Contrary to popular belief, the use of biological weapons is not a modern occurrence. The first documented case of biological weapons occurred in Europe in 1346 when the bubonic plague was used as an agent. The invading Tartar Mongol army from Asia catapulted plague-ridden corpses into the besieged city of Caffa on the Crimean Sea. The city residents tried to dispose of the bodies by dumping them into the sea and burning them, but they ultimately couldn’t avoid the disease spreading and eventually the city collapsed to the invaders. The disease killed an estimated 100 million people in the proceeding years.
Just as with the bubonic plague, disease can be a greater cause of death than fighting itself. For example, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19 was one of the most deadly pandemics in world history, occurring at the very end of World War I. This powerful influenza strain, H1N1, infected 500 million people and killed somewhere between 3 and 5 percent of the world’s population. In this case, the outbreak caused six times more deaths than the war itself.
Both the bubonic plague and Spanish flu were naturally occurring pandemics. While humanity is still extremely vulnerable to these types of diseases, new diseases that are even more dangerous are being developed in laboratories around the world. The same medicinal and pharmaceutical research that is allowing humanity to fight natural diseases better is also opening up a significant means for sabotage by terror elements. It is a cruel irony that as we get better at fighting the diseases of the past, we may be simultaneously inventing the diseases of the future.
Is the Bioterror Threat Overstated?
In a recent survey by the Centre of Strategic and International Studies, over 80 percent of past and present American officials believed a bioterrorist attack in the next five to ten years to be likely, very likely, or certain. Surprisingly, however, before the 2001 anthrax attacks, only one U.S. fatality could be linked to a biological or chemical terrorist act, the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst in which the perpetrators used cyanide-tipped bullets. Internationally, the notable 1995 sarin gas attack of the Tokyo subways was organized by the cult Aum Shinrikyo while the group was simultaneously manufacturing large quantities of biological agents.
The enormous fear of bioterror attacks isn’t due to past experience, but to the massive hypothetical damage an attack could cause. Avian flu is a good example of how dangerous an attack could be. Avian flu has only killed 330 since 2003, but this translates to a 60 percent fatality rate of the 570 known cases of the disease. Although the natural form of the bird influenza doesn’t spread easily between people, scientists have been able to tweak the bird-flu genes to produce an airborne form of H5N1 that could potentially be extremely contagious in humans.
Ease of Bioterror Weapons
As biological science improves, so does the threat of a bioterror attack. The regulation of laboratories that produce harmful biological agents is very inadequate when compared to the potential threat. The anthrax used in the 2001 attacks in the United States was synthesized in a government lab in Maryland without supervision. In fact, before 2002, laboratories in the United States weren’t required to declare possession of biological agents. The Maryland case clearly casts doubt on security-clearance procedures for potentially dangerous medical research. And since this research is occurring on a global scale, there is no effective centralized authority responsible for regulating biological research.
In an interview with the HPR, Former Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, used the case of Syria to explain the current failure of biological agent regulation. “The Syrian government had produced and warehoused a very significant quantity of both chemical and biological weapons. However, [in terms of] the treaties that governed those weapons, either Syria had not joined or [the treaties] were not robust enough to interdict those weapons until they had actually been utilized.” International regulation of biological agents beyond marginal reforms of the Australia Group and export licensing measures are required to prevent the proliferation of agents.
Preparing for a Bioterror Attack
Bioterror attacks in the past have been relatively small in scale, leading some to question whether the size of the threat. Several experts, however, confirm that a hypothetical attack would be completely devastating. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19 killed 100 million people, and if a disease of a similar magnitude emerged today, it would inflict an estimated cost of $20 trillion. If we assume the likelihood of such an event occurring annually to be one percent, then the global community should logically spend up to $600 billion preparing for such an outbreak.
While preparation sounds good in theory, it is extremely difficult to prepare for a global public health disaster in practice. As Donald Henderson, the first U.S. Director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, explained in an interview to the HPR, “There are an almost infinite number of possibilities and scenarios that one could think up [for a bioterror attack]. The vast number of possibilities, and the enormous cost of responding to just one of the options make total preparation effectively impossible.”
In addition, there aren’t enough incentives for private enterprises to make basic preparations for a pandemic. Pharmaceutical companies have no profit motive to develop vaccines and medicines for bioterror attacks. The onus therefore falls on public authorities to prepare. After the 2001 American anthrax mail attacks that killed five, the federal government approved $1 billion for bioterror preparation. Even with these funds, the mutability of biological agents makes vaccine development and other specific preparation programs often ineffectual. In this way, the best way money can be spent is on broad recognition and protection systems. For example, air monitors have been installed in 30 American cities with plans to install more in the coming years.
Dr. Henderson and other experts suggest a less centralized preparation scheme to maximize limited resources. More emphasis is now placed on community mobilization in the face of an attack. In addition to local efforts, the U.S. federal government has compiled a national stockpile of drugs, which would be distributed in the event of an attack. Kathleen Vogel, a bioterror expert from Cornell University described the efficacy of a drug stockpile to the HPR saying, “You can’t really predict or prevent an attack. What you can do is try and decrease some of the effects of the attack.” The American stockpile reportedly has a smallpox vaccine for every American and also tens of millions of anthrax vaccines.
The Biological Threat
While these vaccines would work on the normal strains of smallpox and anthrax, engineered strains or new diseases entirely could cripple society. The cost of a creating an operational stockpile likely outweighs the potential benefit of the stockpile, as a bioterrorist would simply choose an agent that the national stockpile couldn’t confront. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that it would take approximately 16 weeks to develop a new vaccine to confront a new influenza pandemic.
Biological agents are engineered with traits from many organisms in a way that makes them particularly dangerous. Bioterror expert Dr. Leonard Cole explained to the HPR the danger of bioengineered hybrid agents. “These organisms could be developed with the contagion capacity of the influenza virus, the lethality of Ebola, and the durability of anthrax.” While modern medicine is well prepared to deal with an outbreak of the bubonic plague or Spanish flu today, an outbreak of a new agent could easily have just as devastating an impact as its predecessors did centuries ago. In this way, the development and proliferation of biological weapons may be the greatest threat to human existence in the 21st century and beyond.
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