CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IN RUSSIA

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

The Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical and biological weapons in war. The United States, the Soviet Union and 100 other nations signed the Biological Weapon Convention in 1972. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have violated the terms of this agreement. A Chemical Weapons Convention opened for signatures in 1993. The main problem with these agreements is verification.

The Soviet Union claimed it had eliminated its biological stockpiles on the late 1980s. The United States claims that it eliminated its stockpiles in the 1970s. Both countries agreed to destroy their stockpiles of chemical weapons by 2007. Both Russia and the United States claim they are no longer making chemical or biological weapons but the are continuing research in defense and maybe development. In the early 2000s, both were behind schedule in destroying the weapons by 2007.

It is very difficult to control the spread of chemical and biological weapons, materials and knowledge. There are great fears that the may be used in a terrorist attacks

Chemical Weapons in the Soviet Union and Russia

Lewisite and mustard gas and their mixtures are World War I-era chemical weapons that do the most damage when they are inhaled. Nerve agents such as VX, sarin and soman can kill within minutes in very low doses when inhaled or coming in contact with the skin.

Russia signed the chemical weapons convention in 1993 and ratified it in 1996. It has reportedly continued making chemical weapons including a new and powerful nerve agent called “novichok” ("new guy").

In April 1997, shortly after the United States Congress ratified the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention outlawing the manufacture and sale of chemical weapons, the State Duma refused passage on the grounds that the cost of destroying Russia's chemical weapons supply, the largest in the world, was prohibitively high. Although the Duma promised to reconsider the measure in the fall of 1997, its decision caused consternation in the United States, which had expected reciprocity on that issue.* [Source: Glenn E. Curtis, Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

Chemical Weapons

The Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical and biological weapons in war. The protocol was pursued in part to address the horrors caused by mustard gas and other chemical weapons used in World War I. The United States, the Soviet Union and 100 other nation signed the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have violated the terms of the agreement. A Chemical Weapons Convention opened for signatures in 1993. The main problem with these agreements is verification.

The Soviet Union claimed it had eliminated its biological weapons stockpiles on the late 1980s. The United States claims that it eliminated its biological weapons stockpiles in the 1970s. Both countries agreed to destroy their stockpiles of chemical weapons by 2007. Both Russia and the United States claim they no longer make chemical or biological weapons but they continue to do research with them, and may be developing them. Both countries are behind schedule in destroy their weapons.

It is very difficult to control the spread of chemical and biological weapons and the materials and knowledge used to make them. There are great fears that the may be used in a terrorist attacks.

Chemical Weapon Agents

Some chemical weapons are nerve agents. The first nerve agent, tabun, was developed before World War II. All nerve agents work by blocking the body's production of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that regulates the nerves that control certain muscles. Without acetylcholinesterase the diaphragm tightens, a victims goes into convulsions and dies gasping for air. Protection against nerve agents involves wearing a gas mask and an air tight suit that covers the entire body. A pretreatment with pyridostigmine can shield the body by sealing out acetylcholinesterase molecules. The drug atropine can reverse the effects if a victim is given it quickly enough. Nerve agents can be delivered in shells, bombs and rockets but the best way to disperse them is to spray them from an aircraft.

VX is a particularly deadly and potent nerve agent developed in Britain in the 1950s. It is an odorless, oily, amber liquid that can be sprayed from the air or dispersed from the ground. It penetrates through the skin, eyes and respiratory system, and blocks transmissions of impulses through the central nervous system, causing convulsions, respiratory paralysis and death. Early symptoms include a runny nose, small pupils, drooling, sweating and nausea.

VX can be absorbed through an orifice or the skin. A single drop can kill a person in minutes (a lethal dose is 10 milligrams on the skin and 50 milligrams inhaled). Two hundred tons could wipe out the world's population. VX is regarded as 100 times more deadly than sarin because it is thick and lingers in the environment longer than sarin. The binary form of VX is the most desired form. It is comprised of two sets of chemicals that are not mixed until the last minute. This form is more stable and easier to handle. VX sprayed over a site the size of Disneyland could kill up to 12,500 people

Mustard gas is a brownish or yellowish gas that can be sprayed in the air, fired in shells or dispersed from the ground. Used with horrible consequences in World War I, it penetrates through the skin, eyes and respiratory system, and causes painful, long-lasting blistering inside and outside the body. Early symptoms include red and itchy skin, a runny nose, sneezing and shortness of breath. Long term effects including chronic breathing difficulties and lung cancer. A lethal doses is 4,500 milligrams on the skin and 1,500 milligrams inhaled.

