ZKEA

Emerging Diseases : Biological Terrorism : Biological Warfare

Introduction

The world is entering a profoundly dangerous era. The risks of this era are existential. At stake is nothing less than the survival of civilization - and possibly the entire human race.

Prophets have long warned of such "dangerous eras". Throughout history most such warnings have either been massively overstated or simply wrong. But the coming danger is truly different and truly existential, for it has already revealed itself to humanity as deadly and all-encompassing. And it comes in a form which is now intersecting science and the human condition in a clear and well-documented fashion, pointing to an approaching holocaust.

This will be the holocaust of emerging disease, either naturally occurring or man-made. Or, to use a popular generic term, "plagues". Now, as never before, humanity sits on a biological time bomb. A new Hiroshima is approaching, and mankind is unprepared for this approaching apocalypse that will rewrite the future of our planet.

It is the goal of this website to document every aspect of this threat via commentary, analysis and a single cross-indexed documentary database. To this end you are encouraged to consult the ZKea Archive and Search Engine. Both are updated daily and are heavily annotated with searchable topics. They and the links they contain aim to provide a full accounting of the threat of emerging disease, biological warfare and terrorism, and their technological, historical and sociopolitical antecedents. Further, all this material is open-sourced. It therefore may be distributed freely as long as attribution to ZKea and primary sources is preserved.

For those new to this topic the rest of this introduction presents a brief overview of the problem and its background. Read on. Then should you desire more information on specific topics, proceed to the archive databases and search tools.

Biological Hiroshima

Throughout history the human species has been profoundly affected by plagues. These have decimated humanity countless times. To cite our first example, around 1918 a single influenza virus underwent a random mutation. This mutation transformed a relatively benign virus into a universal killing machine. The result was a global crisis that killed over 30 million human beings. This Spanish Flu was notable for its ferocity and lethal efficiency. Some people fell ill and died within a matter of hours. New York commuters boarded their trains healthy and were dead upon arrival in the city. Unusually, the virus targeted healthy young people, killing them preferentially over older individuals.

Influenza is always highly contagious. This particular epidemic was catastrophically magnified by improved transportation available at the turn of the century and by massive war time population dislocations. Spread by troop carriers and commercial ship traffic, the Spanish Flu quickly circumnavigated the planet. Panic broke out in cities around the globe as hospitals and morgues filled with the dead and dying. In the United States, troop camps were disbanded and emergency health measures instituted.

In other places the result was far worse. Half the population of some Pacific islands was wiped out in this epidemic. Untold millions died in Asia. Remote villages in Alaska ceased to exist. The virus stalked everyone, everywhere. There was no hiding place and there was no cure. Once ill with the "flu", the patient either died or recovered. As is also true today, there was little medical science could do to help.

This particular epidemic ended - if one can use the word - happily. Influenza is highly seasonal. The virus that attacks one season will mutate and take on a new form the following season (which is why flu shots must be given every year in order to be effective). Therefore the epidemic subsided of its own accord and, over the decades, was largely forgotten. Mankind was spared another year of mass death and fear. The world thus breathed a sigh of collective relief and got back to the more important business of finishing the World War I slaughter. Only in retrospect was it noted that the death toll of the Spanish Flu far exceeded the 20 million killed in the war. More fearfully, this virus killed people all over the planet and not just in fields of battle. In other words, in a short period of time this single virus, a packet of genetic instructions, turned out to be more deadly than all of man's technologies and armies over five years of global war.

As bad as 1918 was, it was a minor blip compared to other periods in human history. Humanity has suffered much worse, with far more devastating consequences.

Consider the case of the Native Americans of the 15th century. Estimates vary, but most scholars place the population of North and South America between 40 and 100 million at the time of European arrival. Much of this population was scattered and tribal. But many were organized in large and very sophisticated cultures. These demographics are particularly impressive when you consider that Europe had a roughly comparable population at that time.

