Countering the threat of bioweapons

Countering the threat of bioweapons

The May-June 2018 issue of Foreign Policy magazine includes a terrific package about the promise and perils of genetic technologies, including:

The latter begins:

Military and political leaders have worried about large-scale biological warfare for more than a century. “Blight to destroy crops, Anthrax to slay horses and cattle, Plague to poison not armies only but whole districts—such are the lines along which military science is remorselessly advancing,” Winston Churchill lamented in 1925. But despite the deadly potential of biological weapons, their actual use remains rare and (mostly) small scale. Over the last several decades, most states have given up their programs. Today, no country is openly pursuing biological weapons.

Recent breakthroughs in gene editing have generated massive excitement, but they have also reenergized fears about weaponized pathogens. Using gene-editing tools, including a system known as CRISPR, scientists are now able to modify an organism’s DNA more efficiently, flexibly, and accurately than ever before. The full range of potential applications is hard to predict, but CRISPR makes it much easier for scientists to produce changes in how organisms operate.

The essay makes a compelling case about the dangers posed not just by nation-states but by nearly anyone with a college degree and a rudimentary lab setup. Genetic technologies have become so simple and accessible that risks once deemed unthinkable because of rational actors no longer are unthinkable.

The Chief Scientist in my upcoming novel “Biohack” sounds just such a warning:

“The First World War was chemical. The Second World War was nuclear. The Third World War will be biological.”

Read the articles over at Foreign Policy (subscription required for full access). But have a seat first.

Image at top: French firefighters taking part in a chemical-attack exercise at the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne, France. (Photo at top, Reuters via Foreign Policy magazine)

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *