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The current state of biodefense in the US | Eukaryote Writes Blog

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For all the attention drawn by biological weapons, they are, for now, rare. Countries with bioweapon programs started during World War 2 or the Cold War have apparently dismantled them, or at least claim to, after the 1972 international Biological Weapons Convention. The largest modern bioweapon attack on US soil was in 1984, when an Oregon cult sprayed salmonella in a salad bar in the hopes of getting people too sick to vote in a local election. 750 people were sickened, and nobody died. In 2001, anthrax spores were mailed to news media offices and two US senators, killing 5 and injuring 17. A few countries are suspected to have violated the Biological Weapons Convention, and may have secret active programs. A couple terrorist groups were found to have planned attacks, but not carried them out. Biotechnology is expanding rapidly, the price and know-how required to print genomes and do genetic editing and access information is dropping. An increasingly globalized world makes it easier

[Photomicrograph of Bacillus anthracis , the anthrax bacteria, in human tissue. From the CDC , 1976.] For all the attention drawn by biological weapons, they are, for now, rare. Countries with bioweapon programs started during World War 2 or the Cold War have apparently dismantled them, or at least claim to, after the 1972 international Biological Weapons Convention. The largest modern bioweapon attack on US soil was in 1984 , when an Oregon cult sprayed salmonella in a salad bar in the hopes of getting people too sick to vote in a local election. 750 people were sickened, and nobody died. In

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