Vaccines might sound like a viable form of protection, but in practice they present huge problems. There are about thirty known biological weapons agents, and genetic engineering may expand that number almost indefinitely. The long latency period between vaccination and the body's immune response and the logistical problems of manufacturing and deploying vaccines pose further obstacles. More recently, the military has launched scarier schemes for biotechnology. On the other, novel, opiumlike substances whose minute presence induces sleep, euphoria, anxiety, submissiveness or temporary blindness are being pursued for their potential as incapacitants.
Genetic engineering offers ways to refine both applications.
In principle, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibit recourse to the use of such technologies. The biological treaty bans development, production and stockpiling of microbes and toxins made by living things for any weapons purpose. It is apparently through this loophole that the Pentagon is pursuing work on novel incapacitants. The cornucopia of prizes from genetic engineering projected in the optimistic 1970s is rapidly becoming a mare's-nest of transgenic creations that we neither need nor want. Not easily, and not without an educated and active public.