Bio weapon creation

[greg1917]

just something to exercise your creative minds. This is in no way meant to be serious, just a general musing. hence its location in this forum.

 

Having seen Resident Evil recently I started to think about the most efficient and successful way of killing people. The method used was the spread of the virus material itself first through an airborne carrier. inhallation results in the deceased becoming zombies, infecting whoevere they bit etc etc im sure you know the plot.

 

the question im asking is, given the aim of eliminating as many people as possible, what do you think would be the best method through which to do this? nerve gas seems basic seeing as it only kills those in the proximity in which it was released. The virus in resident evil had the advantage of spreading beyond the original source, virus hosts could themselves spread it before dying. Although the ease with which the zombies were dispatched reduced their effectiveness as a medium through which to spread the virus and thus accomplish the goal. Would the spread of a poison or virus be better spread through water supplies of perhaps through foodstuffs? for that matter what are the benefits of poison as compared to viruses or other anything else?

 

I know it sounds a) ridiculous and b) slightly sinister but I was hoping to keep a light hearted tone to this. try and be creative:D

[Sayonara]

I'm sure I could come up with something sweet, but there's no way I'm giving away free bioweapons R&D on a public forum.

[Deslaar]

A weaponised airborne haemorraghic virus. That would give you the best bang for you buck.

[greg1917]

What would the pros and cons be?

 

Something that had a delayed reaction would have the advantage of being able to infect much more of the population before it started taking effect and the local populace tried to defend themselves. or at least try and halt the spread of the disease. The goal is made much easier by a population ignorant of the danger faced by them.

 

A virus spread through food sources which reduced peoples ability to absorb nutrients would work well. People would feel the need to eat more but this would only heighten the problem.

[Deslaar]

The cons really come down to isolation measures carried out by the government. So to be effective you'd want to have large numbers of people infected simultaneously at as many population hubs as practical. That will determine the number of infections you'll get and th subsequent deaths.

 

There was an interesting docudrama made by the BBC recently that was based on the hypothetical release of weaponised smallpox in New York. Scary stuff.

[Skye]

'Lots a nuclear bombs' comes to mind:D

 

There could be some nasty things created if we get better at this gene therapy business. A virus that inserts itself into the DNA of the lung cells (I think it's a proposed treatment for cystic fibrosis) could be modified to reproduce in the cell and lyse it, and so be exhaled and could reinfect others. The lysing of the lung cells would probably kill the host. If we can go a step further and get a virus to infect the DNA of germ line cells then we have a contagious heritable disease. It wouldn't be detected untill the symptoms showed up in the children of those infected.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Deslaar

A weaponised airborne haemorraghic virus. That would give you the best bang for you buck.

 

Speaking of which, there was a case of Dhengi fever round here recently (a nasty and untreatable haemorrhagic virus). That would do the trick I think.

[Kylon]

My favorite,

 

A weak disease that lingers in your system, like herpes.

 

Once difference though, the anti-body happens to also neutralize certain receptors on the brain. The anti-body is distributed with the virus.

 

The longer you live, the dumber you become

[Ahmad]

Bioweapons research in the field of molecular biology are more toward targetting specific people.

 

Imagine a virus that can only affect white men, because of the similarity in their genome. The US army as an example contains people from different gene pools, but you have the chineese army for example.

 

Chineese have an isolated gene pool and will probably have similar responses to specific types of diseases.

[Sayonara]

The 'problem' with race-specific weapons is that once you use it, you demonstrate you have the capacity to target a specific race, and instantly become an international threat with the life expectancy of a mosquito.

[Radical Edward]

Originally posted by Ahmad

Bioweapons research in the field of molecular biology are more toward targetting specific people.

 

Imagine a virus that can only affect white men, because of the similarity in their genome. The US army as an example contains people from different gene pools, but you have the chineese army for example.

 

Chineese have an isolated gene pool and will probably have similar responses to specific types of diseases.

 

their gene pool isn't all that isolated, and I think it would be very dificult to actually come up with a race specific virus. you would effectively have to find either some kind of immune attribute that all chinese and only chinese share, or some similar mechanism only shared by the one race, or find some kind of toxin that only affects that race... to be frank I doubt these things exist.

[JaKiri]

I prefer my fantabomb.

[Giles]

The other problem is that your average virus likes nothing better than a quick round of mutation.

 

If I were looking for a bioweapon virus, i'd say something like AIDS with a modified infection mechanism (say from drinking water and passed out in waste) was a good bet - if you're willing to think long-term.

 

Debilitating to the individual, places a huge drain on health infrastructure, adaptable and able to remain dormant. Look what its doing to african nations even in its present form.

[james123]

i say we mutate or "breed" a new virus with the best traits of the viruses we already know of now, say we have the evoloving time of a flu or cold which doctors and scientists dont ahve the time to find a vaccine. Then the contagousness of say, the sars virus, and then for kicks throw in the damaging effects of the ebola virus or sumthing. Anything airborne should be first and then spread through any means possible is the best way to infect a large population.

[atinymonkey]

That would be Ebola then. It's a lovely little mutating virus with high contagion rates and low gestation.

 

It's apparently almost impossible to contain unless you can get Dustin Hoffman to help out, like he did for SARS.

[YT2095]

Airborne is futile in the real world, but works great for temporary "Area Denial" there is no "Ideal" delivery system for a toxin without 1`st knowing the situation it`s to be used in.

the most effective weapon would be FEAR in any situation, (as exploited by many a$$hole terrorists )

It then also depends on what death rate you want, fast , slow, intermediate, triggerable etc..

that will dictate the toxin to be used.

idiots that use them/produce them should be shot on site in my opinion, it`s a cowards way to fight!

