Allegations of Biological Weapons Use - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 276

have been persuaded by the great volumes of firsthand testimony from
Hmong refugees that at least in Laos there was systematic use of CW, and
some remain persuaded that mycotoxins were among the agents used. A
large volume of material has recently been declassified by the US govern-
ment, and there will be reevaluations of the yellow rain allegations in
the near future, 113 but it is unlikely that any of this will be definitive. It is
also unlikely that further scientific work could retrospectively address re-
maining suspicions of chemical or toxin warfare in Southeast Asia, al-
though better understanding of the ecology of trichothecene-producing
fungi in the region would be helpful in evaluating alternatives. Final res-
olution will come only with the opening of Russian, Vietnamese, and
Laotian archives. Until then, the lack of credible evidence forces us to re-
ject the allegations.
Sverdlovsk
In April 1979 there was a large outbreak of anthrax in the Soviet city of
Sverdlovsk (formerly, and now again, Ekaterinburg). Initial speculations
were that perhaps as many as 1,000 people died, but later investigations
showed that the number was probably under 100. The outbreak was first
mentioned in the Russian émigré press in Germany, but shortly thereaf-
ter the US charged publicly that the outbreak was the result of an acci-
dental release of an anthrax aerosol from a military microbiology facility
(Compound 19) in southern Sverdlovsk. The evidence that convinced US
analysts was a combination of long-standing suspicions that the Sverd-
lovsk facility was a component of a covert BW program (see Chapter 6),
combined with human intelligence from Soviet citizens, the most impor-
tant of whom was a physician in Sverdlovsk. 114 Although this is not tech-
nically an allegation of BW use, it is an allegation that the outbreak was
the result of illegal BW activity, and hence we consider it here.
The Soviet Union responded that the outbreak was of the intestinal
form of the disease, with some cutaneous cases, caused by eating con-
taminated meat from animals slaughtered in the late stages of anthrax. It
was said to have followed a veterinary outbreak caused by contaminated
bonemeal used in feed. The outbreak was described in the scientific liter-
ature as gastrointestinal disease. 115 Neither country would budge from its