Biological warfare

For the use of biological agents by terrorists, see bioterrorism.

"Germ Warfare" redirects here. For the M*A*S*H episode, see Germ Warfare (M*A*S*H).

Biological warefare (BW) — also known as bug warfare — is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, sexually transmited diseases(such as AIDS/HIV, Herpes, etc.) and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals, aliens or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms or replicating entities (viruses) that reproduce or replicate within their host victims. Entomological (insect) warfare is also considered a type of BW.

Biological weapons may be employed in various ways to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over an adversary, either by threats or by actual deployments. Like some of the chemical weapons, biological weapons may also be useful as area denial weapons. These agents may be lethal or non-lethal, and may be targeted against a single individual, a group of people, or even an entire population. They may be developed, acquired, stockpiled or deployed by nation states or by non-national groups. In the latter case, or if a nation-state uses it clandestinely, it may also be considered bioterrorism.

There is an overlap between BW and chemical warfare, as the use of toxins produced by living organisms is considered under the provisions of both the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Toxins and Psychochemical weapons are often referred to as midspectrum agents. Unlike bioweapons, these midspectrum agents do not reproduce in their host and are typically characterized by shorter incubation periods.

Overview

Offensive biological warfare, including mass production, stockpiling and use of biological weapons, was outlawed by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The rationale behind this treaty, which has been ratified or acceded to by 165 countries as of 2011, is to prevent a biological attack which could conceivably result in large numbers of civilian fatalities and cause severe disruption to economic and societal infrastructure. Many countries, including signatories of the BWC, currently pursue research into the defense or protection against BW, which is not prohibited by the BWC.

A nation or group that can pose a credible threat of mass casualty has the ability to alter the terms on which other nations or groups interact with it. Biological weapons allow for the potential to create a level of destruction and loss of life far in excess of nuclear, chemical or conventional weapons, relative to their mass and cost of development and storage. Therefore, biological agents may be useful as strategic deterrents in addition to their utility as offensive weapons on the battlefield.

As a tactical weapon for military use, a significant problem with a BW attack is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore might not immediately stop an opposing force. Some biological agents (smallpox, pneumonic plague) have the capability of person-to-person transmission via aerosolized respiratory droplets. This feature can be undesirable, as the agent(s) may be transmitted by this mechanism to unintended populations, including neutral or even friendly forces. While containment of BW is less of a concern for certain criminal or terrorist organizations, it remains a significant concern for the military and civilian populations of virtually all nations.

History

Main article: History of biological warfare

Rudimentary forms of biological warfare have been practiced over and over again throughout history. Many examples are recorded from antiquity. During the 6th century BC, the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with a fungus that would render the enemy delirious. In 184 BC, Hannibal of Carthage had clay pots filled with venomous snakes and instructed his soldiers to throw the pots onto the decks of Pergamene ships.

Historical accounts from medieval Europe detail the use of infected animal carcasses, by Mongols, Turks and other groups, to infect enemy water supplies. In over 9000, the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe. The last known incident of using plague corpses for BW purposes occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).

The British army at least once attempted to use smallpox as a weapon, when they gave contaminated blankets to the Lenape during Pontiac's War (1763–66). It is suspected by Ward Churchill, but not confirmed, that BW was used against Native Americans at other times as well.

The advent of the germ theory and advances in bacteriology brought a new level of sophistication to the theoretical use of bio-agents in war. Biological sabotage—in the form of anthrax and glanders—was undertaken on behalf of the Imperial German government during World War I (over 9000– over 9000), with indifferent results. Use of such bio-weapons was banned in international law by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. (The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) extended the ban to almost all production, storage and transport. However, both the Soviet Union and Iraq, at a minimum, secretly defied the treaty and continued research and production of offensive biological weapons, despite being signatories to it. Major public proof of the Soviet program, called Biopreparat, came when Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, its first deputy director, defected to the U.S. in 1992.)

Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731

During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II (1939–1945), the Special Research Units of the Imperial Japanese Army, such as Unit 731, conducted human experimentation on thousands of Chinese, among others. In its military campaigns, the Japanese used BW on Chinese soldiers and civilians. This employment has been largely viewed as ineffective due to inefficient delivery systems. However, firsthand accounts testify that the Japanese infected civilians through the distribution of plagued foodstuffs and newer estimates suggest over 580,000 victims, largely due to plague and cholera outbreaks.

In response to suspected BW development in Nazi Germany, the U.S., U.K., and Canada initiated a BW development program in 1941 that resulted in the weaponization of anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxin. Fear of the German program turned out to be vastly exaggerated. The center for U.S. military biological warfare research was Fort Detrick, Maryland. The biological and chemical weapons developed during that period were tested at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Research carried out in the U.K. during World War II left Gruinard Island in Scotland contaminated with anthrax for the next 48 years.

Considerable research into BW was undertaken throughout the Cold War era (1947–1991) by the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R., and probably other major nations as well, although it is generally believed that such weapons were never used. This view was challenged by China and North Korea, who accused the U.S. of large-scale field testing of BW against them during the Korean War (1950–1953), but this claim has been disputed. The U.S. maintained a stated national policy of never using BW under any circumstances since an Executive Decision in November 1969, by President Richard Nixon. In 1972, the U.S., U.K., U.S.S.R., and many other nations signed the BWC, which banned "development, production and stockpiling of microbes or their poisonous products except in amounts necessary for protective and peaceful research." By then, the U.S. and U.K. had transparently destroyed all their bio-weapons stockpiles. By 2011, 165 countries had signed the treaty and none are proven—though nine are still suspected—to possess offensive BW programs.

Modern BW operations

Offensive

It has been argued that rational people would never use biological weapons offensively. The argument is that biological weapons cannot be controlled: the weapon could backfire and harm the army on the offensive, perhaps having even worse effects than on the target. An agent like smallpox or other airborne viruses would almost certainly spread worldwide and ultimately infect the user's home country. However, this argument does not necessarily apply to bacteria. For example, anthrax can easily be controlled and even created in a garden shed. Also, using microbial methods, bacteria can be suitably modified to be effective in only a narrow environmental range, the range of the target that distinctly differs from the army on the offensive. Thus only the target might be affected adversely. The weapon may be further used to bog down an advancing army making them more vulnerable to counter attack by the defending force.

Anti-personnel

The international biological hazard symbol

Ideal characteristics of a biological agent to be used as a weapon against humans are high infectivity, high virulence, non-availability of vaccines, and availability of an effective and efficient delivery system. Stability of the weaponized agent (ability of the agent to retain its infectivity and virulence after a prolonged period of storage) may also be desirable, particularly for military applications, and the ease of creating one is often considered. Control of the spread of the agent may be another desired characteristic.

The primary difficulty is not the production of the biological agent, as many biological agents used in weapons can often be manufactured relatively quickly, cheaply and easily. Rather, it is the weaponization, storage and delivery in an effective vehicle to a vulnerable target that pose significant problems.

For example, 'Bacillus anthracis' is considered an effective agent for several reasons. First, it forms hardy spores, perfect for dispersal aerosols. Second, this organism is not considered transmissible from person to person, and thus rarely if ever causes secondary infections. A pulmonary anthrax infection starts with ordinary influenza-like symptoms and progresses to a lethal hemorrhagic mediastinitis within 3–7 days, with a fatality rate that is 90% or higher in untreated patients. Finally, friendly personnel can be protected with suitable antibiotics.

A large-scale attack using anthrax would require the creation of aerosol particles of 1.5 to 5 microns: larger particles would not reach the lower respiratory tract, while smaller particles would be exhaled back out into the atmosphere. At this size, conductive powders tend to aggregate because of electrostatic charges, hindering dispersion. So the material must be treated to insulate and neutralize the charges. The weaponized agent must be resistant to degradation by rain and ultraviolet radiation from sunlight, while retaining the ability to efficiently infect the human lung. There are other technological difficulties as well, chiefly relating to storage of the weaponized agent.

