Scientists and the history of biological weapons

Abstract

When considering the potential threat of biological weapons in the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups, security experts tend to assume that scientists will always lend a hand to prevent such nefarious use of their research. Yet none of the major biological weapons programmes that were established during the twentieth century—in France, Japan, the UK, the USA and the former Soviet Union—would have been possible without the active leadership and cooperation of biological and medical scientists. Their participation provokes an important question: how do scientists, who are educated to help humanity, justify the use of their privileged knowledge for the explicit goal of killing civilians en masse ? And if the human race wants to ban biological weapons, what can we learn from their history to prevent future generations of biologists from engaging in such activities? The intense secrecy that surrounded offensive biological weapons programmes makes it difficult to gain insight into individual scientists' motivations. Although we now know a lot about the political and military rationales that spurred the development of these weapons, we know much less about the involvement and recruitment of hundreds and—in the case of large, long‐term programmes—even thousands of scientists from universities and medical schools (Guillemin, 2005a). Only occasionally do we find information on why and how individual scientists became engaged in promoting and creating biological weapons, yet it is valid to investigate their motivation. At present, the development and testing of biological weapons is banned by international law and all major state‐funded programmes have been terminated; therefore, such activity is associated only with criminals or terrorists. However, it is possible that new or imagined threats to national security could persuade biologists to set aside any moral qualms about secret science in the name of patriotism or for economic security, a career in laboratory …