This site is not updated. Mr. Chairman, the United States congratulates you on your election, and pledges its cooperation in the vital work that lies before us. In recent years the international community has made major strides against the threats of nuclear and chemical weapons. But we have yet to exploit new opportunities to address more effectively, in a legally binding way, the threat of biological weapons. It is time this gap was closed.
Biological weapons are immensely destructive.
In the right environment they can multiply, and so self-perpetuate. And they can naturally mutate, frustrating protective measures. Chemical weapons, for all their horrors, become less lethal as they are dispersed and diluted. But even the tiniest quantities of disease organisms can be lethal. For example, botulinum toxin has been described as 3 million times more potent than the chemical nerve agent sarin.