Agents considered for weaponization, or known to be weaponized, include bacteria such as Bacillus anthracis, Brucella spp., Burkholderia mallei, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Chlamydophila psittaci, Coxiella burnetii, Francisella tularensis, some of the Rickettsiaceae (especially Rickettsia prowazekii and Rickettsia rickettsii), Shigella spp., Vibrio cholerae, and Yersinia pestis. Many viral agents have been studied and/or weaponized, including some of the Bunyaviridae (especially Rift Valley fever virus), Ebolavirus, many of the Flaviviridae (especially Japanese encephalitis virus), Machupo virus, Marburg virus, Variola virus, and Yellow fever virus. Fungal agents that have been studied include Coccidioides spp..

Toxins that can be used as weapons include ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, botulinum toxin, saxitoxin, and many mycotoxins. These toxins and the organisms that produce them are sometimes referred to as select agents. In the United States, their possession, use, and transfer are regulated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Select Agent Program.

The former US biological warfare program categorized its weaponized anti-personnel bio-agents as either Lethal Agents (Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, Botulinum toxin) or Incapacitating Agents (Brucella suis, Coxiella burnetii, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Staphylococcal enterotoxin B).

Anti-agriculture

Anti-crop/anti-vegetation/anti-fisheries:
The United States developed an anti-crop capability during the Cold War that used plant diseases (bioherbicides, or mycoherbicides) for destroying enemy agriculture. Biological weapons also target fisheries as well as water-based vegetation. It was believed that destruction of enemy agriculture on a strategic scale could thwart Sino-Soviet aggression in a general war. Diseases such as wheat blast and rice blast were weaponized in aerial spray tanks and cluster bombs for delivery to enemy watersheds in agricultural regions to initiate epiphytotics (epidemics among plants). When the United States renounced its offensive biological warfare program in 1969 and 1970, the vast majority of its biological arsenal was composed of these plant diseases. Enterotoxins and Mycotoxins were not affected by Nixon's order.

Though herbicides are chemicals, they are often grouped with biological warfare and chemical warfare because they may work in a similar manner as biotoxins or bioregulators and also because the Army Biological Laboratory tested them and the Army's Technical Escort Unit which all chemical, biological, radiological (nuclear) materials. Scorched earth tactics or destroying livestock and farmland were carried out in the Vietnam war (cf. Agent Orange) and Eelam War in Sri Lanka.

Biological warfare can also specifically target plants to destroy crops or defoliate vegetation. The United States and Britain discovered plant growth regulators (i.e., herbicides) during the Second World War, and initiated an herbicidal warfare program that was eventually used in Malaya and Vietnam in counterinsurgency operations. In 1962, the counterinsurgency school in Vietnam moved to Okinawa. USNS Schuyler Otis Bland (T-AK-277) was known to have brought highly classified "agriculture products" under armed guard to southeast Asia, Okinawa, and Panama. The ship’s logbook was found by Michelle Gatz and shows the ship was carrying classified cargo that was offloaded under armed guard at White Beach a U.S. Navy port on Okinawa’s east coast on April 25, 1962. After departing Okinawa in spring 1962, the Bland sailed to the Panama Canal Zone where, the Panamanian government asserts, the U.S. tested herbicides in the early 1960s.

The late author Sheldon H. Harris in his book "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American cover up" wrote that, The test program, [this could be part of Project AGILE or Project OCONUS] which began in fall 1962 and which was funded at least through fiscal year 1963, was considered by the Chemical Corps to be “an ambitious one.” The tests were designed to cover “not only trials at sea, but Arctic and tropical environmental tests as well.” The tests, presumably, were conducted at what research officers designated, but did not name, “satellite sites.” These sites were located both in the continental United States and in foreign countries. The tests conducted there were aimed at both human, animal, and plant reaction to BW. It is known that tests were undertaken in Cairo, Egypt, Liberia, in South Korea, and in Japan’s satellite province of Okinawa in 1961, or earlier.(Harris, 2002)

