Allegations of Biological Weapons Use - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 258

rean laboratories. In northeastern China, Chinese scientists worked with
Chinese epidemic control teams and used Chinese civilian laboratories.
All the Korean reports are suspect. Soviet documents and inconsisten-
cies in ISC sources reveal most to be fabrications. Because of their patent
unreliability, the Korean-alleged incidents are unsuitable for scientific
evaluation.
In marked contrast, the Chinese reports are documented with detailed
analyses by identified scientists, who appeared to have been scrupulously
accurate. For instance, Chinese scientists retracted reports that they had
isolated pathogens from two early events in China. These were critical
events, the retractions embarrassing, and supporting evidence could eas-
ily have been fabricated.
The striking feature of the reports is that most were not very convinc-
ing as BW attacks. A wide variety of insects were reported, often ones
without obvious BW vector potential: springtails were reported from 6
events, spiders from 10, and crickets from 3. None of these naturally
carry human disease, and the Chinese scientists were well aware of this.
Mosquitoes were reported 15 times, but when species were identified,
they were ones without disease vector potential. Much of this entomo-
logical diversity can be attributed to hypervigilant citizens reporting un-
usual but natural insect behavior, or fabricating or exaggerating events to
appear politically conscientious. Internal documents of the Chinese pub-
lic health officials charged with investigating these reports commented
on this problem. 45
Not surprisingly, these inauspicious entomological events produced lit-
tle evidence of biological attack; only nine produced human pathogens
on culture (two produced an animal pathogen), and in only six did the
pathogen and the vector coincide in an expected way (two of Salmonella
in flies, one of plague in rodents, three of anthrax in flies/beetles). Only
two outbreaks of disease were alleged to have resulted from BW attacks
in China: an unidentified form of encephalitis and a cluster of inhala-
tional anthrax cases in northeastern China. The encephalitis outbreak
showed anomalous seasonality and virology, but appears to have been
a natural outbreak because similarly anomalous outbreaks occurred in
South Korea and Pacific islands at the same time. The anthrax cases are
the most plausible candidates for clandestine BW attack.