Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
program that continued after their signing the 1972
Biological Weapons Convention. During the 1970s
and 1980s, Biopreparat, an organization under the
Soviet Ministry of Defense, operated at least six
research laboratories and five production facil-
ities and employed over 25,000 scientists and
technicians. Biopreparat turned over 50 pathogens
into biological weapons [44], including: smallpox,
plague, anthrax, Venezuelan equine encephalitis,
tularemia, brucellosis, Marburg, Ebola, Machupo
viruses, and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever [45].
Russia now controls the extensive scientific
programs of the former Soviet Union. Russian
President Boris Yeltsin stated in 1992 that he
would end further offensive biological research
and production [46]. Now privatized under mili-
tary leadership [47], the extent to which the
biological weapons program has been eliminated
is unknown. In 2003, Dr. Ken Alibek, a former
Deputy Director of Biopreperat, estimated that not
more than 10% of his former colleagues were
employed, with many unaccounted for, although
most do not possess “much direct knowledge”
that would permit the manufacture of biological
weapons [48].
A recent report revealed that in 1971, a Soviet
field-test of smallpox biological weapon caused an
outbreak of 10 cases, and three deaths. According
to General Pyotr Burgasov, a former official
in the Soviet biological weapons program, less
than a pound of the aerosolized virus caused the
outbreak [42,43]. A crewmember on a research
ship contracted the virus when that vessel sailed
within 9 miles of Renaissance (Vozrozhdeniye)
Island in the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, the location
of the major testing area of the Soviet biological
weapons program. The smallpox test is thought
to have occurred on July 30, 1971, and the ship
sailed nearby between July 29 and July 31. Once
a smallpox outbreak began in the port of Aralsk,
health officials rushed to control the disease.
Nearly 50,000 residents of Aralsk were vaccinated
in less than two weeks, and hundreds were placed
in isolation in a makeshift facility [42,43,49].
An outbreak of inhalational anthrax occurred in
late April 1979 among those who lived or worked
within a distance of 4 k downwind of Soviet
2.12 Post-WWII to Modern Era
Biological weapons were used for covert assas-
sination during the 1970s. Ricin was concen-
trated into a weaponized form by Soviet Union's
secret service (KGB) and used by the Bulgarian
secret service (KDS). Metal pellets 1.7mm in
diameter were filled with ricin and sealed with
wax, designed to melt at body temperature. The
pellets were discharged from a spring-powered
umbrella. In August 1978, this weapon was used in
Paris during an unsuccessful assassination attempt
against a Bulgarian defector, Vladamir Kostov.
That September, another Bulgarian defector living
in London, Georgi Markov, was murdered by the
KDS, using the same ricin umbrella weapon [37].
Similar weapons may have been used for at least
six other assassinations [20].
Planes and helicopters delivering aerosols of
several colors (yellow, green, and white) attacked
Laos, Kampuchea and Afghanistan during 1975-
1983. These attacks became know as “yellow rain.”
Soon after these attacks, people and livestock
became disoriented, sick, and 10-20% of those
exposed died [38]. The trichothecene toxins (and
most prominently, T-2 mycotoxin) are thought to
comprise at least some of these clouds. However,
one scientist developed a hypothesis that these
chemical attacks were caused by swarms of defe-
cating bees [39]. Irrefutable evidence of a biolog-
ical attack was never established, although some
data suggests that toxins were used, derived from
biologically grown microorganisms [40,129].
2.13 Soviet Biological Weapons
Program
The Soviets began biological warfare research
during the late 1920s to early 1930s [41-43].
Typhus rickettsia were developed for dissemina-
tion as an airborne aerosol by this program in the
1930s. By 1941, up to seven Soviet research insti-
tutes engaged in the creation of biological warfare
agents from anthrax, plague, Q fever, melioidosis,
glanders, foot and mouth disease, leprosy and
tularemia [40-43]. The Soviets eventually devel-
oped a vast complex offensive biological weapons
