The Threat of Biological Warfare and Possible Preventative Measures
The events of September 11,2001, have made the threat of terrorism on our mainland very real. The twin towers were made into rubble that day, along with the lives of the many people touched by the overwhelming loss of life that occurred that day. Now, if that isn’t enough to cope with, in creeps the specter of bio-terrorism. Biological weapons are devices intended to deliberately disseminate disease producing organisms or toxins in food, water, by insect, or as an aerosol. Bacillus anthracis, the organism that causes anthrax, has been bandied about the media and the American public has been saturated by stories of possible cases and fatalities. One agent not often discussed but every bit as horrifying as anthrax is smallpox. Smallpox is an acute, highly contagious virus disease characterized by prolonged fever, vomiting, and pustular eruptions that often leave pitted scars, or pockmarks, when healed as defined by Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Smallpox, commands respect and the concern of the American public along with that terrorism, of the biological variety, however improbable, is very possible.
Smallpox was once large in scope before vaccinations. At one point or another, everyone was going to contract it. A release of smallpox in aerosol form would scatter readily, and because of its stability in aerosol form would prove very formidable even in a small dose. Even mention of a group of smallpox cases can cause national panic and a possible public outcry for national emergency control measures to be taken. Several
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factors cause the concern: smallpox has historically been feared as one of the most serious of all pestilential diseases, it physically disfigures, it bears a thirty percent fatality rate, it can be spread person to person, primarily by droplet nuclei expelled from the oropharynx of the infected person or by aerosol . Items most often thought as harmless, such as clothing or bed linen, could also spread the virus. After an incubation of about ten to twelve days, the patient experiences high fever and pain. Then a rash begins which forms into scabs by the seventh of eighth day. Between twenty-five and thirty percent of all unvaccinated patients die of the disease (1).
Smallpox, anthrax and plague head the list of agents that can be used for bio-warfare. None of these agents has so far effectively been deployed as a biological weapon, and thus no real world events exist to provide likely scenarios (1).
This summer we had an opportunity to dive into the world of bioweapons, through Richard Preston’s novel The Demon in the Freezer. His book explored the colorful world of smallpox and its use as a biological weapon. Earlier this week we were graced with this authors present for an ACES event. He discussed some of the found topics in his book such as animal testing, what small pox is, and even its eradication. One of the great things we had the chance of vocalizing were our many opinions on the gloom associated with this intriguing disease.
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston is an intriguing book that discusses the anthrax terrorist attacks after 9/11 and how smallpox might become a future bioterrorist threat to the world. The book provides a brief history of the smallpox disease including details of an outbreak in Germany in 1970. The disease was eradicated in 1979 due to the World Health Organization’s aggressive vaccine program. After the virus was no longer a treat the World Health Organization discontinued recommending the smallpox vaccination. In conjunction, inventory of the vaccine was decreased to save money. The virus was locked up in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia. However, some feel the smallpox virus exists elsewhere. Dr. Peter Jahrling and a team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland became concerned terrorists had access to the smallpox virus and planed to alter the strain to become more resistant. These doctors conducted smallpox experiments to discover more effective vaccines in case the virus were released. Preparedness for a major epidemic is discussed as well as the ease with which smallpox can be bioengineered.
Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From the invention of state-sponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism Columbia University Press.
Though biological weapons have been available for under a century, there is a long history of their use between 1914 and 1972. Chemical warfare was first introduced in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. Because of the new style of warfare with automatic weapons, trenches were dug out from the ground to defend against a slaughter. The introduction of this issue caused us to invent weapons such as the grenade, flame thrower, and finally, biological weapons. Biological weapons were distributed by hoses, grenades, and aerial attacks. By doing this, we eliminated many enemy trenches and saved a large amount of Ally lives. (Menace)
In order to understand the history of smallpox one first has to understand how diseases like it evolve. Much like other species, diseases that survive in the long run are the microbes that most effectively reproduce and are able to find suitable places to live. For a microbe to effectively reproduce, it must "be defined mathematically as the number of new infected per each original patient." This number will largely depend on how long each victim is able to spread the virus to other victims (Diamond, 198).
Smallpox has been believed to be a prominent killer for thousands of years. Before 900 AD smallpox and measles were easily interchangeable to many physicians. These two diseases possessed similar symptoms, such as fevers and rashes, making it very difficult to distinguish between them. It was not until the Persian physician, Rhazes Ar-Raz Abmiz, that measles and smallpox were able to be clinically distinguished in 900 AD. Much later in 1751, Thomas Sydenham found further differentiating characteristics between the two diseases(Aufderheide, 202). Through the years, with its many outbreaks in varying areas across the planet, smallpox claimed millions of victims. Many rulers and soldiers were killed by this incredibly infectious disease. To prevent and hopefully stop the increasing numbers of deaths due to smallpox, many physicians slaved away to invent and find a cure for this disease. The first effective method of prevention was called variolation. Variolation was later modified and improved with vaccinations(Hopkins, 15). Today wild smallpox is no longer a risk. The last natural case of smallpox was reported in Somalia in 1977. While the last reported death due to smallpox was reported to be a year later in the UK(McNeil, 165). Smallpox is not completely out of the picture. After the 2001 attacks with anthrax, a strong paranoia of smallpox being used as another possible mean of bioterrorism has arisen(Oldstone, 32).