These Native American societies were rich and complex. They were also militaristic and quite able to defend themselves against European incursion. True, the Europeans had a modest technological edge (primitive fire-arms and the horse), but the Native Americans had overwhelming numbers, disciplined and experienced armies, an effective command structure, and the pervasive advantage of defending themselves on their own terrain. Therefore, by all measures, these societies were quite capable of repelling any invading European force.

Due to these factors, the competitive situation between the opposing cultures was clear. The Americas were already completely occupied. There was no room left for Europeans. Victory and colonization of the Americas by European powers should have therefore been impossible.

Yet events proved otherwise. Within a few years small groups of Spanish conquistadors wiped out the Aztec and Incan civilizations. Subsequent invasions from England and Portugal continued the virtually effortless conquest, until all of the Americas lay under European dominion. Within a century the population of Mexico declined by 90%. The Incan empire was similarly devastated. Within a few decades most of the native population of the North American eastern seaboard vanished. The continents were effectively depopulated, greatly easing the way for European colonists. Thus European immigrants poured in and, over the following centuries, largely displaced the remaining surviving inhabitants. For all intents and purposes, the original native societies were annihilated.

How did the impossible happen?

The answer is infectious disease. New World populations had virtually no immunity to introduced Old World diseases. In medical parlance, such populations were biologically "naive" and therefore universally susceptible. This meant that mortality approached 100% in these naive populations. Given this, from very small beginnings a virus could literally bring down an entire world.

Which brings us to smallpox. Smallpox was introduced into the New World via one of Cortez's men. This single man passed the virus to a few Native Americans. From there the virus exploded outward, racing ahead of the Europeans to infect two continents. Within a few months millions of Aztecs were dying. Within a few years the Incan empire was in its biological death throes. In another decade the virus had spread up the Mississippi river. Thus it was comparatively easy for the conquistadors to destroy these empires - for these empires were already dying.

It is difficult to overstate the physical and psychological terror of such epidemics. When death becomes so random and pervasive civilization quickly breaks down. Such was the case with the Native Americans. In the space of a few years ancient cities and societies crumbled to dust. Survivors were terrified and dispirited, as they watched their families die from unseen forces while the white man remained eerily untouched. As one early Spanish missionary wrote: "Indians die very easily. A single breath of a white man is usually sufficient." As populations plummeted, ancient cultures and traditions melted away. The resulting cultural dislocation made it easy to enslave the few remaining survivors as well as implant new cultural traditions. Indeed, it was because of these epidemics that alien languages and religions were relatively easily imposed on the conquered people. What choice did they have? The traditional gods had abandoned them . Meanwhile, the white man's god was clearly stronger and obviously quite angry.

The same story was repeated in the North American continent. Early English and American explorers were surprised to find vacant towns and overgrown fields where large native populations once flourished. Particularly in the fertile lower Mississippi valley, explorers were astounded by the silence and the degree of devastation. "There exist large and very impressive Indian towns in this territory," wrote one early explorer, "but not a single Indian. It is a mystery." But there was no mystery. European diseases had simply outrun the Europeans themselves, depopulating lands ahead of their exploration. Only the greatly diminished tribal cultures of the Plains and the West survived. Given their weakness, these were easily eliminated militarily by the expanding European settlers in the following centuries.

History is filled with additional examples. The Black Death (actually a wave of epidemics, stretching over centuries, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) first became visible in the Chinese hinterlands early in the Christian era. The effects were cataclysmic. In some epidemic waves, up to 98% of local populations died. The later effects on India and Islamic countries were often just as severe. The plague then reached Europe in the 14th century, where it proceeded to quickly kill one third of the population. As elsewhere, the effects in Europe of this level of mortality were fundamental and far-reaching. Economies collapsed, cities were abandoned and famine stalked the landscape. And, as in the case of the Native Americans, there were pervasive cultural effects as well. A preoccupation with death became the norm, both in art and in daily life. "People no longer bother with work and planning for the future," wrote one chronicler, "but instead live only for the day."

