Chillingly, all the people who died in this event had been vaccinated for smallpox. Apparently this Soviet version was designed to be immune to the vaccine.

The Soviet Union is gone. What happened to all these weapons and to the scientists that produced them? Much has been accounted for, but much has also gone "missing". Further, it is known that a number of states have taken great interest in Biopreparat's weapons and its researchers. Some are known to now be in Iran, others in Libya. Terrorist groups are known to have gone to Kazakhstan on shopping expeditions. It's a fair bet that they aren't shopping for the latest clothing.

Of course the Russians claim that everything is secure and nothing could possibly have been sold or stolen. But consider that a vial of viruses sufficient to destroy a city can fit into your coat pocket. And consider that many will pay large sums of money to acquire such a vial. Finally, take a look at the myriad ex-Soviet installations, often guarded by nothing more than slice of barbed wire backed by an underpaid drunk. The situation does not inspire confidence.

For obvious reasons, The United States has taken a deep interest in the situation. Since 1995 the U.S. has been actively working with Russia, Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics, aiding in the dismantling the weapons sites and providing alternative employment for the scientists. Some in the American congress have complained about the cost of these programs - a clear indication that some politicians have zero understanding of the threat these weapons pose to the entire world.

American Biological Weapons Programs

The United States has a long and somewhat torturous history of offensive and defensive biological weapon development. Initial efforts began in 1942, under the auspices of the Chemical Warfare Service. First efforts were primarily centered on anthrax research and defenses against possible German bioweapons.

The program got a big boost after the war, when the United States granted amnesty to Japanese scientists who had been working on Japan's very robust biological program (known as Unit 731). This gave the Americans a very large amount of practical data that they would have found difficult to acquire any other way. Among other things, Unit 731 had conducted live biological experiments on civilians and war prisoners, and thus had extensive experimental results on the effects of biological agents on human subjects. For another, the Japanese had deep engineering experience in biological weaponization and had refined and debugged these weapons by liberally using them on the Chinese. Taking all these results and data allowed the Americans to very quickly move their own program up to a higher level.

During the Korean War the biological program moved to Fort Detrick and ramped up. Numerous pathogens were researched and weaponized. During this period a number of American cities were used as laboratories to test aerosolization and dispersal methods. To this end microorganisms and spores were spread by hand, by boat and by aircraft in areas ranging from New York City to San Francisco. Data was then gathered on which methods worked best and then used to refine weapons design. In addition to biological agents targeting humans, the United States also placed great emphasis on agricultural pathogens. It was believed that such weapons, by inducing famine, might be more cost-effective than weapons applied directly on people. Therefore the United States program focused on these agents and developed dozens of anti-crop weapons.

By the 1960s the United States had a huge arsenal of potent biological weapons. Most of these were stored in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

In anticipation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), President Nixon terminated the American program in 1969. This was a pragmatic decision driven by real-politick: the United States already had deadly chemical and nuclear arsenals, and thus biological weapons weren't really required to further American security. More to the point, given the fact that biological weapons could easily be developed by many countries, the Americans felt it was in their interest to take the lead in blocking further development.

Over the ensuing decades there were accusations that the United States was nonetheless continuing biological weapons research. To date nothing has been conclusively proven in this regard. In contrast, it is certainly the case that other nations cheated. In particular, the Soviet Union conducted a massive effort known as Biopreparat.

However, it is believed that the United States has indeed restarted a major biological program under the Bush administration. Driven by the events of 9/11 and the perceived failure of the BWC treaty, the United States believes that biodefenses are again strategically critical. Unfortunately the line between defense and offense is an exceedingly fine one. It is an interesting logical paradox. In order to develop and test defenses against theoretical biological weapons, often one must develop those very same biological weapons. Thus the theoretical threat becomes real by virtue of the need to anticipate the threat. This is an interesting nuance that Dr. Strangelove would have appreciated.

A new arms race has begun. Unfortunately, this arms race will not be confined to a few large research facilities safely locked inside a couple superpowers. This arms race will encompass the world.

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