Stockpiling Of Chemical Weapons Research Articles

Options exist for destroying U.S. chemical arms

A number of alternative technologies exist that can supplement or replace the current controversial baseline disassembly-incineration system for destroying the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons, a National Research Council (NRC) panel finds. Augmenting the baseline system with the closed-loop gas storage and treatment technologies would be the least complex and the fastest on-line alternative destruction system. The panel considered technologies and processes that roughly fall into five broad categories: Low-temperature, low-pressure, liquid-phase detoxification processes; low-temperature, low-pressure liquid-phase oxidation methods; moderate-temperature, high-pressure oxidation processes; high-temperature, low-pressure pyrolysis; and high-temperature, low-pressure oxidation processes.

Chemical Arms Treaty Makes Unprecedented Demands of Industry

It took nearly a quarter of a century of grueling negotiations to craft the text of the comprehensive and verifiable chemical weapons treaty. But that may have been the easy part. Now representatives from about 90 of the more than 140 nations that have signed the treaty are at The Hague participating in a two-year exercise called the Preparatory Commission, or PrepCom. PrepCom's charge is to make concrete what are now merely words on paper. When it completes its work, the chemical industry will be ensnared in a web of requirements far surpassing any mandated by existing domestic legislation. PrepCom's agenda was scripted by the same Conference on Disarmament negotiators who labored in Geneva hammering out the treaty banning the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical weapons. They wanted to make certain that a structure was in place to monitor and verify compliance with the treaty once it entered into force, or becomes effective. The negotiators' agenda was approved by those countries that signed the treaty this past January in Pairs. It set out some 40 individual tasks for PrepCom, many of them highly technical and most of them potentially politically volatile. This paper discusses the problems facing PrepCom.

United Nations: Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction

United Nations: Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction

Chemicals Destruction: The Work Begins

By February, 137 nations had signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Convention prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical weapons. Signatories are not supposed to engage in any military activities regarding chemical weapons except those related to defense preparedness. This article discusses how the enforcement of the chemical weapons treaty may be as complicated as the 24-year negotiations that created it.

Aspects of Risk Communication in Two Cultures

When people from two distinct cultures attempt to communicate, they often fail to share the fundamental foundation upon which to establish meaningful two-way communication (e.g., language and belief). Risk communication under such circumstances demands special attention; extra effort on the part of people from both cultures to understand and appreciate the risks from a comprehensive perspective that accommodates both sets of interests. This paper examines the communication about risk between the U.S. Army and the native Polynesian cultures in the Pacific Ocean. Specifically, the article analyzes the written record of the proceedings to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 that led up to the shipment of the European Stockpile of unitary chemical weapons to Johnston Atoll that was completed November 1990. The analysis indicates that while both the native cultures and the Army spoke the same language, the U.S. Army and the native cultures failed to communicate about the risks associated with the movement and destruction of weapons. They failed to establish risk communication dialogue, and never established a common framework for effective risk communication. The people involved from all groups did not establish a shared meaning and no dialogue was established to clarify meaning as misunderstandings occurred. This condition contributed to increased distrust, and undermined the credibility of both perspectives.

U.S. agrees to help Russia destroy chemical weapons stockpile

U.S. agrees to help Russia destroy chemical weapons stockpile

Chemical arms pact gets aid from "down under"

Australia has offered a complete text to a chemical weapons treaty long under negotiation in Geneva. Many delegations to the Conference on Disarmament think it will lead to a final treaty, possibly as early as mid-year. An unprecedented number of delegations— 23, including the U.S.—made statements welcoming the effort as a basis for furthering negotiations, although most cited reservations on certain points. Still others, such as the French, unofficially say they could vote for the Australian text today. The conference has been working for nearly 20 years on a global treaty to ban the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical weapons. The fruit of its efforts is something called a rolling text. Hundreds of pages long, the rolling text is loaded with footnotes and bracketed phrases of controversial and/or contested information. Fully 80% of the Australian document is the rolling text. What the Australians did, a U.S. expert explains, was straighten out and streamline ...

Assessing Chemical Weapons' Risk

There are few words that conjure up as much primordial fear and abhorrence as these two: chemical warfare. The possibility of death in war by any means is not something that falls on any known pleasure scale, but death by choking, spasms, or severe burns brought on by exposure to chemical weapons seems to be particularly repugnant. Perhaps black memories of World War I gas attacks against Allied forces on the fighting fields of Ypres, Belgium, have now become imbedded societal myths. These memories may well have played a role in World War II: Neither side used chemical weapons, though Hilter, who possessed nerve gas weapons, could have used them effectively against the Allies, who didn't have these arms. The latent fears surfaced again during the Persian Gulf War. It was known that Saddam Hussein had a healthy stockpile of chemical weapons. He had used them in his eight-year war against Iran. Would he dare ...

Desert Storm Moves Into Eighth Week

ABSTRACT AS A RESULT of Iraq's past use and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons (JAMA. 1991;265:700)—and current cool gulf weather favoring their dissemination—Desert Storm military medical aid stations and hospitals have established decontamination facilities. But physicians are concerned about treatment delays (decontamination requires up to 15 minutes) and medical equipment contamination.A skin cream for protection against chemical attack has been withdrawn because, the Department of Defense says, animal tests of the production-line composition left questions.