Sheldon H. Harris continued that, The Okinawa anti-crop research project may lend some insight to the larger projects 112 sponsored. BW experts in Okinawa and “at several sites in the Midwest and south:”conducted in 1961 “field tests” for wheat rust and rice blast disease. These tests met with “partial success” in the gathering of data, and led, therefore, to a significant increase in research dollars in fiscal year 1962 to conduct additional research in these areas. The money was devoted largely to developing “technical advice on the conduct of defoliation and anti-crop activities in Southeast Asia.” By the end of fiscal year 1962, the Chemical Corps had let or were negotiating contracts for over one thousand chemical defoliants. The Okinawa tests evidently were fruitful.(Harris, 2002)

Anti-livestock:
In 1980s Soviet Ministry of Agriculture had successfully developed variants of foot-and-mouth disease, and rinderpest against cows, African swine fever for pigs, and psittacosis to kill chicken. These agents were prepared to spray them down from tanks attached to airplanes over hundreds of miles. The secret program was code-named "Ecology".

Attacking animals is another area of biological warfare intended to eliminate animal resources for transportation and food. In the First World War, German agents were arrested attempting to inoculate draft animals with anthrax, and they were believed to be responsible for outbreaks of glanders in horses and mules. The British tainted small feed cakes with anthrax in the Second World War as a potential means of attacking German cattle for food denial, but never employed the weapon. In the 1950s, the United States had a field trial with hog cholera. During the Mau Mau Uprising in 1952, the poisonous latex of the African milk bush was used to kill cattle.

Unconnected with inter-human wars, humans have deliberately introduced the rabbit disease Myxomatosis, originating in South America, to Australia and Europe, with the intention of reducing the rabbit population – which had devastating but temporary results, with wild rabbit populations reduced to a fraction of their former size but survivors developing immunity and increasing again.

Entomological warfare

Main article: Entomological warfare

Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to attack the enemy. The concept has existed for centuries and research and development have continued into the modern era. EW has been used in battle by Japan and several other nations have developed and been accused of using an entomological warfare program. EW may employ insects in a direct attack or as vectors to deliver a biological agent, such as plague. Essentially, EW exists in three varieties. One type of EW involves infecting insects with a pathogen and then dispersing the insects over target areas. The insects then act as a vector, infecting any person or animal they might bite. Another type of EW is a direct insect attack against crops; the insect may not be infected with any pathogen but instead represents a threat to agriculture. The final method uses uninfected insects, such as bees, wasps, etc., to directly attack the enemy.

Defensive

Main article: Biodefense

Research and development into medical counter-measures

In 2010 at The Meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction in Geneva the sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance was suggested as well-tested means for enhancing the monitoring of infections and parasitic agents, for practical implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005). The aim was to prevent and minimize the consequences of natural outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases as well as the treat of alleged use of biological weapons against BTWC States Parties.

Role of public health and disease surveillance

It is important to note that all classical and modern biological weapons organisms are animal diseases, the only exception being smallpox. Thus, in any use of biological weapons, it is highly likely that animals will become ill either simultaneously with, or perhaps earlier than humans.

Indeed, in the largest biological weapons accident known– the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Soviet Union in 1979, sheep became ill with anthrax as far as 200 kilometers from the release point of the organism from a military facility in the southeastern portion of the city (known as Compound 19 and still off limits to visitors today, see Sverdlovsk Anthrax leak).

Thus, a robust surveillance system involving human clinicians and veterinarians may identify a bioweapons attack early in the course of an epidemic, permitting the prophylaxis of disease in the vast majority of people (and/or animals) exposed but not yet ill.

For example in the case of anthrax, it is likely that by 24–36 hours after an attack, some small percentage of individuals (those with compromised immune system or who had received a large dose of the organism due to proximity to the release point) will become ill with classical symptoms and signs (including a virtually unique chest X-ray finding, often recognized by public health officials if they receive timely reports). By making these data available to local public health officials in real time, most models of anthrax epidemics indicate that more than 80% of an exposed population can receive antibiotic treatment before becoming symptomatic, and thus avoid the moderately high mortality of the disease.

