Comments on: Biowar 101

By: Karl Hallowell

Karl Hallowell — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 14:19:50 +0000

There’s already examples of deliberate infection with HIV. Currently, I think the danger is minimal. A smooth-talking jihadist might be able to infect more people than would otherwise be infected, but I think the harm is limited. There’s a good chance that secondary infections would have occured anyway. In a sense, HIV has reached saturation in much of the developed world. Additional infections wouldn’t have much long term impact on the number of cases. They might in countries that are still seeing rising numbers of cases, say India or China.

It would have been more damaging, if that jihadist had done this sort of thing before there were even tests for HIV or public awareness of the disease. He could donate blood and plasma on a frequent basis over different regions, smooth-talk, etc. That is, infect people who weren’t traditionally in the high-risk groups of drug users and promiscuous male homosexuals. Apparently, one of the factors hindering the spread of the disease was that it took a while to grow out of its initial target populations.

By: D. Vision

D. Vision — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:14:47 +0000

Karl,

I just had a horrific thought. Imagine Islamofascists deliberately infecting themselves with AIDS and then spreading it en masse (via promiscuous sex with infidel women, rape even) for the will of Allah. One smooth-talking jihadist could infect dozens of women a year, who could in turn infect dozens of dozens more people, eventually leading to hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of infections.

Truly frightening.

By: Karl Hallowell

Karl Hallowell — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:50:23 +0000

Another thing to consider is that a lot of the effort to combat the spread of disease depends on the cooperation of the public. Imagine a few dozen people deliberately attempting to catch whatever the dangerous disease of the day is and spread it. They just have to have a good idea how to spread the disease (assuming they can catch it in the first place). No fancy technology needed.

By: AndrewS

AndrewS — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:29:31 +0000

There’s a large difference between Anthrax and smallpox. Anthrax is not know to be transmissible between people, even the inhalation version (see http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/anthrax_g.htm). Smallpox is transmissible from person to person, although not nearly as easily as something like a flu virus.

In many ways Anthrax is more like a chemical weapon than a bio-weapon.

Probably the biggest danger would be someone modifying one of the current flu viruses that we don’t have much immunity to, and making it more lethal and able to spread from person to person. But that is a far more difficult research project than simply replicating a disease whose DNA sequence is already known and available.

But I’m not a bio-weapons expert.

By: Stephen Gordon

Stephen Gordon — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:47:50 +0000

Phil:

Yes, a “general-purpose virus detector and destroyer” is being worked on. The seriousness of those efforts v. the seriousness of the risk is very questionable.

It might take an attack to wake up our defenders.

Yes, those Anthrax attacks certainly qualify as bio-terror. They were even “weaponized” as I recall.

Perhaps the author was predicting the first bio attack from a disease sequenced in a lab.

By: D. Vision

D. Vision — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:34:25 +0000

Did I dream the anthrax attacks in October 2001? It seems to have dropped out of the “collective consciousness” long back and disappeared down the memory hole. That’s always been a sticky point for me; the war on terror is so much wider than averting another 9/11, and surprisingly, neither the most hawkish of the hawks or their most venomous opposition seems to remember the widespread panic and fear (not to mention a number of actual deaths) that a few dozen anthrax-laden letters caused back then.

As much as the media hyperventilates about Bin Laden still being on the loose, and as much as moonbats use that to pound Bush over the head, there has been absolutely no reporting on where our intelligence agencies are with the investigation into who carried out those anthrax attacks and how they got access to the stuff. It seems that a few X-ray machines at the post office are enough for everyone to willfully stick their heads back in the sand.

By: Phil Bowermaster

Phil Bowermaster — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 07:06:03 +0000

Scary stuff. Is anyone actively working on this proposed general-purpose virus detector and destroyer, or will that come about only after a couple or three bio-terror attacks?