More examples: the Athenian plague of 430 B.C. that catalyzed the fall of Athens to Sparta; the terrible Roman plagues of 180 A.D. and 252 A.D., leading eventually to the fall of the Empire; countless Indian and Chinese plagues, some of which set population growth back by centuries. Ancient history is full of harrowing accounts of the mass death and dislocation caused by infectious disease.

Yet not all plagues are confined to ancient times. In early 2003 a random mutation suddenly granted unusual killing power to the common cold virus. Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) apparently originated in southern China's Guangdong Province. Polluted, crowded with people and animals, Southern China is a notorious incubator of novel respiratory viruses. Once established in the region, SARS then quickly spread via airline travel to a number of places around the world. It remains to be seen how lethal SARS will be, although it has the potential to inflict serious harm. Even if a major pandemic is not established, SARS clearly pointed to the dangers of a repeat of the 1918 terror.

As if on cue, the influenza virus reappeared in the news in 2004 - - this time in the form of the avian flu. Millions of wild and domestic birds died in Asia, as the disease swept through their populations with cold efficiency. Indeed, birds are susceptible to a wide variety of flu viruses. In fact, influenza is typically a far more potent killer of birds compared to mammals - including humans. Generally speaking, an avian flu virus has difficulty crossing over to other creatures. However, this particular virus - known as H5N1 - soon demonstrated a certain ingenuity ...

H5N1 had been tracked since 1997, when it first emerged in Hong Kong and killed a handful of people. After authorities there killed 1.5 million chickens (basically, every chicken in Hong Kong), the outbreak seemed to stop. But the virus had not disappeared; rather, it simply retreated into the Chinese hinterland. There, from between 1998 and 2001, the virus rapidly evolved, going through no less than 17 genetic reassortments. In January 2003 the "Z" variant of the virus evolved, which proved capable of dealing with a broader range of environments. By 2005 this virus (now dubbed "Z+") became supervirulent and quite capable of killing a diverse range of species, including cats, rodents, pigs and people. This virus was now spectacularly agile and dangerous. For instance, mice are typically unaffected by influenza, but Z+ causes 100% mortality in every mouse population tested. And the virus continued to intrude into species that normally are not affected. Among other things, it began to kill migratory birds - which normally are relatively immune. It even began to kill tigers - wiping out 30% of the tigers in Thailand zoos in a single ferocious epidemic.

Can H5N1 cause a human pandemic? No one really knows. However, as time goes on, increasing numbers of people in SE Asia are falling prey to the virus. Should the disease ever break out decisively into the world population, the world would witness an unparalleled biological catastrophe.

And let us not forget our most costly current plague - AIDS. 20 million dead and 45 million infected as of 2005. HIV is in some ways the perfect killer: invariably lethal yet with a long incubation period in which to maximize its spread. Fortunately the virus has a weak point, in that it is quite fragile in the external environment and not easily spread. Had HIV evolved the ability to spread in the air or via casual contact, Homo sapiens might now be experiencing a universal apocalypse dwarfing any other event in the history of our species. Instead, in species terms, HIV became just an almost-catastrophe. Humanity was hit by a bullet, but fortunately it was a rubber bullet. Next time we might not be so lucky.

In summary, since the dawn of urban civilization, deadly epidemics have afflicted mankind. And the human cost of any of the larger epidemics dwarf all of humanity's wars and famines combined.

The Environmental Context

The dynamic of disease is, of course, not unique to Homo sapiens. All organisms are prey to viruses and epidemics, as this is a normal part of environmental balance. Rats suffer from plagues, birds are attacked by influenza and malaria, and insects are afflicted by myriad varieties of poxes. These viruses keep their respective host populations within the bounds of the environment. For instance, every species of caterpillar is victimized by at least one species of pox. If not for these pox viruses, the world would quickly be inundated with hungry caterpillars. Viruses and infectious bacteria have no peer when it comes to quickly and massively reducing population sizes. They invariably take advantage of population spikes. All this is integral to the normal dynamic of populations and ecosystems.

These ecological processes are the mechanisms by which disease and epidemics reached humanity. As Homo sapiens urbanized and populations increased, viruses and bacteria had a new opportunity to exploit an increasingly common target. By the usual process of mutation and evolution, various disease vectors made their transition to our world.

