Biological agents with a potential for misuse Flashcards
(26 cards)
What was the Geneva protocol?
This was signed in 1925 after the first world war. Those who signed up were agreeing not to use asphyxiating r poisonous gases as biological agents as weapons.
what was the main issue with the Geneva protocol??
The issue with this was that the treaty did not say anything about members not being allows to produce or store biological agents.
What was the biological weapons convention?
this was signed in 1972 countries in this were agreeing that they would not develop, produce or stockpile any biological agent weapons and would destroy and of these that they already had.
Give an example of use of a biological agent from a member country of the geneva protocol and the biological weapons convention?
in 1935 italy used mustard gas in abyssinia and there were little repercussions from this other than the execution of two pilots who were part of the deployment team of these gases
What is NATO handbook
This organisation NATO has made a list of which biological agents could potentially be used as weapons. Member countries of NATO agree not to use or stock biological weapons are so they are particularly vulnerable to attack.
what is NATO?
the north Atlantic treaty organisation made up many countries with UK,USA,FR the leaders with the power to VETO (because they have nuclear weapons)
Why are the advantages of the use of biological agents in warfare?
they are cheap easy to make plausible deniability effective - just as social, enconomic destruction huge health service burden easy to produce can be delivered simply
what are the main ways that biological agents can be spread
ingestion
aerosol
percutaneous
secondary spread from infected people
which four biological agents are the most likely to be used?
small pox
plague
anthrax
botulinum
What are the three ways you can get anthrax?
cutaneous infection inhalation anthrax, and GI anthrax.
What are three examples in history in the use of Anthrax?
gruinard and Sverdlorsk and the american anthrax attacks
how can you treat a small pox infection
there are no treatments for smallpox
what is sledgehammer small pox?
incontrollable bleeding from skin lesions, and the mouth nose.
what did WHO declare in 1980?
that small pox had been eradicated due to extensive vaccination (except two lab stocks)
what are the disadvantages of using small pox as a biological weapon?
of what is released 90% would die in 24 hours
what are the advantages of using small pox as a weapon?
secondary infection rate is high with one person infecting on average 10 people and the small pox that survives dispersal will survive for around a week.
when was the last natural small pox case and where?
somalia 1977
when was the last human case of small pox?
1978 university of birmingham medical school - janet parker died
When does Clostridium botulinum produce botulinum?
in aerobic conditions like in the gut
what can be done to kill the toxin?
Heat, often cases happen when food isn’t heated enough to kill the spores
how does botulinum cause death?
1: the toxin disseminates into the blood stream
2: the toxin is endocytosed by the retrieval of the synaptic vesicle
3: the acidification of the vesicle causes the toxin to form a pore in the vesicle.
4: a disulfide bond is borken and the light chain is released into the cytosol
5: the light chain prevents fusion and synaptic vesicle release this leads to paralysis and death
how much botulinum toxin would you need to kill 1M people?
1 gram
what is the difficulty with trying to make botulinum into a weapon?
its hard to aerosolise, and hard to concentrate
which country made 19000 litres of botulinum?
iraq, still not all accounted for
