[karajorma]

I agree that biologicals are stupid in that they don't kill all the affected, are hard to weaponise and may mutate and come back at you and yours.

It's the latter part that scares me. Chemical weapons are local effect weapons. Biologicals can very easily spread beyond the intended target area.

[kasperl]

Only if you get a lot of infections, and completely immobilise the defendants' army.

Really, if I were a terrorist, I'd start of with explosives, and perhaps chemical weapons.Biological only works if you get something like ebola, but then it's easier to sent a few blokes to Africa, catch it, and get them to the western world without them being detected. And AFAIK, there are mechanisms against that happening, intentionally or not.

[karajorma]

Who the hell is talking about terrorists. This thread is about the US government doing something with anthrax and probably other biologicals. They certainly can do something more sophisticated than that.

[kasperl]

After the high-school bit I was assuming the theory was now on terrorists.

As for the US government: They won't deploy biologicals. If they do, they're so utterly ****ed even Canada will try an invasion.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kasperl
After the high-school bit I was assuming the theory was now on terrorists.

As for the US government: They won't deploy biologicals. If they do, they're so utterly ****ed even Canada will try an invasion.

Depends whether or not they get caught, I suppose.

[kasperl]

As a general rule, infecting enough people with biological weapons to make it worth the trouble will be noticeable.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kasperl
As a general rule, infecting enough people with biological weapons to make it worth the trouble will be noticeable.

Depends on the weapon.  Imagine someone weaponized bird flu, for example.

[Wild Fragaria]

Or Lime disease.

[achtung]

Originally posted by Wild Fragaria
Or Lime disease.

Not saying it can't be done but that would be a ***** to do (if by weaponize you mean spread it).

But my guess is that either teh anthrax we have now is starting to lose it's potency or something big is going to come up.  

*Goes out and works more on bunker*
 Plus they're aren't requesting weapons grade stuff.

[aldo_14]

It's simple enough, really; all you need is a single, highly contagious disease that doesn't kill the victim (or manifest crippling symptoms) before they can spread it.  In some ways, it's better to have a crippling rather than lethal bomb, as that could paralyze hospital services even more.

Either way, if you can produce a suitable version of a naturally occuring virus (perhaps through genetic manipulation; I'm not sure how easy it is to hide markers for that sort of thing, of course), infect a single carrier in a populated area, and just stand back you'd see an epidemic which would be virtually untraceable back to you.

Hence the fear over the potential use of weaponized variants of smallpox made by the USSR during the cold war, which are either lost or sold on the black market.  Weaponized, of course, meaning that the chemical or virus (etc) is processed in a form suitable for use in killing people.   Like increasing virulency, or specifically creating the dry spores required in the CBW use of Anthrax.