Biological Defense

Biological weapons are used to intentionally disseminate infectious agents or toxins that would otherwise appear only naturally or not at all. Such agents can be divided into bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi or toxins. These cause a wide range of diseases including anthrax, smallpox, Q fever, or generalized toxicity throughout the body. The features that influence a biologic agent’s potential for use as a weapon includes infectivity, virulence, toxicity, pathogenicity, incubation period, transmissibility, lethality and stability.

The advent of genetic engineering has had a profound impact on the threat from biological weapons. Agents that are extremely harmful in nature can be modified to: (a) increase virulence, (b) increase the production rate per cell, (c) enhance survivability under environmental stress, and (d) improve the ability to escape detection by the host immune system. Since most agents are living organisms, their natural replication after dissemination increases the potential impact of a strike, making such bioweapons even more attractive. Any country possessing a pharmaceutical or food storage infrastructure already has an inherent stabilization and storage system for biological agents.