The difficulty of controlling the spread of disease, the unpredictability of effects, the risk of infecting friendly populations, relatively long incubation periods, and the possible efficiency of protective measures are disadvantages which make natural biological-warfare agents militarily unattractive. But man-made agents, produced by genetic engineering, may not have these disadvantages.
The capability of an agent to withstand such environmental factors as humidity and temperature determines its survivability during its dissemination and storage and, therefore, its suitability for use in biological weapons. Genetic engineering techniques could be used to change the physical characteristics of biological-warfare agents to make them more suitable for use in biological weapons.
Scientists are slowly but surely moving towards an understanding of the fundamental processes of life. We are on the threshold of a new biotechnological age. Recombinant desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) research and other biotechnologies are making available a range of new biological substances (Novick and Shulman 1990). They are also leading to the understanding of ways in which human, animal and plant life can be damaged or destroyed. Military scientists are busily monitoring each new biological substance for its potential as a man-made biological-warfare agent.
Military genetic engineering is not new. As long ago as 1962, the US Department of Defense described American research and development activities in military genetic engineering as follows:
attempting to obtain combination, recombination, or transformation with intact viral particles and/or their nucleic acid fractions; studying population genetics which includes the development of methods for inducing mutations and selecting such populations;
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studying genetic changes occurring in cells and viruses in 'chronically infected' tissue-culture systems; isolating and attempting to recombine RNA from different viruses into a 'new' virus; studying the genetic compatibility between bacterial species of interest to biological operations; attempting to isolate or adapt bacteria and viruses to growth at high temperatures to improve resistance to thermal and aerosol stresses; attempting to isolate mutants of bacteria which are inherently more resistant to aerosolisation effects than parent strains; and applying genetic techniques for isolating mutants of pathogens which may be used for live vaccine preparations.
The scope of military genetic research has, of course, expanded in the past three decades.
A new generation of extremely lethal biological weapons is likely to emerge. These new biological weapons, unlike the old ones, may be of considerable military interest. They could be extremely contagious, consistent in their effects, safe to handle, difficult for the enemy to identify, and impossible for the enemy to vaccinate against.
There is a real possibility not only that new biological weapons will be developed, but also that only very small amounts of a culture may be needed to produce large quantities of a biological weapon in a very short time. The 1972 Biological Weapon (BW) Convention allows the production of small amounts of biological-warfare agents in advance because it can be claimed that they are for defensive purposes. Genetic engineering, in other words, may well make the BW Convention redundant.
Are the military interested in taking advantage of loopholes in the Convention? Breakthroughs in biotechnology have given the scientists the capability to produce new biological agents, not found in nature, which do not have the disadvantages of natural agents that make the military uninterested in them. Whereas the military are not interested in natural viruses and bacteria, they may well become interested in man-made ones.
Scientists can now identify and isolate specific genes and manipulate their structures. New genetic structures can be created, and these can be reproduced. By discovering the disease-carrying genes of dangerous viruses, scientists can greatly increase their lethality. Also, the genes which determine the lethality of the bacteria that produce diseases like anthrax and plague can be identified. These genes can then be spliced into bacteria that are normally harmless. Deadly genes from anthrax, for example, could be added to the bacteria Escherichia coli, a very prolific bacteria found in the gut.
The new man-made deadly E. coli could be quickly produced in
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very large quantities. They would be particularly deadly because being familiar to the human body they would be unlikely to produce antibodies. People infected with them would, therefore, not fight the disease.
Genetic engineering will not only make it possible to develop new and militarily interesting biological-warfare agents but it will also make it possible to develop vaccines specifically for the man-made diseases produced. The vaccines could be used to protect the troops and the population of the user. But the enemy will not know which diseases will strike him and will, therefore, be unable to protect his troops and population against them.
Military genetic engineers will be trying to develop ideal biological-warfare agents. The US Army Biological Warfare manual lists the desirable characteristics of biological-warfare agents as follows. The agent should consistently produce a given effect - the death or disablement of humans or damage to plants. It should be manufacturable on a large scale. It should be stable under production, while in storage, in munitions, and during transportation. It should be capable of efficient dissemination and stable after dissemination.
In addition, the ideal agent would be such that it is easy to protect the using forces against it; it is difficult for enemy forces to detect it and protect themselves against it; it has a short and predictable incubation period; it has a short and predictable persistency if the contaminated area is to be promptly occupied by friendly troops; it can infect more than one type of target - for example, humans and animals - through more than one portal of entry; it can be disseminated by various means; and it produces the desired psychological effects.
Until now, the production of strategically significant quantities of biological-warfare agents has been a time-consuming and difficult task. But genetic engineering will change all that. It will make it possible to produce large quantities of military effective and very lethal biological weapons in a short time and in small facilities.
The military use of genetic engineering is summarized by Steven Rose, brain researcher and expert in biological weapons:
It is a fair guess that the military have looked at how to produce vaccines against a variety of biological agents, so that there would be some mileage in tailoring organisms to make them more resistant to antibiotics or vaccines. The existence of viruses with highly variable surface antigens that can circumvent the immune system, such as the AIDS agent HIV which mutates rapidly, could help. Other manipulations of organisms could include genetic tailoring to produce bacteria and viruses that are more virulent, or even to take bacteria that hitherto have not caused diseases and to
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insert into them a gene that does. Alternatively, researchers could modify the distinguishing characteristics of bacteria that pathol-ogists use for diagnosing infections. Finally, genetic engineers could design organisms that are easier to produce or store.
(Rose 1987)
A more sinister possibility has been suggested by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman:
The possibility of direct interference with human genes through the use of synthetic viruses opens the possibility not merely of ethnic weapons (designed to exploit naturally occurring differences in vulnerability among selected racial groups), but of wars in which the outcome would be decided not on the battlefield but with the birth of a mutant next generation.
(Harris and Paxman 1982)
The possibility of developing 'ethnic' weapons, although regarded as 'improbable' by such experts as Richard Novick and Seth Shulman, cannot be discounted. It would first be necessary to identify 'a protein specific for a particular population group', develop 'an antibody against this protein', and then to connect 'this to a toxin by gene slicing'. The toxin would have to be 'activated only as a consequence of the reaction between the antibody and the targeted protein'. The development of such racist weapons are beyond genetic engineers today; they are potentially tomorrow's weapons.
Incidentally, genetic engineering could make chemical as well as biological warfare more effective, and therefore more likely. The current treatment for exposure to a nerve gas is an injection of atropine, which blocks the effects of excess acetylcholine. But this is an unsatisfactory treatment because atrophine is itself toxic. There is, therefore, some military interest in alternative detoxifying agents. Research is being done to isolate the acetylcholinesterase gene, which could then be inserted into E. coli bacteria that could then produce large amounts of the enzyme. This would make an excellent prophylactic material for the treatment of people exposed to nerve gas.
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