It began with infection mainly in the blood vessels of the human skin and mouth, resulting in different kinds of symptoms that turn into serious stages. It was spread by physical contact with human skin and mostly affected children and adults. This disease was so outrageous that it led to a vast number of deaths in New England colonies. Also, smallpox virus is transmitted through airborne infection from the oral, nasal mucus of the infected person. But mostly was spread from close contact or contaminated material of the infected person.
During the course of human history, pandemic diseases have threatened the balance of civilization itself. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other infectious agents have changed the way we eat, sleep, and live our lives. One of these scourges was smallpox, a highly infectious and deadly disease that causes boils to sprout on the entire body. Once endemic to the entire world, it has been wiped out with mass vaccination efforts by the World Health Organization with the last reported case being in 1977 in Somalia (Tucker 118). The threat of the virus still looms over us, however, with the advent of the age of terrorism. Its transmission method (human to human), the lack of effective treatment, its high mortality rate, and its ease of weaponization has compelled the Centers for Disease Control to classify it as a Category A bioterrorist agent with the highest potential for use as a weapon against civilians (Ryan 41).
Smallpox is a serious and sometimes fatal disease that is cause by a Variola virus, a member of the orthopox virus family, the variola virus also known as the variola major is the most common severe clinical form of smallpox that is known to give an extensive rash and high fever. The forms of this disease consist of 30 % fatality rate (CDC, 2003: smallpox). There are known to be four types of variola major of small pox, from the very common one to the fatal. These four types are ordinary, which is the very common one and create a discrete rash, modified (mild) and sometimes can be confused with chickenpox, Flat and Hemorrhagic which is rare and very severe to the human population which cause internal bleeding in the skin, unlike the other types of variola major, this type tend to make people have a smooth skin and mainly happens to adult. Another clinical form of smallpox is variola minor, less common and less severe with only 1% of historical death (CDC, 2003: smallpox). The word pox in smallpox...
Smallpox has been one of the most dangerous and deadly curses’ ever placed on humankind. Even illnesses as terrible as the plague, cholera, and yellow fever have not had such a universal effect. Smallpox is a parasitic virus (a virus destructive to the host) called variola. It’s considered to be a “crowd disease”, spreading only through people and requiring a large densely populated area to survive. If the virus is cut off from new host bodies it dies out.
4 Nov. 2014 http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/smallpox/ smallpoxeradication.html> McCrary, Van. “Smallpox and Bioterrorism: A Growing Threat.” 3 Aug. 1999. 6 Nov. 2014 http://www.law.uh.edu/health/lawperspectives/Bioethics/990803 Smallpox.html>. Preston, Richard. A. “A Demon in the Freezer.”
Smallpox is an very contagious disease that lasts for about 41 days, 24 of those days are mildly to severely contagious. Variola passes from person to person through contact, prolonged face to face contact, contact with body fluids or scabs from pustules, and in extreme cases the pathogen can become an airborne pathogen. The smallpox virus is passed from human to human and it is not known if any other animals and/or insects can directly pass the variola virus to humans. There have been many cases where people have confused the variola virus with other viruses. For example S Scar Rickettsiella is an deadly disease that is nearly identical to smallpox but it is not as deadly and somewhere on the body a little scar shaped like a S (about the size of an mole) appears on the body. There is one live culture of smallpox kept in America in Atlanta, Georgia in an very secure facility. There is also one kept in Novosibirsk, Russia. Many world leaders fear that the next weapon will be biochemical terrorism. Smallpox can become an airborne pathogen which could cause the greatest amount of damage in a terror attack. From the time the virus enters into...
Until its eradication, smallpox was a disease that had been ravaging the human race for a very long time. It emerged as much as 10,000 years ago, probably in the Nile Valley and what is now the Middle East. This emergence occurred around the time that humans began to create farming communities and turn away from nomadic existence, thus allowing the smallpox virus a chance to move from person to person (Ogden 2). Since that time, outbreaks have occurred in all different regions of the globe, although the disease was not introduced into the New World until 1518 when a Spanish ship landed on the island of Hispaniola, thus wiping out half of the population. The Spanish sailors had previously been infected by a strain of the smallpox virus and were therefore immune. The natives, however, had never been exposed to the virus and their bodies were unable to fight it off at all. It is thought that as much as 90 percent of the native populations of the New World were killed by smallpox in conjunction with the other previously unseen diseases that were brought over by explorers (Ogden 3).
How to Survive a Plague (2012) is a documentary about the story of two coalitions, ACT-UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group). Both groups dedicate their time and energy to stop AIDS from being the deadly disease that it has been for years and is only getting worse. Those affected by the disease were primarily of the LGBT community. Those with AIDS struggled to see progress with research for a cure because of those who held leadership roles had in certain religious views along with a lack of political interest. As millions of individuals were dying from this abhorrent disease, the two coalitions continued to protest and advocate for change. Through their actions, an effective treatment was found for AIDS. Their actions even led to the LGBT community
Thesis: Biological Warfare is morally and inhumanely wrong, It is the wrongful killing of men, women, and children. It should be stopped no matter what the circumstances are.