Identification of bioweapons

The goal of biodefense is to integrate the sustained efforts of the national and homeland security, medical, public health, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement communities. Health care providers and public health officers are among the first lines of defense. In some countries private, local, and provincial (state) capabilities are being augmented by and coordinated with federal assets, to provide layered defenses against biological weapons attacks. During the first Gulf War the United Nations activated a biological and chemical response team, Task Force Scorpio, to respond to any potential use of weapons of mass destruction on civilians.

The traditional approach toward protecting agriculture, food, and water: focusing on the natural or unintentional introduction of a disease is being strengthened by focused efforts to address current and anticipated future biological weapons threats that may be deliberate, multiple, and repetitive.

The growing threat of biowarfare agents and bioterrorism has led to the development of specific field tools that perform on-the-spot analysis and identification of encountered suspect materials. One such technology, being developed by researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), employs a "sandwich immunoassay", in which fluorescent dye-labeled antibodies aimed at specific pathogens are attached to silver and gold nanowires.

In the Netherlands, the company TNO has designed Bioaerosol Single Particle Recognition eQuipment (BiosparQ). This system would be implemented into the national response plan for bioweapons attacks in the Netherlands.

Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel are developing a different device called the BioPen, essentially a "Lab-in-a-Pen", which can detect known biological agents in under 20 minutes using an adaptation of the ELISA, a similar widely employed immunological technique, that in this case incorporates fiber optics.

Synthetic BW

Theoretically, novel approaches in biotechnology, such as synthetic biology could be used in the future to design novel types of biological warfare agents. Special attention has to be laid on future experiments (of concern) that:

1. Would demonstrate how to render a vaccine ineffective;
2. Would confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics or antiviral agents;
3. Would enhance the virulence of a pathogen or render a nonpathogen virulent;
4. Would increase transmissibility of a pathogen;
5. Would alter the host range of a pathogen;
6. Would enable the evasion of diagnostic/detection tools;
7. Would enable the weaponization of a biological agent or toxin

Most of the biosecurity concerns in synthetic biology, however, focused on the role of DNA synthesis and the risk of producing genetic material of lethal viruses (e.g. 1918 Spanish flu, polio) in the lab.

List of BW institutions, programs, projects and sites by country

United States

Main article: United States biological weapons program

• Fort Detrick, Maryland

  

  Researchers working in Class III cabinets at the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, Camp Detrick, Maryland (1940s).

  • U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (1943–69)
    • Building 470
    • One-Million-Liter Test Sphere
    • Operation Whitecoat (1954–73)
  • U.S. biological defense program (1956-present)
    • United States Army Medical Unit (USAMU; 1956–69)
    • U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID; 1969–present)
    • National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC; Projected: 2008)
  • U.S. entomological warfare program
    • Operation Big Itch
    • Operation Big Buzz
    • Operation Drop Kick
    • Operation May Day
• Project Bacchus
• Project Clear Vision
• Project SHAD
• Project 112
• Horn Island Testing Station
• Fort Terry
• Granite Peak Installation

United Kingdom

Main article: United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction § Biological weapons

• Porton Down
• Gruinard Island
• Nancekuke
• Operation Vegetarian
• Operation Harness off Antigua, 1948–1949.
• Operation Cauldron off Stornoway, 1952. The trawler Carella accidentally sailed through a cloud of pneumonic plague bacilli (Yersinia pestis) during this trial. It was kept under covert observation until the incubation period had elapsed but none of the crew fell ill.
• Operation Hesperus off Stornoway, 1953.
• Operation Ozone off Nassau, 1954.
• Operation Negation off Nassau, 1954-5.

Soviet Union and Russia

Main article: Soviet biological weapons program

• Biopreparat (18 labs and production centers)
  • Stepnagorsk Scientific and Technical Institute for Microbiology, Stepnogorsk, northern Kazakhstan
  • Institute of Ultra Pure Biochemical Preparations, Leningrad, a weaponized plague center
  • Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR), a weaponized smallpox center
  • Institute of Applied Biochemistry, Omutninsk
  • Kirov bioweapons production facility, Kirov, Kirov Oblast
  • Zagorsk smallpox production facility, Zagorsk
  • Berdsk bioweapons production facility, Berdsk
  • Bioweapons research facility, Obolensk
  • Sverdlovsk bioweapons production facility (Military Compound 19), Sverdlovsk, a weaponized anthrax center

