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History of biological weapons

At least 80 people died in 1979 when an accident in the Soviet Union led to anthrax emissions from a weapons factory.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The fear of anthrax and biological terror is spreading. But what experience does the world have with biological weapons? And who owns such weapons?

These issues were discussed in 1999 when the world's foremost experts met at a conference on biological terrorism in Australia. If we believe one of the experts' conclusion at the end of the symposium, the situation is bleak:

- Firefighters run into buildings to save lives because they think they can save everyone. They can not, and believe me, the flames burn very clearly when we talk about biological terrorism, said Kyle Olson, project manager at Research Planning Inc, and author of a book about the Japanese sect Aum Shinrikyo.

Sverdlovsk accident

The events of the past few weeks mean that anthrax, or anthrax, is on everyone's lips, even in Notodden. According to Professor DA Henderson, former scientific adviser to President George Bush senior, anthrax is intended for weapons one of the few bacteria that the world has actually experienced.

It happened in the former Soviet Union, more specifically in Sverdlovsk, where anthrax powder was produced at a weapons factory. An accident at the factory in 1979 caused an invisible cloud of anthrax to spread with the wind.

It is estimated that 80 people, possibly as many as 200, died of the anthrax epidemic in Sverdlovsk. But, as Henderson explained during the Astralia conference, documentation from the accident is missing because the KGB put a lid on most of the information.

Nevertheless, it has been established that the anthrax bacteria were transported several miles from the weapons factory with the wind, where they also caused animals to die.

World War II

Anthrax, which is found naturally in much of the world, often in agricultural areas where animals are infected, is one issue. However, the scientists at the conference in Australia were very keen to stress the following fact, which does not only apply to anthrax: Bacteria used in weapons are designed to be much more potent than those found in nature.

Today, it is estimated that as many as 15 countries have developed biological weapons, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, North and South Korea, South Africa, China, India and Russia. The United Kingdom and the United States each had large stocks of biological weapons, which they themselves claim have been destroyed.

According to the British Dr. Christopher Davis, one of the speakers at the conference in 1999, it was the Allies during World War II who first developed sophisticated biological weapons. In 1943, the British allegedly kept a stockpile of five million doses of anthrax ready to be used against Germany, should the Nazis decide to do something "unpleasant" against Britain.

The Anthrax weapon would then be used against cattle to undermine the German economy. That did not happen, and Britain was the first to shred biological weapons after the war in favor of nuclear weapons.

Secrecy of East and West

However, the United States continued its biological weapons development program until 1969. According to Dr. Davis, the development had come so far that Americans were stocking up on seven stocks of seven biological weapons, which were being tested in the Pacific.

What bacteria actually sprayed across the Pacific, probably from airplanes, is still a secret. Although the West at that time knew that the Russians also developed biological weapons, the extent was not known to the outside world until the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s.

Dr. Davis was one of the few Western scientists invited by then-President Gorbachev to visit some of the country's biological facilities, though only those engaged in civilian production.

At that time, the Soviet had such a large biological weapons development program, according to Dr. Davis, that it absorbed a whole generation of scientists. No one knows for sure what happened to the stocks and how the situation is in Russia today. But through the jumping of Russian scientist Ken Alibek to the United States in 1992, it has been possible to facilitate something on the Russian bio-veil.

- Worse than nuclear weapons

Ken Alibek, also attending the conference in Australia, worked for 20 years in the Soviet Union's Directorate for Biological Weapons. He has provided a detailed overview of the various bacteria the Russians used to develop weapons, including anthrax, copper and Ebola.

According to Alibek, the Soviet Union's philosophy was to develop biological weapons for which there were no vaccines or medical treatment. By the late 80s, the Russians had managed to develop biological weapons that available treatment methods in the West could not remedy, because these drugs would be immune to antibiotics.

Ebola was considered to be the best weapon, according to Alibek, who concluded his lecture during the conference in Australia with the following force ointment:

- I am 100 percent sure that some of the biological weapons and their killing capacity are more effective than certain forms of nuclear weapons.

prohibition Agreement

In 1972, most of the world's nations signed an agreement to ban the production of biological weapons. But to date there has been no consensus on which specific bacteria should be banned.

One of the worst in the last decade, at least with the West's eyes, is Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Since the Gulf War, the outside world has come to know that the country has developed both chemical and biological weapons adapted to a variety of weapons.

