Comments on: Bioweapons Getting Simple, Cheap?

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:16:15 +0000

Potential just means you haven’t done anything yet. Bioengineering is incredibly difficult. Certainly, it will get easier in the future. That will bring it down from almost impossibly hard to merely extremely difficult.
Sure, scientists at MIT can train immigrants to push buttons and move containers, just like a manager at McDonalds can teach a guy to run the register. Without the MIT scientists, however, and without the billion dollar MIT labs, those untrained workers have zero hope of successful lab work.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:06:33 +0000

Well, I wasn’t saying it would be a good idea to release smallpox at the Hajj. What I meant was that the Hajj would be one huge disease vector. All those Muslims sharing communal food packed in tight touching each other, breathing and coughing on each other. If somewhere in the world small pox were released It would quickly find it’s way to the biggest disease vectors. So, in this sense urban sprall would actually help us.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:43:11 +0000

JoJo
Considering that the Haj pilgrims’ countries of origin would also include place like France, the USA, the UK, Germany, India and so on, it would be a very bad idea. Do you really want 747 loads of infected pilgrims returning to NY or Detroit?

By: DS

DS — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 07:13:15 +0000

How do you stop it? At the source. The people that take up bioweapons research in foreign countries are motivated by money. You don’t find Muslim fanatics concerning themselves with the time it takes to develop and learn this stuff. You DO find poor, out of work scientists who have been rejected from their careers. So you offer rewards…substantial rewards, for information leading to the discovery and shutdown of a bioweapons lab or operation. Then you isolate the individuals that come forward, and monitor them to make sure your ‘rewards’ aren’t circulating back into the wrong hands. Obviously this isn’t the only solution. It has to be approached from many angles. But it would be a good starting point.

By: Helvetix Victorinox

Helvetix Victorinox — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:46:40 +0000

... If these two terrorist groups couldn't make BW agents, then there's obviously a flaw with the article's claim that "it's not a question of if..." Just because you can't figure out how to make something right now, doesn't mean you can't ever figure out how to make it. I think your logic is bad. You ask, "Where is the threat?" That's easy: The threat is that they are working on it.

By: J.

J. — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 03:13:31 +0000

Like Chuck and Byron, I have to cry “Wrong!” If you look at the record, over a thirty year period there have been two successful BW terrorist incidents — 1984 when 751 people got sick from samonella poisoning in Oregon (and take a guess at the annual US rate of samonella poisoning today — much higher) and 2001 with the anthrax incident — 5 dead, 17 infected but lived. Where’s the threat?
Aum Shinrikyo had unlimited funds and time to get equipment through front companies — they had good facilities, four years of uninterrupted work using grad students in the hard sciences, and access to Soviet technology and assistance. They failed to produce bot tox or anthrax, they couldn’t get Q fever or Ebola, and they couldn’t do genetic engineering.
Al Qaeda — uninterrupted time of years in Afghanistan, access to equipment and technical assistance through Pakistan, money was no object, they were certainly interested — and they couldn’t make anthrax or bot tox. If these two terrorist groups couldn’t make BW agents, then there’s obviously a flaw with the article’s claim that “it’s not a question of if…“
Meanwhile, in 1999 there were 76 million cases of food-borne diseases in the USA, with 5000 deaths; somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths caused by “medical errors”; 20,000 hospital-contracted infections that led to death every year; and air pollution causing 50,000 deaths per year. What should we worry about more? the 5–10 deaths that might be caused by the next bioterrorist or the huge number of deaths caused by natural diseases and accidents in the hospitals?
Also see: http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/the_problem_of_.html

By: JoJo

JoJo — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 02:05:03 +0000

Tim — yep. Can you imagine the death and destruction in the Muslim world if a virulent pathogen were released into the crowds at the Hajj to be carried back to the pilgrims’ countries of origin?

By: Byron Skinner

Byron Skinner — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:43:41 +0000

Good Morning Folks,
I think it is prudent to remain a skeptic on “Bio. Weapons”. Where as “Chemical Weapons” can be produced in nearly any country, Bio Weapons that weaponize biological materials requires a very sophisticated infrastructure, perhaps even stronger the to develope then a Nuclear Weapon.
The sources of the raw materials for Bio Weapons are secured in very controled enviroments with in the United States, Russia (former Soviet Union), China, Japan and Western Europe. The Russians watch this stuff even closer then they do nuclear materials, they are very much aware that Bio Weapons could very easly be used on them as as anyone else.
Chemical Weapons outside of use in a controled Battlespace have never been very attractive to combantants. The lessons of WWI where shifting winds blew the stuff back on its users, have been well taken.
The so called “Dirty Bomb” which uses industrial,medical, radio active, materials, waste is a more likely problem since it requires at its basics very little techicnal knowledge. But here we are at least, in its assumed size and use, have a weapon, that although it would certainly be deadly to a few would have little military effect.
Although all these weapons are with in the spectrim of possibility it appears that there best use is in propaganda by Terrorists and by U.S. Politicians beating war drumbs for the next war, Iran.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

By: Noah Shachtman

Noah Shachtman — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:37:01 +0000

KM:
Sorry, maybe the pic was a *bit* over the top. I’m all itchy now, just looking at it.
nms

By: Chuck Simmins

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:30:31 +0000

I’ve been writing about biowar since I began blogging. The only argument I have against AQ or other terrorist groups using it is that it has far more potential points of failure than their normal weapons. You have to produce the weapon and not die. You have to containerize the weapon and not die. You have to transport the weapon, not die and not kill it. And, you have to release it successfully.
The Aum Cult in Japan failed several times in its efforts to release anthrax. It’s far easier to create a bomb or crash an airplane successfully than it is to use a bio weapon successfully.
The deaths in the Third World would not bother AQ. Remember, Islam is a religion of submission. Whatever happened after the release of a bioweapon would be the will of Allah.