Biological and Chemical Warfare

Dominic Paulazzo

Mrs. Gagnon

Modern World

May 15, 2013 Biological and Chemical Outline

Biological and chemical warfare has been around since the beginning of time. From poison tipped arrows to purposely transmitting smallpox to individuals. There has been ongoing political conflict on biological and chemical warfare for quite some time for legitimate reasons too. Biological and chemical warfare is very deadly and sometimes inhumane, but on the other hand it is very cost efficient and is very effective at doing its job. Biological and chemical warfare is also good for the country or individual using it because their is no loss of life or huge amounts of people dieing to kill others only one side dies. Biological and chemical warfare is a safe and cost effective alternative to modern warfare.
Some history of early uses of BCW in war time. During the 6th century BC, the Assyr i ans poisoned enemy we lls wit h a fungus that would h arm the enemy. In 1 84 B C, H anni bal had clay pots filled with ven omous sn akes and tol d his so ldi ers to thro w the pots at Pergamene shi ps. Historical accounts from medie val Eur ope sh ow the use of d ead infected animal bodies, by M ong ols, Turks and other gr oups, to infect ene my wat er sup plies. In 1346 , the b odies of Mon gol warr iors of the Go lden Ho rde who h ad di e d of plague were th rown over the wa lls of t he city of Kaf fa. It has b een said that this operat ion may have been respo nsible for the st art of the B l ac k D eath in Eu ro pe. T he last known incid ent of using plag ue corpses for BCW purp oses occurred in 1710 , when Russi an for ces attacked the S w edish by fli nging plague-inf ect ed corps es o ver t he cit y walls of Re v al.
It has been argued that rational people would never use biological weapons offensively. “Allied efforts in Canada, the United States, and Britain to develop anthrax-based weapons were also active in World War II. During World War II, Britain actually produced five million anthrax cakes at the U.K. Chemical and Biological Defense Establishment at Porton Down facility that were intended to be dropped on Germany to infect the food chain” (Ed K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner). The argu ment is that bio logical we apons cannot be controlled: the w eapon could malfunction and hurt the offen sive side,maybe h aving even worse effe cts than on the target. An a gent like smallpox or oth er ai rborne virus es would spread wor ldwide and ultim ately in fect the user 's ho me cou ntry. H ow e ver, this argu ment d oes not real ly apply to bac teria. For exampl e, ant hrax can easily be co ntrolled and even cre ated in a gar den s hed. A lso, bact eria can be suit a bly mod ified to be eff ect ive in only a narr ow envi ronme ntal ran ge, th e range of the ta rget that diffe rs fr om the ar my on the of fensive. Thus only the ta rget mig ht be af fected adversely. The weapon may be furt her used to h arm or d egrade an a dvancing army mak ing the m mo re vulner able to count eratt ack by the defe nding force.
BCW is funded by two main sources the government and taxpayers. Basically its only the government because they use taxpayer money to fund it. The government owns all of the land and real estate for the labs and storage for the facilities. “After bioterrorist attacks on the U.S. government in 2001, Biological and chemical agent funding has gone up over 4000% and still is one of the most funded bacteria agents in public health today” (Gale Encyclopedia of Science). These acts were also brought to the publics attention and then the people also voted for more research and defense against these harmful bacterias. Scientist have discovered many new substances and created new technology to prevent bioterrorism to affect our government officials again. The problem now is catching the actual terrorist who are using these agents.
Synthetic biological warfare is commonly classified as Chemical warfare. The synthetic substances are used for not only for war but also medical use as well. A most commonly used chemical compound is lachrymatory agent( tear gas). This chemical agent is used mostly in riot control by police. The tear gas causes irritation to the eyes and stimulates the mucous glands and makes breathing difficult. It also causes sneezing and coughing and in worst case blindness. “We used synthetic lethal high-throughput screening to interrogate 23,550 compounds for their ability to kill engineered tumorigenic cells but not their isogenic normal cell counterparts. We identified known and novel compounds with genotype-selective activity, including doxorubicin, daunorubicin, mitoxantrone, camptothecin, sangivamycin, echinomycin, bouvardin, NSC146109, and a novel compound that we named erastin. (Wright, Peter H. “Chemotherapy.”)” Synthetic compounds are used in medical practice in such cases of cancerous tumors and it is used in Chemotherapy. Doctors have been using synthetic materials and chemical compounds in medicine for centuries and still do today. Synthetic drugs are produced everyday and the average american consumes about 20 lbs. of synthetic medical drugs a year. This makes a large market for chemical compounds and plays a big part in the global economy.
Biological and Chemical Warfare is a safe alternative to modernwarfare. Like all forms of warfare biological and chemical warfare comes with an expense. “In addition, biological warfare agents are virtually undetectable while they are in transit. In other words, if a terrorist wanted to carry the biological agent into the United States in a carry-on bag or checked luggage, there is no mechanism using routine customs, immigration, drug scan, or bomb search procedures to identify the agent. The only way to find it would be a physical search by a very well trained and very lucky searcher.59 Similarly, the threat on the battlefield is almost as insidious, with very little present detection capability(Biological Weapons Rules Agreed Upon By Nations).” Global news has also reported thet biological warfare is going to be soon outlawed because it is too hard to control. The global concern over bio and chemical warfare is growing.

Work Cited

"Biological warfare." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 4th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013.

"Biological Weapons Rules Agreed upon by Nations, 1972." Historic U.S. Events. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013.

"Nerve gas." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 4th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013.

Wright, Peter H. "Chemotherapy." Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2003. 124. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013.

Cited: "Biological warfare." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 4th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013. "Biological Weapons Rules Agreed upon by Nations, 1972." Historic U.S. Events. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013. "Nerve gas." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 4th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013. Wright, Peter H. "Chemotherapy." Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2003. 124. Student Resources In Context. Web. 2 May 2013.