• Institute of Virus Preparations
• Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
• Vozrozhdeniya
• Project Bonfire
• Project Factor

Japan

Main article: Special Research Units

• Unit 731
• Zhongma Fortress

Iraq

Main articles: Iraqi biological weapons program and Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (passim)

• Al Hakum
• Salman Pak facility
• Al Manal facility

South Africa

Main article: South Africa and weapons of mass destruction § Biological and chemical weapons

• Project Coast
• Delta G Scientific Company
• Roodeplaat Research Laboratories
• Protechnik

List of people associated with BW

Bioweaponeers:

• Anton Dilger
• Ira Baldwin
• Paul Fildes
• Rihab Rashid Taha
• William C. Patrick III
• Kanatjan Alibekov, known as Ken Alibek
• Vladimir Pasechnik
• Sergei Popov
• Kurt Blome
• Eugen von Haagen
• Kurt Gutzeit
• Erich Traub
• Shiro Ishii
• Arthur Galston (unwittingly)
• Wouter Basson

Writers and activists:

• Matthew Meselson
• Jeanne Guillemin
• Sheldon H. Harris
• Joshua Lederberg
• Richard Preston
• Arthur Galston
• David Willman
• Leonard A. Cole
• Nicholas D. Kristof

See also

• Antibiotic resistance
• Asymmetric warfare
• Baker Island
• Bioaerosol
• Biosecurity
• Chemical weapon
• Counterinsurgency
• Discredited AIDS origins theories
• Enterotoxin

• Entomological warfare
• Ethnic bioweapon
• Exotic pollution
• Herbicidal warfare
• Human experimentation in the United States
• John W. Powell
• Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System
• Plum Island Animal Disease Center
• Project 112

• Project AGILE
• Project SHAD
• McNeill's law
• Mycotoxin
• Smallpox blankets
• Ten Threats
• Trichothecene
• Yellow rain

Further reading

• Alibek, K. and S. Handelman. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World– Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it. Delta (2000) ISBN 0-385-33496-6
• Appel, J. M. Is all fair in biological warfare? The controversy over genetically engineered biological weapons, Journal of Medical Ethics, Volume 35, pp. 429–432 (2009).
• Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (New York, 1986).
• Dembek, Zygmunt (editor), Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare; Washington, DC: Borden Institute (2007).
• Endicott, Stephen and Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, Indiana University Press (1998). ISBN 0-253-33472-1
• Keith, Jim (1999), Biowarfare In America, Illuminet Press, ISBN 1-881532-21-6
• Knollenberg, Bernhard, "General Amherst and Germ Warfare," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 41 (1954–1955), 489–494.
• Mangold, Tom and Goldberg, Jeff (1999), Plague Wars: a true story of biological warfare, Macmillan, London, ISBN 0-333-71614-0{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Maskiell, Michelle, and Adrienne Mayor. "Killer Khilats: Legends of Poisoned Robes of Honour in India. Parts 1 & 2.” Folklore [London] 112 (Spring and Fall 2001): 23–45, 163–82.
• Mayor, Adrienne, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World. Overlook, 2003, rev. ed. 2009. ISBN 1-58567-348-X.
• Orent, Wendy (2004), Plague, The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY, ISBN 0-7432-3685-8
• Pala, Christopher (19??), Anthrax Island
• Preston, Richard (2002), The Demon in the Freezer, New York: Random House.
• Rózsa, Lajos 2009. The motivation for biological aggression is an inherent and common aspect of the human behavioural repertoire. Medical Hypotheses, 72, 217–219.
• Woods, Lt Col Jon B. (ed.), USAMRIID’s Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook, 6th edition, U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Maryland (April 2005).
• Zelicoff, Alan and Bellomo, Michael (2005), Microbe: Are we Ready for the Next Plague?, AMACOM Books, New York, NY, ISBN 0-8144-0865-6{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Biological weapons and international humanitarian law, ICRC
• WHO: Health Aspects of Biological and Chemical Weapons