For example, bubonic plague spread due to the ecological disruption of the grasslands of Central Asia, and the subsequent fact that rats found a very pleasant lifestyle cohabiting in our ever-growing cities. When large numbers of humans entered swampy humid habitats, malaria jumped from birds to people. Human smallpox arose from a related pox (perhaps camelpox). It became a scourge of the Old World in Egyptian times, once cities of sufficient size developed on the Nile. HIV jumped to Homo sapiens some decades ago, probably due to tropical deforestation and the intensified contact between growing human populations and other primates.

The pattern has been repeated countless times. And as humans expand into and disrupt the last remaining untouched areas of the globe, further such jumps can be expected.

The Technological Threshold

We see that epidemic disease has dramatically affected our world throughout history and into the modern era. And we understand that viruses and epidemics are part of the natural order, acting as nature's crowd-control mechanism. But why should this concern us now? After all, mankind has survived and prospered so far. What has changed in the global equation that makes the age-old danger of epidemic disease such a profound and immediate concern?

Three fundamental things have changed. Let us consider them in ascending order of importance.

First, the world's population continues to explode. As of 2005 the population is approaching 7 billion. At current rates, it will level off at 12-14 billion sometime at the end of the century. Never before has the planet supported so many large mammals from a single species.

Much of this population is increasingly forced into crowded urban zones, many of which are unstable, unsanitary and under increasing social strain. Even more importantly, these urban zones are now inextricably interconnected via air-travel. Should an epidemic arise anywhere in today's world, it will spread almost immediately to all parts of the globe due to population density and the efficiency of transportation.

Perhaps the greatest threat in this regard are the 1 billion human beings currently living in 3rd-world megaslums. These dense urban aggregations typically lack even the most basic sanitation facilities. Furthermore, their health infrastructure - where it even exists - rarely includes any kind of systematic monitoring services. These hyper-slums are biological kindling, always ready to ignite a worldwide catastrophe.

Second, the planet is now under profound ecological stress. Climates are changing, species are on the move or going extinct, landscapes are being altered and degraded. Even within strictly human ecologies (such as in large urban centers), the same dynamic holds. Populations are migrating, health care and availability are declining, and immune systems are increasingly compromised from pollution and HIV. As history shows, such a situation creates opportunities for new infectious diseases to arise, such as with HIV, or for old diseases to take on new forms, such as with Spanish Flu. Any of these incipient plagues face a very hospitable environment, given the increased urbanization and efficient transportation of the modern world.

The above two factors, by themselves, paint a very dim scenario for humanity. Never before in human history has the situation been so ideal from the viral perspective. It is a unique and highly dangerous situation. It is akin to a forest filled with flammable debris, waiting for a lit match. In nature, this is the time for a plague to strike. Certainly there have been increasing attempts. For example, between 1977 and 1994 no fewer than twenty-nine previously unknown human pathogens emerged. None reached the level of species-killer, but this may only be a matter of time.

These facts are dire enough. However, there is a third factor at play that completely outweighs the first two. By itself it poses the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.

This new factor is biotechnology. Molecular biology has reached a critical threshold. This is the single most profound event in human history since the harnessing of fire. Biotechnology in the form of molecular genetic engineering has the potential for being both the most beneficial as well as the most destructive technology ever unleashed. Among other things, for the first time the inner mechanics of disease-causing microorganisms are both understood and subject to manipulation. The implications of this are staggering. For example, biologists have now pinpointed the exact mechanisms of pathogenesis in a number of viruses and bacteria. These pathogenic characteristics have then been altered or enhanced, rendering microorganisms more virulent, immune to vaccine, or both. Techniques for enhancing the dispersal, survival and spread ("weaponization") of these microorganisms are also being fine-tuned.

