Weapons for the future
Authors: D A Henderson
Journal: The Lancet (1999)

D A Henderson is professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies. From 1967 to 1977, he directed the WHO Global Smallpox Eradication Program. Until now, microbes have seldom found use as biological weapons in warfare or as terrorist weapons. Unfortunately, that situation is likely to change, with unpredictable consequences. Over the past three centuries, biological weapons have found significant use on only two occasions—during the 18th century French and Indian Wars in North America, and in China between 1936 and 1945 by Japan's infamous Unit 731. Because bioweapons have been so little used, some have felt that there might be some unspoken moral code precluding their use, or perhaps that they are technically far too difficult to produce in quantity and to disseminate properly. The explanation is almost certainly more straightforward. Until comparatively recently, biological agents capable of devastating damage have not been readily available to groups that might use them. After World War II, several countries, including the Soviet Union, the UK, Canada, and the USA pursued active bioweapons research and development programmes, but stopped in 1972 when the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention took effect. The Convention called for a cessation of all research on offensive weapons, and the destruction of existing stocks of such weapons. With compliance, the number of scientists working in this area, albeit on defense systems, decreased sharply, and expertise waned. The Soviet Union, however, is now known to have pursued a massive, industrial-scale effort at least until the early 1990s. The result is that many difficult technical problems were solved—techniques for identifying the most virulent strains, for making some microbes antibiotic-resistant, for growing them in large quantities, for preparing them for aerosol dissemination, and for preparing them for use in missiles and warheads. Indeed, such research may still be continuing; some of the major facilities remain closed to all visitors. Meanwhile, economic conditions in the former Soviet Union have deteriorated, and many who are working in the bioweapons programme are being paid only sporadically or not at all. Large numbers of workers have left the laboratories to take up employment elsewhere in Russia and in other countries, inevitably carrying with them the technical skills for producing bioweapons. The status of the multi-ton lots of organisms that had been produced and stored in Russia is unknown. Such stocks included anthrax, smallpox, plague, and other organisms. The history of weapons development tells us that weapons that have been produced, for whatever reason, will eventually be used. One would hope that the history of biological weapons might be the exception to this rule, but it would be hazardous to believe that. The two weapons that pose the greatest concern are smallpox and anthrax. Smallpox spreads naturally from person to person, killing 30% of its victims. Historically, vaccination served to keep the disease under control and to eradicate it. However, vaccination ceased throughout the world 20 years ago, and most of those vaccinated before that time will have lost such immunity as vaccination provided. There is no treatment for the disease, and no way to satisfactorily stop its spread except by vaccination. Unfortunately there is little vaccine now available and no manufacturing capacity anywhere in the world. A terrorist attack producing an epidemic of only a few hundred cases could rapidly spin out of control, conceivably embracing the world in an epidemic. Anthrax is a serious threat for other reasons. The disease is caused by a bacterium that can persist for years, even decades, as a sturdy, resistant spore that is difficult to destroy. Released as a fine-particle aerosol, the organism can drift on air currents for 50 miles or more, infecting humans and animals over periods of 1 to 2 clays as it slowly spreads over the countryside. Between 2 and 45 days, individuals become acutely ill with a rapidly developing disease that normally results in death in 80% or more within 24-72 h after developing the first symptoms. Antibiotics, if given before onset of disease and over a 6-8 week period, are protective if the organism is sensitive to the antibiotic. Even so, logistics of trying to provide antibiotics to tens or hundreds of thousands of people who might have been exposed, would be a formidable challenge. These two examples indicate the potential of bioweapons. Because such weapons are so inexpensive to produce and transport, and have the capacity, as aerosols in particular, to cause devastation and panic over such a very wide area, there is a general consensus that these, in the future, will be the preferred weapons of mass destruction. Neither chemicals nor conventional weapons possess similar advantages. With the potential for organisms to be genetically modified to produce more virulent variants of the original strains, it is clear that the potential armamentarium is all but infinite. To counter these weapons will require a most unwelcome diversion of resources and concern, but we ignore them at our peril.