Present state of control of chemical and biological weapons

The use of chemical and biological weapons in war is prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. Currently a new Chemical Weapons Convention is being negotiated in the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. When this Convention enters into force the production, stockpiling and retention of chemical weapons will be prohibited. The development of a body of international law will enable the verifiable destruction of weapons such as these, and should lead to a more general programme of disarmament.

Treating Exposure to Chemical Warfare Agents: Implications for Health Care Providers and Community Emergency Planning

Current treatment protocols for exposure to nerve and vesicant agents found in the U.S. stockpile of unitary chemical weapons are summarized, and the toxicities of available antidotes are evaluated. The status of the most promising of the new nerve agent antidotes is reviewed. In the U.S. atropine and pralidoxime compose the only approved antidote regimen for organophosphate nerve agent poisoning. Diazepam may also be used if necessary to control convulsions. To avoid death, administration must occur within minutes of substantial exposure together with immediate decontamination. Continuous observation and repeated administration of antidotes are necessary as symptoms warrant. Available antidotes do not necessarily prevent respiratory failure or incapacitation. The toxicity of the antidotes themselves and the individualized nature of medical care preclude recommending that autoinjectors be distributed to the general public. In addition, precautionary administration of protective drugs to the general population would not be feasible or desirable. No antidote exists for poisoning by the vesicant sulfur mustard (H, HD, HT); effective intervention can only be accomplished by rapid decontamination followed by palliative treatment of symptoms. British anti-Lewisite (BAL) (2,3-dimercapto-1-propanolol) is the antidote of choice for treatment of exposure to Lewisite, another potent vesicant. Experimental water-soluble BAL analogues have been developed that are less toxic than BAL. Treatment protocols for each antidote are summarized in tabular form for use by health care providers.

Treating exposure to chemical warfare agents: implications for health care providers and community emergency planning.

Current treatment protocols for exposure to nerve and vesicant agents found in the U.S. stockpile of unitary chemical weapons are summarized, and the toxicities of available antidotes are evaluated. The status of the most promising of the new nerve agent antidotes is reviewed. In the U.S. atropine and pralidoxime compose the only approved antidote regimen for organophosphate nerve agent poisoning. Diazepam may also be used if necessary to control convulsions. To avoid death, administration must occur within minutes of substantial exposure together with immediate decontamination. Continuous observation and repeated administration of antidotes are necessary as symptoms warrant. Available antidotes do not necessarily prevent respiratory failure or incapacitation. The toxicity of the antidotes themselves and the individualized nature of medical care preclude recommending that autoinjectors be distributed to the general public. In addition, precautionary administration of protective drugs to the general population would not be feasible or desirable. No antidote exists for poisoning by the vesicant sulfur mustard (H, HD, HT); effective intervention can only be accomplished by rapid decontamination followed by palliative treatment of symptoms. British anti-Lewisite (BAL) (2,3-dimercapto-1-propanolol) is the antidote of choice for treatment of exposure to Lewisite, another potent vesicant. Experimental water-soluble BAL analogues have been developed that are less toxic than BAL. Treatment protocols for each antidote are summarized in tabular form for use by health care providers.

Risk associated with the demilitarization of the United States chemical weapons stockpile

A risk assessment was performed in support of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Demilitarization of the US Chemical Weapons Stockpile. The risks of five disposal alternatives were assessed. These were: (1) continued storage for 25 more years; (2) a single disposal site (national alternative); (3) two disposal sites (regional); (4) disposal at each of eight storage sites (on-site altenative); and (5) on-site disposal except for two sites located near high population areas, where the stockpiles from these sites would be shipped to Tooele Army Depot for disposal (partial relocation). The shipping off-site was assumed by rail except for partial relocation which was assumed to be by air. The on-site shipping was by truck. Specially designed packaging was provided similar to that used to ship nuclear materials. The assessment examined the risks assciated with transportation, incinerator operation, and handling and included both risks from internally initiated events as well as externally initiated events such as earthquakes and tornadoes. Several measures of risk were used since it was necessary to properly assess impacts on human health, the environment, and socioeconomic resources. Each measure was treated as equal since risk impacts vary among the population. Results for each of the five alternatives are presented. A selection methodology was implemented to determine an environmentally preferred alternative. The on-site alternative was judged the preferred alternative based on risk and from an emergency planning perspective.

Disposing of the US chemical weapons stockpile. An approaching reality

Disposing of the US chemical weapons stockpile. An approaching reality

Disposing of the US Chemical Weapons Stockpile

A congressional mandate to dispose of the current US stockpile of lethal unitary weapons (Public Law 99-145, Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1986) has international implications and is responsible for a recent major assessment of available disposal alternatives. Eight installations in the continental United States currently host aging stockpiles of chemical warfare agents. The stockpiles are described, the toxicology and physical properties of each agent are characterized, disposal options considered by the US Army are identified, and the role of a programmatic health and environmental assessment in the decision-making process is outlined. Critical findings are that existing community emergency planning and preparedness are inadequate and that communication of risk information requires significant improvement. Measures are under way to address these needs. However, timely disposal of the stockpile entails less of a hazard than continued storage.

