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amyloodinium ocellatum


Cold War (1946-69)[edit]

Following World War II, the United States biological warfare program progressed into an effective, military-driven research and production program, covered in controversy and secrecy. [1] Production of U.S. biological warfare agents went from "factory-level to laboratory-level".[2] By 1950 the principal U.S. bio-weapons facility was located at Camp Detrick in Maryland under the auspices of the Research and Engineering Division of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.[3] Most of the research and development was done there, while production and testing occurred at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. Pine Bluff Arsenal began production of weapons-grade agents by 1954. [4] From 1952-1954 the Chemical Corps maintained a biological weapons research and development facility at Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York.[5] [6] Fort Terry's focus was on anti-animal biological weapon research and development; the facility researched more than a dozen potential BW agents.[6] From the end of World War II through the Korean War, the U.S. Army, the Chemical Corps and the U.S. Air Force all expanded their biological warfare programs significantly, especially concerning delivery systems.[4] [2] Throughout the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union would combine to produce enough biological weapons to kill everyone on Earth. [7]

Another substantive expansion phase was during the Kennedy-Johnson years, after McNamara initiated Project 112 as a comprehensive initiative, starting in 1961. Despite an increase in testing, the readiness for biological warfare remained limited after this program. A 10 November 1969 report by the Interdepartmental Political-Military Group submitted its findings to the Nixon administration that the American BW capability was limited:[8][9]

No large inventory of dry (powdered) anti-personnel lethal or incapacitating

biological agents is maintained and only eight aircraft spray disseminators are in the inventory. No missile delivery capabilities are currently maintained for delivery of biological agents, although a bomblet containing warhead for the sergeant missile has been standardized, but not produced in quantity. Small quantities of both lethal and incapacitating

biological agents are maintained in special warfare devices.

Field testing of the biological weapons was completed covertly and successfully with simulants and agents dispersed over wide, open areas. [1] The first American large-scale aerosol vulnerability test occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area in September 1950, using two types of bacteria (Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens) and flourescent particles.[1] Bacillus species were chosen in these tests because of their spore-forming abilities, and their similarities to Bacillus anthracis, a causing agent of anthrax. [1] S. marcescens was used because it is easily identifiable from its red pigment. [1] In 1966, the New York Metro was infamously contaminated with Bacillus globigii in an attempt to simulate the spreading of anthrax in a large urban population. [10] More field tests involving pathogenic species were conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah and anti-animal studies were conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. [1]

At the time, many scientists disagreed with the creation of biological weapons. Theodor Rosebury, who previously worked as a supervisor at Camp Detrick, issued a warning against the development of biological weapons during the cold war.[11] In 1945, Rosebury left Camp Detrick during a period of time when scientists could publish the results of their research.[11] Rosebury published Peace or Pestilence? in 1949, which explained his views on why biological weapons should be banned by world powers.[11] By the time his book was available, publications were becoming more restricted and the extent of the Soviet threat of biological weapons was being overstated by Congress and the media.[11] In 1969, Harvard biologist Matthew Meselson argued that the biological warfare programs would eventually hurt US security because potential enemy nations could easily emulate these weapons.[11]

The general population remained uninformed of any breakthroughs concerning biological warfare.[11] This included new production plants for anthrax, brucellosis, and anti-crop agents, as well as the development of the cluster bomb.[11] The U.S. public was also unaware of ongoing studies, particularly the environmental and open-air experiments that were taking place.[1] One of the more controversial experiments was conducted in 1951, when a disproportionate number of African Americans were exposed to the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, to see if they were more susceptible to infection.[1] Some scientists reasoned that such knowledge would help them prepare a defense against a more deadly form of the fungus.[1] The same year, workers at the Norfolk Supply Center in Norfolk, Virginia, were unknowingly exposed to Aspergillus fumigatus spores.[1] Another case of human research was the biodefense medical research program, Operation Whitecoat.[11] This decade-long experiment on volunteer Seventh Day Adventist servicemen exposed them to tularaemia via aerosols.[11] They were then treated with antibiotics. The goal of the experiment, unknown to the volunteers, was to standardize tularaemia bomb-fill for attacks on civilian populations.[11]

In the 1960s, the U.S. changed its main approach from biological agents aimed to kill to those that would incapacitate.[1] In 1964, research programs studied Enterotoxin type B, which can cause food poisoning. New research initiatives also included prophylaxis, the preventative treatment of diseases.[1] Pathogens studied included the biological agents causing a myriad of diseases such as anthrax, glanders, brucellosis, melioidosis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Q fever, coccidioidomycosis, and other plant and animal pathogens.[1]

The Vietnam War brought public awareness to the U.S. biological weapons program.[11] The use of chemicals, riot-control agents, and herbicides like Agent Orange drew international criticism, and negatively affected the U.S. public opinion on the development of biological weapons.[11] Highly controversial human research programs and open air experiments were discovered. Jeanne Guillemin, wife of biologist Matthew Meselson, summarized the controversy:[12]

The entire experimental legacy is dismaying, from the hundreds of dead monkeys at Fort Detrick to the spectacle of Seventh Day Adventist soldiers, the vaccinated volunteers in Project Whitecoat, strapped to chairs amid cages of animals in the Utah sunlight as Q fever aerosols are blown over them. Most chilling are the mock scenarios played out in urban areas: light bulbs filled with simulated BW agents being dropped in New York subways, men in Washington National Airport spraying pseudo-BW from briefcases, and similar tests in California and Texas and over the Florida Keys.[12]

The Nixon administration felt an urgent need to respond to the growing negative perception of biological weapons.[12] The realization that biological weapons may become the poor man's atom bomb also contributed to the end of the U.S. biological weapons program. [10] Subsequently, President Nixon announced that the U.S. was unilaterally renouncing its biological warfare program, ultimately signing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1972. [13]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DAVID R. FRANZ, D.V.M., PH.D.; CHERYL D. PARROTT; AND ERNEST T. TAKAFUJI, M.D., M.P.H. ,“Chapter 19 -THE U.S. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE PROGRAMS”, Air University, n.d
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference croddyhart was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Whitby, Simon M. Biological Warfare Against Crops, (Google Books), Macmillan, 2002, pp. 104-08 and p. 117, (ISBN 0333920856).
  4. ^ a b Zubay, Geoffrey L. Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization, (Google Books), Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 132, (ISBN 0231133464).
  5. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons, p. 96.
  6. ^ a b Wheelis, Mark, et al. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, (Google Books), Harvard University Press, 2006 p. 225-228, (ISBN 0674016998).
  7. ^ Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad, , "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits”, San Francisco State University, 2001
  8. ^ John Ellis; Courtland Moon (2009). "The US Biological Weapons Program". In Mark Wheelis; Lajos Rózsa (eds.). Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945. Harvard University Press. pp. 32–34. ISBN 978-0-674-04513-2.
  9. ^ 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e2/83586.htm
  10. ^ a b Friedrich Frischknecht, "The history of biological warfare”, Embo Reports, 2003
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Jeanne Guillemin, "Scientists and the history of biological weapons: A brief historical overview of the development of biological weapons in the twentieth century”, Embo Reports, 2006
  12. ^ a b c Dr. Robert A. Wampler, "THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION'S DECISION TO END U.S. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAMS”, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 58, 2001
  13. ^ André Richardt, Marc-Michael Blum Decontamination of Warfare Agents: Enzymatic Methods for the Removal of B/C Weapons , ([1]), Wiley-VCH, 2008, pp. 5-6, (ISBN 9783527621620).
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