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Bio-warfare in contemporary times - what are the possibilities
Category: Research
Pretext:
The term bio weapon has been around since quite long time, with it's ancient mention in text that is 1500–1200 BC years old; mentioning intent of driving diseased person to the enemy land to cause infections and catastrophe. Recorded occurred incidents dates back to 400 BC, when schythian archers dipped their arrows in infected feces and decaying corpses before raining them on enemies. Romans used to contaminate their swords with dead animal internals before going to war, increasing the chances of infection in wounded enemies. Venomous snakes were tossed in to enemy ships in second Macedonian war during 190 B.C. [1]
The siege of port city Feodosia previously known as city of Kaffa is a well cited example by historians where bio weapon was used and brought black death plaque to mediterranean which swept Europe, Near East and North Africa in the midst of 14th century and was the greatest public health disaster in recorded history. During the siege of city of Kaffa, the Mongols threw the infected corpses inside the walled city via catapults. As a result, plaque spread in the city causing mass deaths, lots flew and brought the plague to Mediterranean and Italy. This claim however is contested by researchers as they believe that probably the plaque reached Europe via merchant ships with infected rodents. [2]
In recent times during 18th century British army officers gave smallpox infected blankets to native Americans with intent to infect the population with it. Japanese army threw plague infested fleas via bomb to the Chinese city of Ningbo, which resulted in almost death of 400000 people. Such examples are seen through out afterwards with Britishers weaponizing plague, brucellosis, tularemia, equine encephalomyelitis and vaccinia viruses. US weaponizing anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever etc. These programs, however, were later terminated and treaties were signed under UN to ban the production and use bio-weapons, however research has been continuing ever since for prevention and weapon development as a "defensive tool". [1,3]
Where we are today
Till the end of 20th century numbers of countries such as U.S, U.K, Russia etc, conducted experiments on unsuspecting general population to see the effects and aftermath in case of an event caused by bio-pathological attack. Until 1990s the warfare capabilities were limited to naturally occurring pathogens. However, with recent advances in gene editing and more knowledge in to genome therapy over few decades have changed the ball game all-together by increasing the chance of potential threats and possibilities exponentially.
In 1997 a novel by Richard Perton “The Cobra Event” was published. Story revolved around a fictional scenario in which bio-terrorism was done via genetically engineered super-virus. President Clinton of US during that time after reading the novel got sensitized towards such scenario and issued two Presidential Decision Directives to address national security deficiencies related to biological and chemical warfare. [4,5]
Same year, in 1997, group of scientist called JASON group gathered to discuss the potential bio-warfare hazards and grouped potential genetically engineered pathogens in to six groups. [4,5]
• Binary biological weapons
Like conventional chemical mixing methodology, two different pathogens can be mixed and engineered before deployment of such weapon. Some bacteria which otherwise are harmless but when injected with disease causing plasmids, which is a disease causing genetic information, can induce disease in targeted population.
• Designer genes
Human’s genome has already been sequenced and so of hundreds of bacteria, viruses and multiple pathogens. With advances in the gene editing technologies it’s possible to make gene edited pathogens. Making new strains or antibiotic and antiviral resistant bacteria and viruses. Or make a completely new virus and pathogen with hybrid of attributes of multiple pathogen naturally present.
• Gene therapy as a weapon
Gene therapy is already being rolled out systematically for the cure of genetic disorders. However, the same principal can be used to edit human genes to insert a viral strains, which can inhibit certain genes in human cells. This can be linked to suppressing cells defense mechanisms or to disrupt vital cellular functions causing cell death. This can be achieved by using artificially created retro virus, which can inject the artificial genome into the host cell and becomes part of host DNA.
• Stealth viruses
Such viruses can enter human body and stay dormant for years, later can become expressive after exposure to a certain stimulus, this type of virus can be used for selective bio-warfare, in which a certain population can be exposed to a certain stimulus, which activates the expression of the viral genome.
• Host-swapping diseases
Naturally occurring viruses rarely jumps hosts, however, a certain virus which naturally infect an animal can be made genetically susceptible to infect humans.
• Designer diseases
Using all the above methodology a pathogen can be created to artificially construct a disease which can have certain symptoms, e.g. pneumonia, immuno-supression, muscle pain and even cancer.
I would like to add another methodology which have became a potential area for bio-warfare is ethnicity based bioweapons. [6]
Genetic material has been collected systematically of different ethnic groups by governments and with recent spike in commercial companies like 23x and me which collect genetic information of different countries and ethnicities and have the policy to use or share the collected data for research purposes has tremendously increased the chances of the data to be used by military organizations. Different ethnicities can be susceptible to a certain diseases more than the other based on their unique genetic composition. If a pathogen has to be created that can effect a certain group of people or ethnicity more than the rest, can cause selective ethnic based catastrophe. In 2017 Russia accused US of collection of DNA samples of russians “systematically and professionally”. There are certain groups who are resistant to certain diseases and if a super-pathogen has to be created that can bypass or suppress those genes that cause the natural resistance; such population can become vulnerable after an attack by such virus.
With recent calamity caused by covid-19 lots of questions are being asked, if it is synthetically created virus that got leaked or it’s being used as a bio-weapon by some country. Short answer is that we don't know, however, history is full of such examples where countries have repeatedly done such acts to gain political, geo-strategical, military or economic benefits. Regardless of this current pandemic, there is a big chance that such catastrophe can be inflicted by some individuals/ governments for their material gain. And for that we need to prepare and make defenses around such strategy by conducting research in such likely scenarios and how to counter them effectively in case of such heinous event.
References
1. Croddy, Eric (1966) Chemical and biological warfare a comprehensive survey for the concerned citizen, Available at: https://archive.org/details/chemicalbiologic00crod/page/218
2. Mark Wheelis (2002) Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa, Available at: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article .
3. PATRICK J. KIGER (2019) Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare?, Available at: https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets
4. Michael J. Ainscough, Colonel, USAF. (2002) Next Generation Bioweapons: Genetic Engineering and BW, Available at: https://fas.org/irp/threat/cbw/nextgen.pdf
5. MACKENZIE FOLEY (2013) Genetically Engineered Bioweapons: A New Breed of Weapons for Modern Warfare, Available at: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites...les/2015/12/DUJSVol15No2ConflictAndDecay.pdf#
6. British Medical Association (2004) Biotechnology, weapons and humanity II, Available at: http://bmaopac.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/exlibris/aleph/a23_1/apache_media/ULX1B2DUSK72PQAUCN9
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Disclaimer: The write-up represents the perspective, orientation and belief of a poster. The write-up is entry for Best writer's Contest 2020 and it does not represent the views of website and it's associates.
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