Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Syria
. Syria has a limited biotechnology infras-
tructure and some unconfirmed reports assess
that Syria is developing an offensive biological
weapons capability. Syrian military scientists may
have done limited biological weapons research
[118]. A facility near Cerin is suspected as used
for the development of anthrax, botulinum toxin,
and ricin biological agents [119-121].
Taiwan
. Despite persistent suspicions of offen-
sive and defensive biological and chemical
weapons programs, there is no convincing evidence
that Taiwan has developed or deployed chemical
or biological weapons [122].
United Kingdom
. Britain's biological weapons
program was initially developed for potential
retaliatory use in response to a German biolog-
ical attack, and lasted from 1936 to 1956. The
British tested
Ba. anthracis
bombs on Gruinard
Island near Scotland, resulting in heavy contam-
ination. Viable anthrax spores persisted until the
island was decontaminated in 1986. Research
had also been conducted into plague, typhoid,
and botulinum toxin as biological weapons [4].
Research for plague, brucellosis, tularemia, and
Venezuelan equine encephalitis and vaccinia virus
also occurred offshore of the northwest Hebrides,
the Bahamas, and Antigua [123].
Uzbekistan
. Since independence, Uzbekistan has
dismantled the Soviet chemical and biological
weapons facilities in its territory [124]. The US has
assisted Uzbekistan in removing tons of anthrax
spores from Renaissance Island in the Aral Sea (the
site of the previously mentioned 1971 smallpox
outbreak) where they were buried by the former
Soviet Union [125]. Anthrax was buried here after
the Sverdlovsk anthrax release provoked alarm in
the West [51]. In 1997, American survey teams
found that anthrax spores in soil samples from 6
of the 11 burial pits were viable. There is great
concern that terrorists or rogue states might seek
to obtain anthrax spores from the former Soviet
biological warfare test site on the island [126]. Ken
Alibek, a defector from the Soviet germ warfare
program, has stated that the island was used to
test tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders and
plague [41].
References
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2. A. Mayor.
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11. NativeWeb.org. Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox
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Physicians as Serial Killers
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