Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
In recent years certain critics have claimed the U.S. stance on biological warfare and the use of biological agents has differed from historical interpretations of the BWC. [78] For example, it is said that the U.S. now maintains that the Article I of the BWC (which explicitly bans bio-weapons), does not apply to "non-lethal" biological agents ...
According to the same 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 are still studied and tested, but informed consent is more widely appreciated now. There's also less of a Cold War mentality that would be used to justify this research.
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.
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.
Nixon noted that biological weapons were unreliable [7] and stated: [4] 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.
Committed with the use of biological agents The following criteria of violence or threat of violence fall outside of the definition of this article: Wartime (including a declared war ) or peacetime acts of violence committed by a nation state against another nation state regardless of legality or illegality and are carried out by properly ...