Even if a mustard gas victim is treated quickly, if he has been exposed to a lot of the gas, he will likely have long term effects. Sometimes the effects don't even start until days or weeks after a person has been exposed. There is no treatment for mustard gas exposure. Only the symptoms can be treated. Many victims suffer from chronic bronchitis and blistering of the skin. Some lose their sight or become impotent. Mustard gas was used o Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq War and was widely used in World War I.

Sarin is an odorless highly- lethal nerve gas invented by the Nazis during World War II and used in a deadly subway attack in Japan. Similar to VX, it can be sprayed from the air or dispersed from the ground or fired in artillery shells. It penetrates through the skin, eyes and respiratory system, and blocks transmissions of impulses through the central nervous system, causing convulsions, respiratory paralysis and death. Early symptoms include a runny nose, severe headaches, chest tightness, drooling, sweating and nausea. A lethal doses is 1,700 milligrams on the skin or 70 milligrams inhaled. Sarin is similar to modern pesticides. It kills by paralyzing the chest muscles and can result in death in as little as 15 minutes. It is lethal as long as it lingers in the air but it dissipates quickly. Sarin was used in the Tokyo subway attack in 1995.

Chemical Weapon Storage

Russia has formally declared a stockpile of 40,000 tons of chemical weapons (compared to 32,000 tons declared by the United States). Few residents near these facilities have gas masks. If there is an accident people are taught to cover their faces with scarves.

Declared chemical weapons storage sites: 1) Kambarka in the Urdmurtia area (15.9 percent, 6,400 tons of lewisite, 175 tons of mustard gas). 2) Gorney in the Saratov region (2.9 percent, 225 tons of lewisite, 690 tons of mustard gas and 210 tons of mixtures). 3) Kizner in Urdmurtia (14.2 percent, 5,000 to 7,000 tons of nerve agents VX, sarin and soman. 4) Maradykovsky in the Kirov region (17.8 percent, 5,000 to 7,000 tons of nerve agents VX, sarin and soman)

5) Pochep in the Bryansk region (18.8 percent, 5,000 to 7,000 tons of nerve agents VX, sarin and soman). 6) Leonidovka in the Penza region (17.2 percent, 7,500 tons of nerve agents VX, sarin and soman). 7) Shchuchye in the Kurgam region (13.6 percent, 5,000 to 7,000 tons of nerve agents VX, sarin and soman).

Russia needs an estimated $5 billion and 10 years to dispose of its chemical weapons. The money thus far has been hard to come by. For many years, the Russians failed to dispose of weapons, in part because it needed money from the United States and other countries to do it.

Problems Associated with Chemical Weapons

Tens of thousands of workers died making chemical weapons in the 1950s from the effects of poisonous substances and more than one million people still live in contaminated areas. Mustard gas was burned and contaminants were emptied into rivers.

Most of the chemical agents are inside shells and munitions, In Gorney and Kambarka lewisite and mustard gas are stored in steel vats that over 50 years old and have walls less than a half inch thick. Lewisite is 36 percent arsenic. Evidence of lewisite contamination can be determined by checking the amount or arsenic in the soil. High concentrations of arsenic have been found in Leonidovka.

The Soviet Union secretly dumped 20,000 tons of "first generation" chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene and in the East Sea near Japan. Chemical weapons have also been dumped the Kara Sea near the Arctic Circle and the Baltic Sea. In addition to this, tons of chemical weapons have been discarded by the military and no one is sure where it all went.

Biological Weapons in the Soviet Union

At its height in the Cold War, the Soviet Union employed 60,000 people in more than 50 different sites in its biological weapons program. The Soviet facilities had enormous production capabilities. They could produce 4,500 metric tons of anthrax and made designer killers like antibiotic-resistant anthrax. These laboratories also produced super strains of diseases that could overcome existing Western vaccine and antidotes.

