Biowarfare Essay

6. How does biowarfare affect the victims?

Biological weapons are designed to spread disease and plague, and the use of viral biological agents as weapons caused much infection and death. Each specific virus has its specific side effects, but one common disease used as a biological weapon is anthrax, which also has specific symptoms. When anthrax makes contact with skin, spores enter the body and produce toxins, which later causes sores, fever, fatigue, headache, and scarring. When anthrax is inhaled, spores enter the lungs and produces “massive bleeding and swelling inside the chest cavity.” Other bacteria and viruses give victims similar symptoms, and this shows the negative effect biowarfare has on civilians. (“History of Biowarfare”)

7. Are there any laws preventing the use of biological weapons?

To prevent the use of biological weapons, “the Geneva Protocol of 1925 was drawn up and signed at the conference for the supervision of the international trade in arms and ammunition” (ICRC). This treaty prohibited the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, or bacteriological weapons in war (ICRC). The Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, which the US signed in 1972, “banned the development, production and stockpiling of microbes or their

In 1894, a cult following Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh contaminated salad bars in private restaurants with salmonella, infecting 751 people (Johnston). A decade later, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult attempted to spray anthrax into the air from buildings in Tokyo, Japan (“History of Biowarfare”). In 2001, letters laced with anthrax were mailed to federal offices, causing five deaths and many more injuries (Johnston). Small bioterrorist attacks like these have opened up our minds to the potential to bigger, more destructive attacks in the future