These culminated in the infamous sarin gas release inside the Tokyo subway system in 1995, which left 13 people dead and sent more than 5,000 to the hospital. A key reason for pessimism is the ease with which genetic manipulations are now accomplished. Both bacteria and viruses may now be engineered to be qualitatively different from conventional bioweapon agents. Block observes that, since 1945, a great many physicists have taken up the challenges posed by nuclear weaponry, and worked hard at both the national and international levels to limit their destructive potential. But with the notable exception of a few of the old guard, such as Donald Henderson, Joshua Lederberg and Matthew Meselson, there has been comparatively little involvement by biologists in bioweapons issues.
Biological weapons are a disgrace to biology.
The time has come for top biologists to assert their leadership and speak out, to take responsibility on behalf of their profession for the existence of these weapons and the means of protecting the population against them, just as leading physicists did a generation ago when nuclear weapons came along. American Scientist is an illustrated bimonthly magazine of science and technology published by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. The visits of human beings to the world outside our planetary atmosphere have produced some curious biological paradoxes. For example, it is well known that an astronaut in space loses about 1 percent of the mineral density in her heel bone per month. But bone-forming cells do not show the same reduction when raised in tissue culture in space.