Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
6 Nerve and Chemical Agents
PAUL D. MONGAN AND JAMES WINKLEY
the danger that chemical warfare agents will
ever be used, enforcing these treaties is difficult.
Controlling the manufacturing, acquisition, and
storage of precursor chemicals make chemical war
and terrorism a continuing concern for the U.S.
government.
Threat of chemical agent proliferation and use
has not decreased. Saddam Hussein's use of chem-
ical warfare against the Kurds in 1988 demon-
strates how readily such weapons can be used,
even within the confines of one's own country.
The 1994 and 1995 incidents involving the Aum
Shinrikyo cult use of the nerve agent sarin to cause
fatalities and disruption in Matsumoto and in the
Tokyo subway system demonstrate how easily a
terrorist organization can quietly produce and use
a classic chemical warfare agent.
Disclaimer
All statements and opinions are the author's,
and are not official positions or policies of the
Uniformed Services University, the Department of
Defense, or the US federal government.
6.1 Introduction
Chemical warfare agents have been used by armies
and for hundreds of years. In the twentieth century
chemical engineering and technological advances
improved the variety, delivery, and lethality of
these agents. Many agents were used in the early
1900s during World War I and since then more
have been discovered and tons stockpiled. Fortu-
nately, excluding World War I, their use has been
limited to a few short military conflicts and small
radical terrorist group activities.
Offensive use of chemical agents continues to
be attractive to some nations and terrorist organiza-
tions. Chemical agents can be dispersed over large
areas, penetrate structures, kill or sicken entire
populations, and overwhelm medical resources.
They can be employed against specific targets,
including headquarters and control centers and,
depending on the chemical agent or combina-
tion of agents, the effects can be immediate or
delayed incapacitation, disorientation, or death.
The psychological impact is ever-present as troops,
public servants and populations can be turned
to chaos just from a perceived threat. Many of
the more common classic chemical agents can be
produced inexpensively and quietly, and stored
indefinitely. Their minimal cost has earned chem-
ical warfare agents the appellation “the poor man's
atomic bomb.”
Although treaties dealing with control or elim-
ination of classic chemical weapons may reduce
6.2 Nerve Agents
6.2.1 History
Nerve agents are extremely toxic chemicals that
were developed in Germany for military use before
and during World War II. By the end of World War
II Germany had produced and weaponized approx-
imately 25,000 tons of tabun and sarin [1]. While
the use of these weapons would have probably
altered the outcome of the war, German scientists
had tested nerve agents on inmates of concentra-
tion camps to determine their lethality and to aid
in the development of antidotes [2]. Near the end
of World War II, United States and the United
Kingdom troops captured some of these muni-
tions at a German testing facility in Raubkammer.
The munitions were taken to the United Kingdom
Chemical Defense Establishment for examination
and a group of scientists determined the pharma-
cology and toxicity of tabun and documented the
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