[fafalone]

The US government already has weaponiozed ebola....

 

To make it airborn all you have to do is add in a gene or too from something like influenza to increase the surface area enough.

[YT2095]

Bacterio-Phages... Intesting sure, but probbly best with fomites or suphonogenics (contact toxins)

 

here`s where I`ll shut the phuk up and say no more

[VendingMenace]

So many factors to consider when dealing with bioweapon....ah the fun ( <--- sarcasm).

 

Anyways, i should say that i took a science class that delt with weapons that kill lots of people, atomics, chemical, biological. And this is where these ideas come from. I certainly do not approve of the use of bioweapons. But i think it is prodent to consider what they are and how they could be used. That way you are educated as the the risks that are present in the world.

 

The factors that you must consider are...

1)Communicability; can the disease be passed on, and if so, how well?

2)Mortality rate; what percentage of those infected will die?

3)How quick does this disease kill?

4)Ease of delivery

 

I think that is about it, at least in my mind.

 

The question of what to use then becomes a question of what you wish to accomplish. Do you wan to incopacitate an area, without killing it? Do you want to kill of a bunch of people, without endangering yourself? Do you just want to take out a vendetta against the whole world? these are questions you must answer in your search for a bioweapon.

 

For instance, if you just want to kill a whole bunch of people (and you dont mind if you are one of them) then i would have to say that you should just go with good old small pox. It is highly infectous and airborn (you can get it from like up to 10 feet away). You are able to pass it one quite quickely after you are infected, before you show symptoms. It is quite lethal, but people do not die quickly enough so that the virus cannot spread. It is quite an effective weapon. Of course, the odds are good that it could hop over to where you are, and you could find yourself quite dead. I did some quick calculations one day in a class and came up with this; introducing 1 person with small pox into New York would result in basically all of new york city infected in under 4 hours! Crazy!

 

Of course if you don't want to get killed yourself, or to have hte disease get out of hand, then you must consider other agents. This is why anthrax has often been used by countries. It is not contagious, so it will not spread beyond the target area. Also, it is quite hardy and can be delivered in a bomb, so there is no need to expose yourself, even in the delivery. Also, if is fairly leathal, if left untreated. And so this is often a favorite agent of choice.

 

Other stuffs have been used too. But these are probably the most apperent ones, in my mind at least. I think that for mass killing you gotta go with small pox and for tactical bioweaps, you always got the standby anthrax.

 

Cool

[YT2095]

Hmmm.. sorry dude but I recon yer calcs were a bit off there.

4 hours is bull$h!t

there are WAY too many other mitigating factors to be taken into account there, and smallpox would certainy NOT be the way to go

the CDC would be ontop of it before you could say "Dr, Seuss"

nice try though (In a Scientific sense that is)

[aman]

Human genetics somehow protects certain individuals from infection. There are people immune to plague or HIV at hundreds of times the normal exposure level because they have both pairs of the protective gene. It's the gene that was heavily expressed during the European Black Death.

I think soon we will be able to engineer genetic resistance and although bio-attacks may still be nasty terror weapons for the general public, the "key" people may be immune.

Just aman

[greg1917]

Actually smallpox could be an incredibly devastating virus if released properly. If it was released on its own, it could possibly be isolated in time if the emergency services did everything by the book (even then its unlikely) but if coupled with a large power outage, a terrorist attack of some kind, or something that would generally make traffic grind to a halt then it could be a slaughter.

 

But yes, 4 hours is a bit off. I could name at least 20 factors that would massively affect the spread of the virus - stats like 4 hours dont have any weight behind them.

[Guest GhostrideR]

Genetically Engineer airborne AIDS to cripple the immune system quicker and have an accelerated form of SARS take you out.

 

Maybe splice in a bit of ebola just to liquify your organs for fun.

 

Store all of that in a C4 wrapped canister.

 

Wrap the canister in a softdrink can, have them distributed in vending machines and bye bye world.

 

As soon as you open the softdrink can a detonator sets off the C4 and you have mass hysteria as people start dying.

[VendingMenace]

ah, but then you run up against one of the classic problems of weaponizing bio agents--distribution. As it turns out lots of living things (and viruses) do not like (are killed by) extreme heat and pressures. Thus, the explosion of the C4 would most likely destroy your agent, and you would not really get it distributed.

 

AIDS in general is quite frigile, and become dead almost instantly when free in air. This difficulty of distribution is why so few of the diseases around us have been weponized. This is also why you hear the word ANTRAX so much. Anthrax is quite hearty and is one of the few bioagents that people have found is able to survive through a reletively mild explosion in the process of its distribution.

[YT2095]

In keeping with post #1 (lighthearted) I have formulated the perfect weapon!

 

Sulphonated Delta-9-TetraHydraCannibinol (try saying that whisly drunk!)

 

basicly THC (the active substance in Canabis) is to be extracted, treated to make it skin abosorbable as well as by inhalation.

we drop a load of these puppies in the upper atmosphere (esp in the Gulf Stream) and w8 untill everyone gets stoned out of their tree! shortly thereafter the "Munchies" will set in. people everywhere would start eating junk food and not be able to stop!

those that don`t explode or die of obesity (same thing really) will starve to death soon after as there will be no food left to eat!

 

I`m working on it now... anyone want a slice of Pizza?