Some of this work has happened by chance as a result of otherwise innocent basic research. But much of it is already by design, conducted by a growing network of clandestine germ labs around the world. For instance, it is known that the ex-Soviet Union weaponized a virulent form of smallpox in the 1980s. Tons of the dried virus were then mounted onto special cooled warheads designed to maximally spread their deadly cargo upon reaching their target. Recall that a single smallpox-infected individual was sufficient to begin the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas, eventually killing millions of people. Calibrated against this, the impact of the willful spread of tons of smallpox virus is truly difficult to imagine. According to ex-Soviet scientists, additional weaponization work was conducted on other microorganisms, including anthrax, tularemia and bubonic plague.

Simple modifications can yield dramatic results. One basic approach is to splice a single destructive gene into common human bacteria. For example, South Africa's Project Coast isolated a toxin-producing gene from Clostridium perfringens. C perfringens causes a variety of fatal conditions including gas gangrene, a severe form of gangrene which attacks living tissue. Technicians spliced this gene into Escherichia coli, an intestinal bacterium found in every human being. Such a modification is trivial and yet potent: should this particular modified bacteria ever escape and establish itself in human populations, the result could be a universal epidemic of gangrene.

Indeed, the only limit to what can be accomplished with bioengineered microorganisms is our capacity for imagination. A variety of methods to increase the lethality and spread of infectious diseases are now well-known and in the public domain. For instance, more advanced chimeric viruses are now reportedly in the hands of a number of nations. These chimeras combine the worst of multiple pathogens (ebola plus influenza?), making them universally lethal. In addition, diseases could conceivably be targeted to affect only certain races, or only people of a certain sex, or age, or to exhibit a range of symptoms.

Nor is this work limited geographically. The old Soviet Union and South Africa were not the only places with such expertise. The United States and a number of other countries also have robust biological weapons programs. All these programs are mature and extremely deadly.

Then things get truly scary, for molecular biology expertise is widely distributed and there is no lack of players who wish to develop the ultimate weapon. It is believed that active biological weapons programs are now being conducted in a number of countries. This list includes Iran, North Korea, China, Cuba, Syria, and Libya, among others. Unlike nuclear physics, molecular biology at this level does not require expensive visible labs and equipment. All such work can be carried out in a modest (even mobile) facility under the direction of a competent PhD and some skilled grad students. It is thus quite within the reach of most countries in the world. The barriers to entry are low and the potential payoff is high. Given this, even sub-state actors (such as any reasonably well-funded terrorist group) could conceivably develop and deploy their own doomsday weapon. It is indeed with good reason that biological weapons are sometimes called "the poor-man's nuke".

The comparison with nuclear physics and nuclear weapons is apt. Molecular biology is now in a state of development comparable to that of nuclear physics in the 1930's - fundamental work is going on at a furious rate while knowledge rapidly expands and spreads. The bottle has been discovered and it contains a terrifying genie. Someday this genie will be unleashed. On that day the world will be awakened by epochal events that are both novel yet terrifyingly familiar.

Biological Hiroshima

Let us summarize. Epidemic disease has been the most significant cause of human mortality, dwarfing all other causes including war. In addition, the twin engines of extremely fast population growth and ecological disruption create an ideal environment for the natural emergence and spread of deadly plagues. Finally, the advent of modern molecular biology has added an entirely novel ingredient into this mix: the danger of engineered plagues, precisely targeted to inflict the maximum damage to mankind. Combined, these factors point towards an inexorable slide to a biological Hiroshima.

Given a world that is increasingly overpopulated, poverty-stricken, divided and hostile, with mass terrorism and mailed anthrax a fact of life rather than a theoretical consideration, the reality of this threat becomes clear. It is only a question of time before a new and terrifying plague - either naturally evolved or created with malicious intent - is unleashed upon humanity.

This website tracks both breaking news and primary materials pertaining to this threat. The goal is to awaken the world to these dangers as well as to provide an impetus for necessary policy changes.

As stated earlier, all materials on this website may be freely emailed or otherwise shared with others, as long as attribution to ZKea and primary sources is preserved. Similarly, we are very interested in new materials and fresh perspectives. Feel free to contact ZKea with both.