In his book “Biohazard” (Random House, 1999), Ken Alibekov, a defector and former second-in-command at a major biological weapons center, describes how the Soviets experimented with biological weapon agents such as anthrax, tularemia, Q-fever, brucellosis, glanders, the plague, Crimean-Congo fever, typhus, botulism, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, smallpox and other germs after the biological weapons treaty was signed with the United States.

One reason the Soviets like biological weapons was their value. One scientists who worked with them told the New York Times, Biological weapons are very cheap. We calculated to achieve an effect [of killing half the population] in one square kilometer it cost $2,000 with conventional weapons, $800 with a nuclear weapon, and $600 with chemical weapons and $1 with biological weapons.”

The world’s largest anthrax-making plant was in Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan, a secret city not on any maps. The plant consisted of ten sprawling white concrete buildings that covered so much area it could have been mistaken for a car factory. Inside were things like 5,000-gallon fermentation tanks that could make biological weapons on an industrial scale.

Facilities that were ostensibly supposed to be used for agriculture, disease and vaccine research were also incorporated into the biological weapons sector. The Odessa Antiplague Station in Odessa, Ukraine, for example, helped develop particularly virulent forms of the plague and anthrax. Researchers thought the pathogens were going to be used for vaccines but instead they were used for weapons.

Biological Weapons

Biological weapons are potentially more deadly than chemical weapons. A small amount can kill tens of thousands — perhaps even millions — of people but ultimately they are not suited for weapons because they are harder to preserve and deliver and act more slowly than chemical weapons. They are regarded as most effective on large populations of civilians rather than as a military weapon.

Because of the high casualty figures they can potentially produce and because they can be easy to make biological weapons are sometimes regarded as the poor man's nuclear weapons. The agents are very powerful and concentrated: a small amount, which can be easily be smuggled from one country to another, can cause catastrophic death counts.

Among the biological weapons that are easy to deal with are botulism and salmonella. Using these terrorists could attack a water supply or food processing plant. Laboratories and equipment that make medicines and pesticides can easily be used or slightly altered to make biological weapon agents. For this reason it is difficult to find evidence of biological weapons production.

Steps to make a biological weapon: 1) Acquire the agents (perhaps from a commercial culture collection, hospital, soil of a contaminated area, former Soviet bioweapons scientist. 2) access information about bioweapons (much of it is available online in technical journals); 3) buy equipment (many devices are available from medical and laboratory supply companies); 4) culture and propagate the agent (much of this can be done with a basic knowledge of biochemistry and fermentation); and 5) weaponize the pathogen. [Source: Washington Post]

The last step is arguably the most difficult to over come. According to the Washington Post : it requires expertise in airborne materials, the milling of particles and isolation techniques to prevent handlers from getting sick. Also it is difficult t make agents that are both virulent and resistant to antibiotics.

Biological Agents

Botulinum toxin is a severe form of the food poisoning toxin that causes botulism. Milligram for milligram, it is the deadliest substance known to science. It is 15,000 times more powerful than VX and 100,000 times stronger than sarin. Botulinum toxin acts more like a chemical weapon rather than a biological one because it knocks out the respiratory system as opposed to causing an infection. It blocks nerve transmissions and can enter the system orally or through inhalation. It causes death through suffocation by paralyzing the lungs and can cause respiratory failure in two to 12 hours. . . If dropped on a large shopping mall it could kill up to 40,000 people. The effects depend on the dose. Ventilators can often keep a victim alive until the paralysis passes. Recovery though can take months. An antidote made from horse serum can prevent the illness if administered early.

Small pox is perhaps the scariest agent for a biological weapons because it is the deadliest of all contagious human agents: once it spreads and people get infected they could spread to other people and they pass it on to other people and so on. The “hottest” strains kill as many as 50 percent of the people they infected. Some scenarios of a small pox attack have millions dead. Smallpox can easily be sprayed into a crowded place. Victims wouldn't begin to display symptoms until 10 to 14 days after the attack. People who came in contact with them who have a good chance of contacting the disease. In the event of a terrorist attack, the disease could quickly overwhelm the health care system.

