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Accordingly, biological agents are potentially useful as strategic deterrents, in addition to their utility as offensive weapons on the battlefield. [12] As a tactical weapon for military use, a significant problem with biological warfare is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore might not immediately stop an opposing force.
According to the 2008 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, "Developments in biotechnology, including genetic engineering, may produce a wide variety of live agents and toxins that are difficult to detect and counter; and new chemical warfare agents and mixtures of chemical weapons and biowarfare agents are being developed ...
Biological agents, also known as biological weapons or bioweapons, are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kinds of potentially weaponizable bio-agents have been described and studied to date.
Collateral damage, including the infliction of incidental damage to non-combatant targets during an attack on or attempting to attack legitimate targets in war; Targeted murders or poisonings carried out with the use of biological agents, not for political or religious purposes; Plans that were not carried out
The official U.S. Army history of the U.S. biological warfare program, which spans from the early Cold War to 1969 and includes an overview of biowarfare research, Fort Derick contracts between U.S. universities and the private industry, as well as testing on human volunteers, was published online by the National Security Archives. [12]
Purported Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories, actually for production of hydrogen to fill wind-sensing balloons. [1]During the lead-up to the Iraq War, the United States had alleged that Iraq owned bioreactors, and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle.
In 2013, it provided necessary data, which addressed 10 specific biological agent knowledge gaps, to improve hazard, risk, and threat assessments. The data allowed for significant growth in the credibility of hazard and risk assessment modeling of bioterrorism scenarios for a variety of toxin threat agents, including both bacteria and viruses.
Among the biological agents, the Rhodesians selected for use included Vibrio cholerae (causative agent of cholera) and possibly Bacillus anthracis (causative agent of anthrax). They also looked at using Rickettsia prowazekii (causative agent of epidemic typhus ), and Salmonella typhi (causative agent of typhoid fever), and toxins—such as ...