AFF/BIOLOGICAL

OTHER BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXIST

GENETIC ENGINEERING IS A MAJOR NEW MILITARY THREAT

Loren Thompson, teaches defense issues at Georgetown University and defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 17, 1999, SECTION: NEWS, Pg. M3, HEADLINE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS; U.S. WILL FACE DIFFERENT -- BUT UNCERTAIN -- MILITARY THREATS IN FUTURE // ln-10-29-99-acs

* Genetic engineering could be used to create modified or completely new forms of life for military purposes.

GENETIC ENGINEERING IS THE MILITARY THREAT OF THE FUTURE -- THAT MEANS BIOTECHNOLOGY

Loren Thompson, teaches defense issues at Georgetown University and defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 17, 1999, SECTION: NEWS, Pg. M3, HEADLINE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS; U.S. WILL FACE DIFFERENT -- BUT UNCERTAIN -- MILITARY THREATS IN FUTURE // ln-10-29-99-acs

Q: What's the most interesting possible development that you see in defense over the next 10 to 20 years?

A: Probably that would be engineered life, meaning the application of genetic engineering to create either greatly modified or completely new forms of life for military or other purposes. We seem to have come to the end of evolution as a random process. From now on, much of the progress, if that's what you want to call it, will be planned.

Today, both our limitations and our potential as human beings are the products of millions of years of random natural selection. From this point forward, though, we may be able to consciously manipulate the qualities that we wish to either eliminate or amplify in our nature. In terms of the military, this means potential for developing all sorts of new capabilities in a warrior -- greater situational awareness, greater agility, greater strength, greater speed.

In other words, all the qualities we have traditionally turned to machines for, we may now begin to engineer in people themselves. I think this is probably going to be the revolution of the next half-century. It seems to me that biotechnology is the one thing that could really revolutionize warfare.

BOTULINUM TOXIN KILLS 60% OF THOSE EXPOSED

Botulinum toxin

This is produced by the bacterium "Clostridium botulinum". It is one of the most lethal substances known, killing by causing acute muscular paralysis. The incubation period and prognosis both depend on the dose ingested. Symptoms like blurred vision, difficulty in breathing and swallowing and muscle paralysis can set in within four hours and in almost 60 per cent of cases death follows swiftly.

EBOLA VIRUS KILLS 50% OF THOSE EXPOSED

Ebola: Ebola virus is diagnosed with symptoms of fever, sore throat, diarrhoea, vomiting, limited kidney and liver functions and external and internal bleeding. There is possibly no known treatment and death comes in almost 50 per cent of cases.