The plague, tularemia, Q fevers and ricin have been used in biological weapon experiments. Ricin is an agent made from castor-bean plants, which is also used to make laxatives. It can be ingested, inhaled or injected. If ingested it can cause severe and rapid bleeding of the stomach and intestines. If it gets into the blood it can cause severe damage to the liver, kidneys and spleen and a slow death through circulatory collapse. It has no antidote. Ricin can be administered as a pellet, mist or powder and be dissolved in liquid.

Anthrax Biological Weapons

Anthrax is a bacterial disease usually associated with farm animals. People rarely get it unless they have handled or eaten infected animals. Those who get it usually get cutaneous anthrax, which is caused when the bacteria is absorbed through cuts in the skin. Very few people get the pulmonary form which is caused by inhaling the bacteria's spores and considerably more deadly.

Anthrax is a soil-dwelling bacterium. The disease is picked up by inhaling microscopic amounts of spores. Early symptoms include malaise, vomiting and fever, and difficult to distinguish from other diseases. Anthrax is deadly in 90 percent of cases if not treated with antibiotics before the onset of symptoms. Suffocation can occur after four to seven days. Anthrax can be prevented with a vaccine. If large amounts of antibiotics are given to people before symptoms develop they usually can survive. But once symptoms set in a person usually dies within 36 hours.

Biological weapons makers like spores from the pulmonary form of anthrax because they are extremely hardy and concentrated. A tiny amount can make many people sick, remain potentially dangerous for months, even years, and can be easily carried by the wind. Terrorists like anthrax because it is relatively easy to use but not contagions.

Biological weapons made with dried, ground anthrax spores are particularly dangerous because the spores are tough and concentrated and can survive even in a harsh environment for decades. Eight thousand spores, which can fit on a pin point, can be fatal. A vial full can kill or sicken many people, remain potentially dangerous for months or even years and be easily carried by the wind. If sprayed over a city the size of Omaha anthrax could kill up to 2.5 million and keep the city inhabitable for a long time.

Producing anthrax is relatively easy. All you need is an anthrax culture (available a few years ago for $45) and fermenter (a $50 model used by home beer brewers will do) to reproduce it. Making the dried form of spores is considerably more difficult. To make it requires expertise in airborne materials. Milling the particles and using isolation techniques to prevent handlers from getting sick are problematic.

Hundreds of tons of anthrax bacteria — enough to destroy all the people in the world several times over — was used in the development of biological weapons in the Soviet Union. Most of it was placed in stainless canisters and buried on Aral Sea's Vozrozhdeniye Island. The crowning achievement of the Soviet biological weapon's program was Anthrax 836. Developed in 1987 and four times more deadly that its predecessor, it is “an extremely, fine grayish, brown powder that can drift invisibly for kilometers.

Biological Weapon Experiments in the Soviet Union

Alibekov said that Soviet planes sprayed rebels in Afghanistan with glanders (a chronic bacterial disease that affects horses and can be lethal to humans) and experiments with "a new class of weapons called bioregulators” that could "damage the nervous system, alter moods, trigger psychological changes and even kill." The KGB “was particularly fond of these because they could not be traced by pathologists."

Soviet researchers reportedly tried to get a hold of the HIV and AIDS virus obtained from the United States in 1985 and use them as a biological weapons agent. They also experimented with DNA and gene restructuring to produce new highly-toxic agents and anti-biotic resistant forms of anthrax. The Russians also experimented with tularemia, a disease that is deadly in 30 to 60 percent cases if not treated with antibiotics.

In 1971, three people—two infants and a young woman—died and 43,000 people were vaccinated for small pox after a biological weapon test. The outbreak occurred in Aralsk, a port on the Aral Sea in what is now Kazakhstan after a ship doing research on fish in the Aral Sea passed too close (15 kilometers) to the site of a small pox test. A 24-year-old female researcher on the ship carried small pox back to Aralsk and got sick. The stain of small pox used in the test was unusually potent. Six people who were vaccinated still got sick. Four others got ill. The two children that died were less than one year old. The woman who died was a school teacher.

Anthrax Accident

In April 1979, at least 64 people died in unprecedented anthrax epidemic in Sverdlovsk, a southern Ural city of 1.2 million, caused by the accidental release of about one gram of anthrax spores from a military facility known as Compound 19. It is the deadliest anthrax outbreak on record. No mention of the disaster appeared in the newspaper or on television. No effort was made to warn, help or inform the people of Sverdlovsk as to what happened. Downwind from the facility, roofs were hosed down, streets were disinfected by workers and some people were given shots and antibiotics. Families were told that the victims had died of pneumonia or influenza.

