Make your own bioweapons at home!

[MillCreek]

This is somewhat depressing. I am reminded of the Japanese cult that made their own nerve gas and used it in an attack.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/02/pandemic-terrorist-attack-biowarfare/622067/

[Ben]

I have, ever since 9/11, been somewhat amazed (and relieved) that no one has done this.

I recall that a good number of Homeland Security briefings my part of the gov got was talking about scenarios like this, and even simpler, just as potentially deadly things on a mass scale. I mean, they were dead simple, especially for groups who were looking forward to meeting the 72 virgins and thus didn't worry about getting away with it. Current technology has really put us on a razors edge between civilization as we know it and chaos.

[MechAg94]

That is how John Ringo's zombie apocalypse started. 

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Graveyard-Black-Tide-Rising-ebook/dp/B00ELR01M0/ref=sr_1_7?qid=1644871111&refinements=p_27%3AJohn+Ringo&s=digital-text&sr=1-7&text=John+Ringo

[Bogie]

Damn - that dates back to 2013...
 
Does Ringo know about this place?

[Ben]

I was just thinking that a great way to infect a critical mass of a population would be to convince their moron government to buy like 100 million "at home virus tests" from a geopolitical enemy, have their official postal service deliver them all over the country, and then infect the swabs in the kit with a biological weapon.

[K Frame]

If I need a homemade bioweapon I simply give Seren some sauerkraut or broccoli.

[lee n. field]

Damn - that dates back to 2013...
 
Does Ringo know about this place?

SSSssshhhh! 

We attracted a ranty author's attention once before.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/02/pandemic-terrorist-attack-biowarfare/622067/

I didn't get past this:

In 1770, the German chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele performed an experiment and noticed that he’d created a noxious gas. He named it “dephlogisticated muriatic acid.” We know it today as chlorine.

Two centuries later, another German chemist, Fritz Haber, invented a process to synthesize and mass-produce ammonia, which revolutionized agriculture by generating the modern fertilizer industry. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918.

Annoyingly sloppy with numbers.  Two centuries past 1770 is 1970.

[MechAg94]

Damn - that dates back to 2013...
 
Does Ringo know about this place?

The first book went on a short talk about do-it-yourself virus methods.  I assume Ringo read about it somewhere and talked to an expert.  Supposedly an " unknown terrorist" made it and set it up in those wall mounted air fresheners used in many public bathrooms.  Went around a number of airports and installed his units to spread his virus around.  By the time they knew what happened, the zombie plague was in full swing.  Supposedly the virus started as a cold/flu type virus that changed over to a rabies style virus.  Some people could beat the cold/flu version and be okay, but if not, the rabies side disabled higher thought and turned the person in a wild animal.

[WLJ]

the rabies side disabled higher thought and turned the person in a wild animal.

Can this book be found in the non-fiction section?
And does it take place in 2020?

[Ron]

Terrorists are something I give little thought to or have much concern about.

Government, multi-national corporations and NGO's are the real concern.

I doubt any major terrorist event can happen without the powers that be signing off on it happening. We live in an incredible global surveillance state. The eye of Sauron can see much more than we realize methinks.

 

[lee n. field]

The first book went on a short talk about do-it-yourself virus methods.  I assume Ringo read about it somewhere and talked to an expert.  Supposedly an " unknown terrorist" made it and set it up in those wall mounted air fresheners used in many public bathrooms. 

Spreading a deadly disease deliberately from airports is common enough in SF to be almost a trope.

[Bogie]

The scenario is actually fairly plausible... I dunno about the bug involved, but someone could, with mail-order stuff, tinker heavily with something to create a chimera...

[MechAg94]

The scenario is actually fairly plausible... I dunno about the bug involved, but someone could, with mail-order stuff, tinker heavily with something to create a chimera...

The main "development" in John Ringo's book was someone came up with a way to have two infectious viruses develop from one original.  I don't remember all the technical lingo.  It was probably just surface stuff for someone in that world.  It all happening in something close to present day.  Written around 2014 or before. 

It is actually a fun story, just don't think too much about the 13 year old girl being one of the main zombie killers. 

[charby]

Doesn't even need to be a bio weapon, bleach and ammonia.

[HankB]

Let's just hope would-be DIY bioweapon and chemical weapon makers don't have any better instructions than DIY bombmakers did with The Anarchist's Cookbook. (Remember all the hippie bomb factories that blew up back in the '60s and '70s?     )

[lee n. field]

It's struck me lately how easy it would be to walk in components for a big nasty bomb, bit by bit over years if necessary.  Little machined bits, delivered by hand by random visitors, by UPS and FedEx or whatnot, assembled in a basement in a run down neighborhood of "somewhere".

[JTHunter]

Two one gallon (glass) bottles - ammonium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid - throw them out so they shatter on the ground and mix and you get a blinding, choking "fog bank" withing a few seconds.  It may not be fatal but it will really mess with your eyes and breathing.

