Students wear gasmasks before entering a building where they will be exposed to tear gas as part of their chemical, biological and radiological training during a winter military boot camp at a military unit in Bucheon, west of Seoul January 20, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won
Peter Apps, Reuters: The next super weapon could be biological
With the threat of chemical weapons in Syria and nuclear arms in North Korea, the risk of biological weapons has largely dropped off the international agenda. But evolving technologies and genetic engineering may open the door to new dangers.
Other than the “anthrax in the mail” attacks that followed 9/11, killing five people, there have been few serious attempts at biological attacks in recent years. Most global powers scaled back their biological weapons research in the 1970s, partly because of the difficulties of getting fragile bacteria and viruses to survive being dropped in bombs or missiles, or even sprayed.
Militant groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State have largely embraced the other end of the technological spectrum, turning to basic but brutal tactics such as using a car or truck to attack pedestrians in Nice, Berlin and elsewhere.
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WNU Editor: Another nightmare scenario.
Not really,
ReplyDeleteDespite trillions of dollars spent by all the major powers before, during and after WWII,
The "best" anybody ever managed was the Soviet Anthrax Variant, ( accidentally), which killed 105 people out of 9,400 exposed.
The human immune system is very robust and highly varied. The few diseases that have broad enough infection vectors to impact a significant portion of the population, kill too quickly for epidemic transmission.
Except for flu and smallpox. Older would people be immune to smallpox but ripe for the flu.
ReplyDeleteFlu varies, SAR's used healthy young immune systems to kill their host,
Deleteand most flu patients don't die from the flu, they die from debydration and a lack of electrolytes, easily solvedby drinking water and gatorade.
For a biological infectious disease to be a weapon, it has to be stable, generation to generation, and flu is not.
Smallpox get's it's "killer rep" from it's introduction into the America's, not it's effects in Europe, Asia, Asia Minor or Africa,
and smallpox worked on populations with no immunity to smallpox, in concert with a whole host of other introduced diseases for which the inhabitants had no immunity, and in concert with genocidal wars and policies.
Soviet weaponized, souped up smallpox "escaped" from the lab in 1979. It killed only one out of hundreds exposed.
Bio adaptive Nanotechnology will be a big changer here. .it already is in health sciences. .but it can also be applied to warfare
ReplyDelete