It is believed the anthrax escaped after a clogged filter had been removed during one shift and not was replaced in the next shift. Hours passed before the mistake was realized. By that time anthrax spores had been released into the air and carried by the wind. Local health authorities were told nothing except to be on the alert for an infectious disease but realized something was amiss when patients showed up with the soft tissue of their brain permeated with blood. Spores carried by the wind killed farm animals 30 miles away.

At least one of the victims worked a ceramic factory two miles from the facility. One survivor who came down with anthrax told the Los Angeles Times doctors showed up with needles and pills. "We were not told it was anthrax," he said. "Doctors told me I must have gotten an infection from meat...Doctors also prescribed tetracycline to all of us as a precaution. They told us to swallow these pills by the pack: three times a day, six pills at a time."

The families of victims were told their loved ones had died from sepsis or “bad meat.” They figured something was amiss when the men that came to check the victims wore protective suits. One victim, a 27-year-old man, collapsed on the street a few blocks from Compound 19. His mother told National Geographic, “ They wrote ‘sepsis on the death certificate. Then we heard rumors that it had been anthrax, My husband and I were terribly afraid. Our son had spent the night before he died at home with us. The people in the morgue refused to dress the body, so we did it ourselves. To this day, no one ever told us that anthrax killed him. They gave us 40 rubles, and I used it to buy a dress for the funeral.”

The outbreak could have been much worse if the wind was blowing in a different direction. For some unexplained reason no children died although many were outside playing at the time the anthrax was in the air.

Biological Weapons Testing at Vozrozhdeniye Island

A top-secret facility on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea was the world’s largest biological weapons testing ground and was one of the primary testing grounds for Russia's biological weapons using anthrax and other diseases. The island contains pens that held thousand of animals—rabbits, guinea pigs, monkeys, sheep, donkeys, mice, hamsters, horses and baboons—that were used in testing. Around 1,500 people lived there at its height. [Source: Christopher Pala, New York Times Magazine, January 12, 2002 |:|]

Mark Synnott wrote in National Geographic: Located on Vozrozhdeniya Island—which, now that the sea is gone, is no longer an island—the facility was the main test site for the Soviet military’s Microbiological Warfare Group. Thousands of animals were shipped to the island, where they were subjected to anthrax, smallpox, plague, brucellosis, and other biological agents. The U.S. State Department, concerned that rusting drums of anthrax could fall into the wrong hands, sent a cleanup team there in 2002. No biological agents have been found in the dust since then, but sporadic outbreaks of plague afflict the surrounding region. [Source: Mark Synnott, National Geographic, June 2015 +/]

Gennadi Lepyoshkin, a scientist who worked at Vozrozhdeniye told the New York Times, “About one-third of our work was on weapons, like anthrax, plague and others bacteria, and two thirds on matters like testing vaccines or clothing or how long microorganisms would survive in the soil....The atmosphere was friendly, people were earning good money and we were provided with everything.” The workers used to sunbathe, dance and hunt ducks in their free time. |:|

Much the testing involved giving disease-causing agents to animals. Lepyoshkin told the New York Times, “We used monkeys, about 200 to 300 each year. Our staff would take them out to the range”—25 kilometers from the town—“and they would put them in cages next to devises that the measured the concentration of germs in the air. Then after they were exposed, they would be taken to the labs, where we would test the labs, where we would test their blood and monitor the development of a disease in them. They would die within weeks, and we would perform autopsies..” The testing was usually only done in the summer when temperatures sore to 120 degrees F to prevent the spread of the pathogens. |:|

Lepyoshkin said, “There was always danger, but we never had an accidents. He recalled on incident in which a woman dropped a petri dish containing anthrax. She tried to hide her mistake but her accident was discovered. Here punishment: she was docked some money on her paycheck. “No one got sick,” Lepyoshkin said. |:|

