Ebola Virus - PLoS Pathogens
Officially it is a biological defence research facility. In reality, and in collaboration with other covert programs based in America, Canada and overseas including the UK’s Porton Down, it is funded by billions of dollars each year to coordinate the production of weaponised strains of some of the deadliest viruses and toxic agents known to man.
Following US president Nixon’s initiative to halt the potentially suicidal biological weapons arms race, the major nations agreed to destroy their biological stockpiles and focus instead on producing vaccines and finding preventative measures for diseases and infections that had the potential to produce mass casualties should an outbreak occur.
When Dr Vladimir Pasechnik, a soviet scientist involved in the Russian bio-weapons program, defected to the west in 1989 he revealed that the soviets had continued with a secret program and were attempting to arm cruise missiles with biological warheads.
Whether the western nations had genuinely disbanded their own programs is a matter of debate, no inspection regime was ever implemented. Either way, Pasechnik’s news was the spur for a fresh arms race that has been active ever since.
To add to the threat posed by trigger happy politicians and generals wielding plague bombs, the industry is no longer confined to government run establishments. Private contractors are routinely hired, thus blurring the lines of command and control and increasing the likelihood of losing track of the deadly materials being produced. The anthrax attacks of September 2001 are a chilling example.
In the coming weeks the UK Iraq Inquiry may visit the murky topic of biological warfare when the name of Dr David Kelly, probably the foremost expert in the field prior to his suspicious death, is mentioned in connection with the “sexed-up” lies employed by Tony Blair to lead Britain into an illegal war with Iraq – ironically to rid the world of Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Kelly debriefed Pasechnik when the latter defected and he later became his friend. Pasechnik was also to die under suspicious circumstances as have an unreasonably high number of other eminent biologists who worked for the military.
The Canadian documentary “Anthrax War” is an engrossing investigation into the tangle of connections that draw the places and actors from this unwelcome branch of science together. Fort Detrick, of course, has a starring role. It is America’s germ farm and the work being done there, in addition to the work of many similar installations around the world, poses the gravest of threats to every man, woman and child on this planet.