Fashioning a Global Chemical Weapons Treaty

more more For nearly a decade that phrase had been the mantra of diplomats hammering out a global treaty banning development, production, and stockpiling of chemical weapons. When asked to predict when such a treaty might be ready for signing, these negotiators invariably answered, Two more years. NEWS ANALYSIS Last year, however, optimism reached such a peak that diplomats began to believe a treaty was really possible early this year. But reality in the form of prickly political issues has intruded, dashing that optimism. Negotiators are now more cautious. Though some warn that a treaty must be completed by 1989 at the latest, others are again saying that at least two more years are needed to complete a document. What was the source of last year's optimism? What issues have surfaced to slow negotiations in the Genevabased Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical Weapons at the 40-nation Conference on Disarmament? The short ...

“Yellow Rain”: the public evidence

The Reagan Administration has embarked on a program of chemical rearmament. The President has formally notified Congress that he has determined that resumption of the production of chemical weapons is “essential to the national interest.” The Pentagon has developed a chemical weapons production program that could cost as much as $6 billion. And the Fiscal Year 1983 budget requests a chemical warfare allocation of $705 million, of which more than $100 million is to go toward the production of a new generation of chemical weapons. If approved by Congress, the Administration's plan will reverse a policy initiated 13 years ago when President Richard Nixon declared a moratorium on the production of chemical and biological weapons.Why has restraint broken down in this area? According to Administration spokesmen, chemical rearmament is necessary to provide NATO with a retaliatory capacity sufficient to deter the Soviet Union from using chemical weapons in a war in Europe. Existing stockpiles are inadequate for this purpose, they argue, because they are obsolete and have been allowed to deteriorate. Moreover, they claim that the Soviet Union has greatly increased its stockpile of chemical weapons during the years of U.S. non-production; and they point to Soviet investment in equipment and training for fighting in a contaminated environment as evidence that the Soviets are preparing to use chemical weapons in the event of a war in Europe. Finally and most disturbingly, the Administration has repeatedly charged that the Soviets not only contemplate using chemical weapons but are presently doing so in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, and, further, that the weapons they are using include a new type in which the lethal agent is certain biotoxins.In the half-lit world in which the debate over chemical weapons is conducted there are few agreed-upon facts. Each of the above assertions—with the exception of that about Soviet defensive preparations—is sharply contested.The first of the two articles that follow reviews the evidence the Administration has presented thus far in support of one of these assertions: the allegation that the Soviet Union and its allies are using a specific biotoxin in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan. We draw no conclusions as to truth of this allegation; our purpose is rather to map the controversy it has provoked and to raise questions as to the appropriate standard of proof in such situations.The second article—also concerned with the military use of chemicals in Southeast Asia—deals with an episode about which a good deal is now known: the U.S. use of herbicides such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. It is a review by E. W. Pfeiffer of a history of the U.S. herbicide program—a history prepared by the Air Force and made public by means of a suit under the Freedom of Information Act. This history discloses, among other things, that the United States, while openly spraying herbicides on South Vietnam, was secretly spraying them on Laos. Above all, it is of interest for its account of the decision-making process behind the herbicide program, and for the glimpses it provides of the calculations—and reservations—of those responsible for the policy. Perhaps the most heartening information it discloses is, in Pfeiffer's words, “the degree to which public pressure forced successive American Administrations gradually to slow down and finally to stop herbicidal warfare.”At a time when the Freedom of Information Act—and the principle it embodies of the citizen's right to know—are under attack, this is an episode worth pondering: a government history of controversial policies, made available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, discloses among other things the role of informed public opinion in bringing those policies to an end.

The Scope and Control of Chemical Disarmament Treaties particularly with regard to Binary Chemical Weapons

In principle, this paper gives an account of the meaning of the term 'binary chemical weapons', and of the effects their existence has on the scope of and controls covered by conventions concerning prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of chemical weapons, as well as prescriptions for their destruction. The conclusions drawn are particularly relevant to those responsible for the defence of a country against attack by chemical weapons.

The Scope and Control of Chemical Disarmament Treaties Particularly with Regard to Binary Chemical Weapons

In principle, this paper gives an account of the meaning of the term ‘binary chemical weapons’, and of the effects their existence has on the scope of and controls covered by conventions concerning prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of chemical weapons, as well as prescriptions for their destruction. The conclusions drawn are particularly relevant to those responsible for the defence of a country against attack by chemical weapons.

Chemical and biologic weapons--a primer.

THE increasing development and stockpiling of chemical and biologic weapons have been well documented, and facts are available to all citizens.1 2 3 Because these agents injure, incapacitate and kill, and because their manufacture and possible use present grave ethical considerations, physicians in particular not only must be familiar with their existence and their properties but also must stand firm in questioning the moral and even practical justification of their use.HistoryThe origins of modern chemical and biologic warfare can be found in antiquity.4 Poisoned arrows, still used among some aborigines, were commonly employed in ancient Asia and Western Europe. Hannibal . . .