What is Biological Warfare?

Biological warfare is the use of living organisms or their byproducts (toxins) to inflict harm. Biological weapons can have devastating effects on all kinds of biodiversity, including humans, animals, plants, and other life. They can also be used against resources, for example water or food supplies and, in modern applications, against natural and manufactured materials.

and warfare. A common one is that the definition of biological warfare relates to a weapon’s target. This is untrue. Explosives, radiation, chemicals, or other non-biological weapons can be extremely damaging to biodiversity; but are not biological weapons. Biological warfare is about the agents, and the term is only properly applied to the use of living organisms (or toxins they produce) as weapons.Another misperception is that the term “biological weapon” is only used for diseases that attack humans. This is also untrue. Many effective biological weapons attack animals (e.g. avian influenza viruses) and crops (e.g. rice blast - Piricularia oryzae). Importantly, biological weapons attacks on crops, animals, and other resources also have impacts on humans and ecology, making

their potential for disruption even greater than that of the diseases themselves.

A third misperception is that biological warfare refers only to agents that kill. While very lethal agents are of very great concern, many biological agents that do not generally kill can also be used in warfare. Foot and mouth disease (Aphthovirus spp.) is an excellent example. There is a parallel between this type of biological agent and other weapons, such as some anti-personnel land mines, which are intended to cause injury (not death). Diseases like Q fever (Coxiella burnetti), dengue (Flavivirus spp.), and brucellosis (Brucella spp.), have a low fatality rate compared with agents like anthrax; but can still be used to severely weaken an enemy, particularly a civilian population. An attack on Cuba with so-called “incapacitating” biological weapons was discussed by US Defense Department officials during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In agriculture, a similar approach might be taken with attacks with pathogens that reduce (or spoil) harvests without necessarily killing the cultivated plants.

Although biological warfare includes all organisms used as weapons, many of the biological weapons that are most talked about are microorganisms. Well known are a number of so-called “classical” biological warfare agents, including bacteria such as anthrax and viruses like smallpox. Other types of microorganisms that can be used as biological weapons include fungi, rickettsia and toxin-producing microbes (for example, algae that produce saxitoxin, one of the most deadly non-protein substances known).

Insect pests can also be used as biological weapons, for example thrips (Thrips palmi) to devastate crops. The United States is currently investigating the use of insect enemies of coca, opium poppy, and cannabis as biological weapons in the Drug War. Insect species can also be used as vectors for the distribution of disease. In the 1950s, US studies such as Operations “Big Itch” and “Big Buzz” demonstrated the feasibility of mass producing and distributing disease-infected mosquitoes from aircraft. A partially declassified 1981 US Army report details this approach, including use of mosquitoes as a vector for yellow fever, even calculating a “cost per death” figure. (1) More recent US efforts in the Drug War come into play here too, as a US agriculture team based at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is attempting to find vectors for a virus that devastates opium poppy.

Some intrinsic features of biological agents that make them suitable for hostile use are infectivity; virulence; toxicity; pathogenicity; incubation period; transmissibility; lethality; and stability. Unique to many of biological weapons agents, and distinctive from other agents such as chemical weapons, is their ability to reproduce, multiplying over time and thereby increasing their effect.