Hamish Killip is one of some 50 UN inspectors who have been to Iraq to look up the country's biological arsenal. During the conference in Australia, he pointed out that Iraq has both a civilian and a military production line: The civilian consists of scientists who develop the biological substances, the military of the production of weapons capable of carrying the substances.

According to Killip, Iraq had just started a program to equip airplanes with 2000-liter tanks that could release biological substances when the country's bombing began in 1991.

Today, UN inspectors are thrown out of Iraq, and it is an open question how far the country has come in developing biological weapons.

Biological terror

What about the development and use of biological weapons by non-nationals? One example was extensively discussed during the 1999 Australia Conference: Japanese sect Aum Shinrikyo.

In 1995, Aum Shinrikyo shocked the Japanese and the rest of the world with the release of sarin gas at a Tokyo subway station. The result was a dozen killed and 3500 sick. But before the nerve gas spill, Aum Shinrikyo repeatedly tried biological terror.

According to Kyle Olson, author of a book about the sect, Aum Shinrikyo first attempted to use botulism poison – a protein that attacks the nervous system and leads to paralysis and death – in April 1990.

From a car, the sect members escaped botolism around the Tokyo parliament building without any reports of deaths or injuries. For three years, Aum Shinrikyo attempted a new botolism attack. With a truck that was converted into a syringe truck, they drove in the areas surrounding the Imperial Palace, official buildings and a US military base in Tokyo. But once again, the release of the biological substance did not lead to death or disease. Disappointed by the poor results, Aum Shinrikyo tried shortly after to release anthrax. But the release of anthrax spores, which were actually made from the Tokyo office building where the sect had a laboratory, also did not result in death and destruction in humans. Thus, from 1994, Aum Shinrikyo switched to chemical warfare, and the sarin gas became their foremost weapon.

Copper-epidemics

The Australia Conference, hosted by the International Union of Microbiological Societies, did not just address who is in possession of bioligical weapons and what types exist.

Just as much attention was given to thoughtful scenarios if such weapons are used and how to protect themselves. Professor DA Henderson used copper epidemics to describe the situation.

According to the professor, we have two recent examples of copper eruptions that can provide guidance on what is in store. In 1970, an outbreak of smallpox in Germany led to a total of 20 people being infected. Far worse was the outbreak in Yugoslavia in 1972.

Yugoslavia had not had copper outbreaks since 1927. Like most other countries in Europe, the population was relatively well vaccinated against copper. Still, the outbreak came, starting with a 30-year-old schoolteacher getting cups in Kosovo.

10.000 in isolation

It was not until two days after the school teacher died that he was found to have smallpox. During his time in hospital, he had infected 35 other people. By the time the alarm went off, around 150 had already been infected around Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia's borders with neighboring countries were closed and all transboundary transport, whether by boat, plane, car or train, stopped. Yugoslavia was thus completely isolated.

According to Professor Henderson, the authorities in the country saw no other way than to vaccinate the entire population of 19 million, which was done in 10-12 days. To isolate people they feared had been infected, authorities took over hotels and apartment blocks, where people were placed in the 14-day quarantine. The buildings were fenced in with barbed wire and guarded by the police, and as many as 10.000 people suffered this fate.

Amazingly, according to Professor Henderson, Yugoslavia managed to stifle the copper outbreak in this way. But as he concluded during the conference in Australia:

- But I want to point out to you that this was a small outbreak, this was not a big problem, it was a small outbreak.

Globalization a problem

At the conclusion of the conference in 1999, it was pointed out that the danger of biological terrorism today is difficult to handle, not least because of globalization.

- Globalization has dramatically increased international traffic, and thus the transport routes of international infectious diseases. It will be virtually impossible to stop a terrorist spill in New York, for example, said Chris Bullock, who chaired the conference on biological terrorism in Australia.

Gerry Hauer, responsible for crisis situations in New York, for his part, pointed out that the city government's goal is to create an infrastructure that allows residents to provide medication within 12 hours and medical treatment within 36 hours. In 1999, there were still many unanswered questions, Hauer admitted in 1999:

- When it comes to a substance such as anthrax, we do not know at the present time whether we can allow the bodies to be buried or whether they must be cremated.

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