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Anthrax
For thousands of years, Anthrax was known as a livestock pest, regularly killing
animals who grazed on land infested with Anthrax spores (where the animals
breathed in the spores as they pulled up grass and released the spores from the
soil.) Humans could get infected as well, usually by getting spores on a cut.
This skin (cutaneous) form of Anthrax was fatal in up to 20 percent of the
victims, depending on how potent the Anthrax strain was and how many spores got
into the sore. People who worked with sheep's wool also got cutaneous Anthrax,
did those working with the hides of animals who grazed in areas containing
Anthrax. In the 1970s, imported wool from an Anthrax area, improperly cleaned,
infected a number of Americans. Anthrax is a bacteria, and some people and
animals can fight off infections and even develop an immunity.
Anthrax has long been pitched as an effective bio-warfare weapon. Britain
developed a military form of Anthrax during World War II. At the time, it was
seen as an effective weapon, because the Germans didn't have antibiotics (only
the Allies had this then-new medication that easily cured Anthrax infections.)
Since then, work has continued on Anthrax, developing more potent strains (so
less of it was needed to kill) and making Anthrax resistant to antibiotics
(difficult to do, although current genetic engineering techniques make this
easier to do if you have the qualified scientists and engineers.) . The major
problem with Anthrax is delivering it. The spores, in their natural form, don't
travel well in the air. "Militarizing" Anthrax consists of processing the spores
so they don't clump together and thus can more easily float away in a breeze.
But sunlight and heat can kill the spores, and even if they float through the
air, they can disperse so that anyone breathing them in will not get a fatal
dose (10,000 to 50,000 spores.) Thus the need for militarized Anthrax to be
grown from more powerful strains.
Naturally occurring Anthrax (which exists in most parts of the world) varies
in its potency. Wealthier nations, like the United States, give animals in
Anthrax ridden areas a vaccine that protects them. There have long been vaccines
for humans as well, to protect farmers and veterinarians. Agricultural
researchers have collected many strains of Anthrax, and the more potent ones are
kept and cultured to provide material to test new vaccines. But even the most
potent militarized Anthrax isn't that powerful. We know this from an military
Anthrax accident in 1979. A Russian biological warfare plant outside the city of
Sverdlosk accidentally released some militarized Anthrax. Thousands of people
were in the area and were infected. But fewer than a hundred died. What was
particularly discouraging to Russian military bioweapon scientists was that only
one of the dead was of military age, and he was already ill from other ailments.
All of those that died from the Anthrax were old, and usually sick. All the
victims had weakened immune systems. Many had lung ailments. The Russians
initially denied that there was an accident, and did not treat the locals for
Anthrax. Later they said the deaths were caused by people eating meant infected
with Anthrax (a common way for people to die from Anthrax.) It was only after
the Soviet Union fell apart that Western researchers were able to get into the
area and interview survivors and discover that people with normal immune systems
were able to fight off an Anthrax infection.
The 2001 Anthrax attacks in the United States, delivered by letter, killed
one and infected less than a dozen others. A form of natural Anthrax was used.
More will die and get ill, but not from Anthrax. Millions of people are taking
powerful antibiotics just in case they were infected. This massive use of
antibiotics will cause other bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics and the
resulting "super bugs" will kill a lot of people (a trend that has been noted
over the last decade or so.) The problem with Anthrax as a weapon is that you
have to use it in secret, and get a lot of people to breathe in the spores.
While the less lethal cutaneous form announces itself with a ugly sore (which
can then be treated with antibiotics), the pulmonary (breathed in) form
announces itself with flu like symptoms a few days after the infection. By then,
it is too late and death almost always follows. But if you know you have
breathed it in (and a test can confirm this), you can be treated with
antibiotics. So far, Anthrax has not really made the jump from livestock pest to
biological warfare weapon.
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