Biochemical Warfare

[Crispy]

The most dangerous thing on the Earth is the cold. It is highly contagious, it resists vaccination, adapts to it's environment, and sickens millions daily.

Of course it can't kill people, but what if those properties were mixed with the killing properties of smallpox. It could, in theory, live anywhere. It could be caught by anyone, and it would adapt to resist current vaccines, as well as any created. This would be a deadly weapon, it could wipe an entire country, or worse, a continent. It never really has been a threat, until now. Scientists in labs are able to create new viruses and diseases. It has been thought of that the United States has samples of smallpox in underground bunkers. What for? In case the virus comes back? It's supposed to be dead, so it can't come back.

A lot of people won't believe that any country is creating biochemical weapons, but there are some that do. I am part of those people who believe that the next generation weapon won't be nuclear, but perhaps biochemical. What are your thoughts?

 

[PeterJB]

The problem with that is that unlike Nuclear weaponry, it cannot be controlled. It could hit your side just as badly as the others, and you risk eliminating the entire human population in the process.

 

[Grayfox]

Remember Agent Orange?

It was used on crops but it has caused many issues to the people it was used on.

 

[W3H5]

I think the 'common cold' is the wrong example to uses. Getting a cold could mean having one of numerous viruses in your system.

Biowarfare? Isn't that where the legend of the zombie comes from?

Just saying.....

 

[XoravaX]

Well, the US keeps smallpox because Russia keeps it as well. There was a case of it in Russia a few years ago when someone accidentally broke one of the eggs while doing something (yea, it's stored inside frozen eggs) and got contaminated. He apparently died in quarantine and his body was incinerated as well as all the equipment he used.

All the known stocks of smallpox are under WHO (World Health Organisation) control in two laboratories, as earlier said, one in the US and one in Russia. Officially it's kept to create a vaccination for it quickly if it somehow becomes a threat again.

To my mind any logical biochemical weapon would be one that has an antidote, since otherwise just as PeterJB said, the risk of the epidemic spreading to the country of its creator is just too high.

Common cold can be anything of the thousands of flu-causing viruses. Cold only exposes more to the viruses since your autoimmune system starts having problems because of the drop of the temperature. If you aren't exposed to any viruses, cold does nothing to you.

Agent Orange and any nerve agents, battle gases and such are just chemical weapons which a large amount of countries possess. They can be used as WMDs, but mainly they are used against hostile troops rather than civilians. They also lack the ability to cause an epidemic like the biological weaponry could.

Furthermore, any use of biological weapons is always intended towards civilians and therefore is a war crime, which the use of chemical weapons necessarily isn't.

 

[W3H5]

Chemicals in the water supplies that cause mental illnesses such as dementia. Anyone read Steven King? That's a scary prospect.

 

[Caz]

The stand? Epic!!!!!

 

[Villain]

Biochemical Warfare was the doomsday plan-to-be-foiled in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (the actual book). Awesome read, and the baddies' method of distribution was brilliant.

 

[Stevisiov]

biological warfare is an alternate self annihilation method to that of nuclear. Just like nuclear however, while certainly capable of wiping large percentages of the population, it seems unlikely to kill humans of entirely. The problem with any fast acting high kill ratio disease, is that killing quickly and efficiently is at usually at the expensive of transmittability. It's much harder to pass the disease on if the host is dead within 48 hours.

Anyone who has played Pandemic 2 knows that Madagascar always survives.

 

[TankAss95]

Anyone who has played Pandemic 2 knows that Madagascar always survives.

👍

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well, the US keeps smallpox because Russia keeps it as well.

The Russians and the Americans keep samples of smallpox around for a reason: smallpox is the only disease that has actually been eradicated from the face of the earth. Unlike, say, ebola or marbug, smallpox no longer occurs in the natural envionrment - humans have completely destroyed it, simply because it's so dangerous and infectious. However, two samples have been kept for study, because a new virus similar to smallpox could emerge. If that ever happened, then those two samples would be used to form a cure. Letting smallpox roam free is dangerous enough. Destroying it entirely is worse.

 

[XoravaX]

The Russians and the Americans keep samples of smallpox around for a reason: smallpox is the only disease that has actually been eradicated from the face of the earth. Unlike, say, ebola or marbug, smallpox no longer occurs in the natural envionrment - humans have completely destroyed it, simply because it's so dangerous and infectious. However, two samples have been kept for study, because a new virus similar to smallpox could emerge. If that ever happened, then those two samples would be used to form a cure. Letting smallpox roam free is dangerous enough. Destroying it entirely is worse.

Yeah, but smallpox vaccination was the first ever to be created, and that was by infecting people with cowpox. The two diseases are both genetically and physically so close that the autoimmune system receives immunity for both from any of the two (since the identification proteins at the virus unit are the same or the autoimmune system registers them as the same). A person who has had cowpox has less than 1% chance to get smallpox even if the person is purposefully tried to be infected with smallpox. The man who discovered that people working with cows don't get smallpox, made an experiment with himself and his children by infecting them with cowpox and then trying to get them infected by smallpox (it was done in the 18th century), which showed that people who've had cowpox don't get smallpox even if tried to be infected on purpose.

It's pretty redundant to say the stocks are needed as the vaccination can be created from cowpox alone as long as the new virus is closely similar to smallpox. If the autoimmune system doesn't register the disease the same as cowpox then it doesn't do it with smallpox either (or 99.9% that). I agree it might be possible that the smallpox-made vaccination could work better than the cowpox-made, but there is no need to keep smallpox in two places. One place in a neutral country like Switzerland (hasn't taken part in wars or other conflicts in hundreds of years and such) would be better than two in countries that are rivals.