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Biological weapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms or replicating entities (i.e. viruses, which are not universally considered "alive"). Entomological (insect) warfare is a subtype of biological warfare. Biological warfare is subject to a forceful normative prohibition.
In July 1995 documents were confirmed by defectors who ran Iraq's biological warfare program; that the biological weapons program produced a large variety of biological weapons, including anthrax, which was able to be delivered by missiles, bombs and aerosols. It was also discovered that there was an arsenal of these weapons in 1991. [3]
The use of bees as guided biological weapons was described in Byzantine written sources, such as Tactica of Emperor Leo VI the Wise in the chapter On Naval Warfare. [9] There are numerous other instances of the use of plant toxins, venoms, and other poisonous substances to create biological weapons in antiquity. [10]
A 1972 treaty theoretically prohibited developing biological weapons, but this program justified it with the argument that new weapons needed to be studied in order to develop adequate defenses.
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.)
Entomological warfare is not a new concept; historians and writers have studied EW in connection to multiple historic events. A 14th-century plague epidemic in Asia Minor that eventually became known as the Black Death (carried by fleas) is one such event that has drawn attention from historians as a possible early incident of entomological warfare. [4]
Chemical and Biological Weapons: Possession and Programs Past and Present", James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury College, April 9, 2002, accessed November 12, 2008. "Biological Weapons", Federation of American Scientists, updated October 19, 1998, accessed November 12, 2008.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention is an international treaty banning the development, use or stockpiling of biological weapons; as of March 2021, there were 183 states parties to the treaty. [3] Bio-agents are, however, widely studied for both defensive and medical research purposes under various biosafety levels and within biocontainment ...