Vozrozhdeniye Island In the Early 2000s

Vozrozhdeniye Island, now shared by shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was shut down after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the level of the Aral Sea has dropped the island has become a peninsula connected to the mainland. The peninsula is uninhabited except for the occasion scavenger that goes there. [Source: Christopher Pala, New York Times Magazine, January 12, 2002 |:|]

Large amounts of the strain of anthrax that killed people in Sverdlovsk are buried in pits on Vozrozhdeniye Island. There are concerns that terrorists could collect disease samples of the diseases could spread through animals or people that visit the site. Uzbekistan is particularly concerned because it plans to drill for oil near where the anthrax is stored. |:|

One of the greatest worries is that wild rodents that live at the range and were exposed to weapons-grade plague may have survived, The plague that was used was not affected by antibiotics and is more contagious than the natural kinds. If this strain somehow spread to a scavenger and then the people there could be a very serious problem.

In 1995, an American teams discovered live anthrax spores on Vozrozhdeniye Island. At that time the United States earmarked $6 million for a program to decontaminate the site.

Condition of Biological Weapons Facilities

A number of facilities that store large quantities of disease-causing pathogens in the former Soviet Union are still operating today, mainly as disease research centers. The conditions at these facilities is often less than ideal. Some are in areas with lots of people, and there are worries about the release of pathogens. Security is also minimal. There are worries that local gangsters might steal some pathogens and sell them to terrorists. A laboratory with a large repository of anthrax, plague and other deadly bacteria about 100 miles for Moscow almost had its electricity cut off because it hadn't paid its electric bill.

The Anti-Plague Institute (formally known as the Lakh Science Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Diseases) in a green suburb if Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan was an important research center in the Soviet biological weapon program. Anthrax, plague, tularemia and other diseases were kept in unlocked refrigerators. In one case a journalist found plague germs kept in an old pea can in a refrigerator secured with string and wax. The facility was so short of funds it could not pay its telephone bill and was thus unable to call police in the event of a release of pathogens or a break in.

The United States paid more than $2.5 million to convert part of the facility in Stepnogorsk. Kazakhstan, into a pharmaceutical factory and dismantle the rest in the early 2000s. Many people were sad to see it go because it was only place they could get a job. Many scientist who worked there are still unemployed and are regarded as security risks who might offer their expertise abroad.

Worries About Russia's Biological Weapons Program

In September 1992, Yeltsin acknowledged the existence of a Soviet biological weapons program and declared all activity with biological weapons to be illegal.

In February 1998, Alibekov told ABC News that Russia continues research with a biological weapons and that it Cold War, World War III plan included preparing "hundreds of tons" of anthrax, small pox and the plague viruses. The same month, the Washington Post reported of a Russian deal to sell biological-warfare equipment to Iraq.

After September 11th, the United States worried that Al-Qaeda terrorists could gain access to biological agents through the Soviet biological weapons facilities. Around 7,000 scientists in Russia are believed to possess knowledge that could advance to biological programs of terrorists or the governments in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya. Of these Around 700 former Soviet weapons scientists are deemed security risks.

Effort to Control Biological Weapons

The United States has provided money to Russia to pay scientists who work with biological weapons so they are not tempted to accept offers from terrorists or "rogue nations." It is also providing money to better secure the facilities where biological agents are kept.

Between 1994 and 2004, the United States government spent $20 million helping some 2,200 scientists at 30 institutes in the former Soviet Union with links to biological weapons to devote their efforts to peaceful purposes and resist temptation to sell their knowledge to terrorists or "rogue" states. of money may increase to $270 million by 2005.

The United States is suspicious about Russia's compliance on chemical and biological weapons.

The Serpukhov Institute is part of the Obolensk biological laboratory, a former biological weapons laboratory 60 miles from Moscow that did work with anthrax, the plague and tulmeria. In recent years the Serpukhov Institute has developed vaccines to treat diseases that affect buffalos and produced microbes that cleanse the soil of PCBs.

The State Research Center for the Applied Microbiology, another facility at Obolensk, once employed 3,000 people and has one of the world's largest collections of anthrax, with at least 30 live strains and perhaps 10 times as many variants. Now it employs 1,000 people and is developing genetically-altered antibodies that could block the anthrax toxin and other technology that can thwart bioterrorism. Its attempt to produce ketchup was dropped.

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Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated May 2016