[dogmush]

While that, and chemical weapons, are a bit worrisome, it's worth remembering that we have recent evidence that even for nation-state sized and resourced actors, a good bio-weapon is tricky to get just right.  It either spreads enough, but isn't deadly enough, or is deadly enough, but burns out.

[cordex]

Chemical weapons are locally scary.

Bio weapons can be globally scary.

While that, and chemical weapons, are a bit worrisome, it's worth remembering that we have recent evidence that even for nation-state sized and resourced actors, a good bio-weapon is tricky to get just right.  It either spreads enough, but isn't deadly enough, or is deadly enough, but burns out.

True, but if they are replicating an existing pathogen like smallpox (as per the original article) that already has the balance that you want then that becomes less of an issue, doesn't it?

[Ben]

Chemical weapons are locally scary.

Yes, chemical weapons are a completely different animal regarding this discussion. Even if you had 100 martyrs to release a chemical weapon into the 100 major airports of the world, it's an event that is localized both in space and time, and you have to "pull the trigger" every time you want to activate one.

Bioweapons don't even need to have an effective kill ratio. As we have seen with covid - whether you believe, or if it is - an attempt at a mass bioweapon that was intentionally or accidentally released, the death rate is extremely low for a bioweapon. Yet it is an excellent example of what a relatively non-lethal bioweapon could do to the world. Imagine if the covid had a 10% death rate.

[dogmush]

Chemical weapons are locally scary.

Bio weapons can be globally scary.True, but if they are replicating an existing pathogen like smallpox (as per the original article) that already has the balance that you want then that becomes less of an issue, doesn't it?

Apparently not.  [shrug]


To take that a little more seriously:  Smallpox is a nasty disease, but it needs (I'm told) some tweaking to be really weaponized.  One problem is it's not really as contagious as one might hope for.  (Smallpox's R0 is around 3.  A weapon wants somewhere around 10 ish.)  It also is kind obvious when contagious and has a easily available effective vaccine.  You'd want a pathogen that is contagious while asymptomatic (or light symptoms) and is hard to vaccinate against.  Like a cold or something.  Then up the lethality.

[HankB]

Yes, chemical weapons are a completely different animal regarding this discussion. Even if you had 100 martyrs to release a chemical weapon into the 100 major airports of the world, it's an event that is localized both in space and time, and you have to "pull the trigger" every time you want to activate one.

Bioweapons don't even need to have an effective kill ratio. As we have seen with covid - whether you believe, or if it is - an attempt at a mass bioweapon that was intentionally or accidentally released, the death rate is extremely low for a bioweapon. Yet it is an excellent example of what a relatively non-lethal bioweapon could do to the world. Imagine if the covid had a 10% death rate.

Bioweapons don't need to be aimed at people - they can be agricultural as well. Although those would probably be more of a nuisance than a menace. Deliberately spreading (for example) oak wilt would have an economic impact, but wouldn't kill people directly. There are probably other diseases that affect crops and livestock.

[dogmush]

Something that spread easily and killed wheat or rice would end up killing way more people than COVID managed to.

[Northwoods]

Bioweapons don't need to be aimed at people - they can be agricultural as well. Although those would probably be more of a nuisance than a menace. Deliberately spreading (for example) oak wilt would have an economic impact, but wouldn't kill people directly. There are probably other diseases that affect crops and livestock.

Avian flu can be devastating.  Get a strain that is super contagious but also with a long-ish incubation period and you can wipe out tens to hundreds of millions of chickens in a matter months.  That would wipe out the supply of eggs and the least expensive meat source for most people.  It could take 2-3 years to recover production from an attack like that.  The disruption to the economy would be huge.

Do the same with swine flu, and that’s over half the meat production for the country. 

Doesn’t even have to be a version of the flu that can jump to humans to be massively disruptive.

[cordex]

To take that a little more seriously:  Smallpox is a nasty disease, but it needs (I'm told) some tweaking to be really weaponized.  One problem is it's not really as contagious as one might hope for.  (Smallpox's R0 is around 3.  A weapon wants somewhere around 10 ish.)  It also is kind obvious when contagious and has a easily available effective vaccine.  You'd want a pathogen that is contagious while asymptomatic (or light symptoms) and is hard to vaccinate against.  Like a cold or something.  Then up the lethality.

I guess it depends on what the concern is.

If the only concern is a theoretical ultimate bioweapon that wipes out a population then I guess you've got a point.

If the concern is someone cooking up something bad at home (which for some reason I took to be the thrust of the thread) then I don't think it has to be the absolute most potent or infectious thing in the world, it just has to be nasty enough to matter.  Plain old smallpox would probably qualify, even if a response could be mounted pretty quickly.

COVID has done enormous damage to the world with R0 estimated well below 10 and an extremely low IFR.  Granted, much of the damage was done by governments in response to the perceived threat, but that's true of most terrorism.