Since then, the military has fielded new protection equipment and detection systems, and more counter measures are in the works. Lumping all biological warfare agents together as a class is almost as dangerous as comparing biological and chemical agents directly, they can be very different, he said. Depending on the situation, some are contagious, others are not. But when we leave the room, we may not necessarily 'spread it' in a contagious sense, unless some of the agent remains on our clothing and is physically transferred to someone else. Usually, we think of biological agents as an aerosol threat, according to the Pentagon expert.
Aerosols behave a lot like chemical vapors.
There's a lot of water vapor in a room, but we can't see it, or feel it, or taste it, or touch it. That's really what we'd have in a biological event. These deadly 'bugs' do have some natural enemies, Wade said. Most biological agents don't weather well. There are lots of things that make it difficult for these biological agents to exist.