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The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. The United States will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures.
In the United States, their possession, use, and transfer are regulated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Select Agent Program. The former US biological warfare program categorized its weaponized anti-personnel bio-agents as either Lethal Agents (Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, Botulinum toxin) or Incapacitating ...
Although the development of sensitive biological warfare agent detectors was at a standstill, two systems were, nonetheless, investigated. The first was a monitor that detected increases in the number of particles sized 1 to 5 μm in diameter, based on the assumption that a biological agent attack would include airborne particles of this size.
United States President Richard Nixon signed an executive order in November 1969, which stopped production of biological weapons in the United States and allowed only scientific research of lethal biological agents and defensive measures such as immunization and biosafety. The biological munition stockpiles were destroyed, and approximately ...
The goal "was to deter [the use of biological weapons] against the United States and its allies and to retaliate if deterrence failed," the government explained later. "Fundamental to the ...
Since 1997, United States law has declared a list of bio-agents designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Agriculture that have the "potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety" to be officially defined as "select agents" and possession or transportation of them are tightly controlled as such. [5]
Military biodefense in the United States began with the United States Army Medical Unit (USAMU) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 1956.(In contrast to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories [1943–1969], also at Fort Detrick, the USAMU's mission was purely to develop defensive measures against bio-agents, as opposed to weapons development.)
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) was a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp (later Fort) Detrick, Maryland, United States, beginning in 1943 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Research and Development Command.