| OTHER VIRUSES THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE USED AS WEAPONS |
 
|
Besides smallpox, other viruses can potentially be used as weapons. For example, camel pox is a disease that blinds its victims by making the eyeballs bleed, produces balloon-like sores on the skin, and was actually found to be developed by Iraq. It is thought to be harmless to most Iraqis but not to foreigners.
| TERRORIST THREAT |
With the low cost of creating a biological weapon, many worry about it being used by terrorists. In 1995, an Ohio militiaman was arrested after receiving a plague virus from the American Type Culture Collection. In Japan, the Aum Shinrikyo, the cult responsible for the Tokyo subway station poison gas, built a lab for developing biological weapons and almost obtained the Ebola virus successfully. Such labs are difficult to find and conclusively identify, as most could have medical uses as well. That is one of the reasons that the UN inspectors are having so much trouble in Iraq.
| .. Back to Start |
