LONDON: The spectre of germ warfare has emerged in the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York and Washington DC, as fears of terrorists unleashing deadly viruses on ill-prepared cities grips the public’s imagination.

Such fears are fuelled by media reports on threats of biological attacks — any infectious micro-organisms like anthrax, botulism, the plague and smallpox could be engineered for use as a weapon — and a World Health Organisation warning that nations should guard against germ warfare.

“We must prepare for the possibility that people are deliberately harmed with biological and chemical agents,” said WHO director-general Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland on 24 September. Similar fears 65 years ago prompted Britain to develop what was then the world’s most significant biological weapons programme — inspiring similar efforts in Canada and the United States. In 1934, former Times editor Henry Wickham Steed published an article claiming that German spies had been testing biological weapons in the underground train system in London and Paris. The article sparked a chain of events that ultimately saw Britain establish what became its Public Health Laboratory Service and a biological research centre at Porton Down in south-west England.

Britain’s role in studying biological warfare is well documented — including the testing of a prototype anthrax bomb on Scotland’s Gruinard Island in 1942 — but recently declassified government documents uncovered by researcher Brian Balmer show the true extent of this work.

“I was surprised to find out there was an outbreak of anthrax on the mainland and a cover-up by the military,” said Balmer, a senior lecturer at the University College London and author of Britain and Biological Warfare.

Sheep infected by anthrax — a hardy bacterium that causes flu-like symptoms and, if untreated, kills within four days — during the secret trials were accidentally blown into the water during their disposal. Two carcasses floated to the mainland and caused an anthrax outbreak, which killed seven cattle, two horses, three cats and up to 50 sheep by April 1943.

“Certainly, it could have spread,” Balmer said. “What this does show is that even on an island there’s going to be some escape of the bacteria... even an island isn’t safe.”

Britain’s security services launched a cover-up operation, saying infected carcasses fell off Greek ships sailing in the vicinity.

Britain had already been dabbling in offensive uses of deadly viruses. In 1942 the government began Operation Vegetarian, which involved manufacturing five million cattle cakes filled with anthrax, designed to be dropped on German fields.

“What hasn’t been known is there was a big expansion of the biological weapons programme after World War II,” Balmer said. “What’s also not known is that (British) air staff put in a request for a biological bomb in a project that was called Red Admiral.”

Red Admiral came out of a top-secret request for a biological bomb that could be used against civilian targets. The project’s aim was to hold a reserve of 10,000 cluster bombs filled with a biological agent (possible candidates were anthrax, yersinia pestis — which causes the bubonic plague — brucellosis and tularaemia) by 1957.

A year later, offensive and defensive biological warfare research was given equal priority to atomic research in Britain. Research on biological warfare moved to a defensive programme in the mid-1950s, largely because of being overshadowed by increased interest in nuclear weapons, and the biological bomb project was cancelled in July 1954, with no bombs ever produced.

Others pursued research into biological weapons through the 20th century, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, the Soviet Union and the US.

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, signed in 1972, remains the strongest international effort to prevent such work from happening today, as well as to eliminate the threat of biological and chemical warfare.

To date 143 countries have signed the convention, which states that each party undertakes never to “...develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain:

* Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins, whatever their origin or method of production, or types or in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; and

* Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. The convention, however, does not prevent defensive research. Balmer says the danger lies in the line separating defensive from offensive.

“The lines are extremely blurred on whether it’s peaceful, offensive or defensive,” Balmer said. “Whether you want to make an anthrax bomb or an anthrax virus, you still have to grow live anthrax... so you’re essentially trying to police intent.”

But the convention doesn’t include a way to verify compliance.

A review conference scheduled for 19 November seeks to introduce a protocol calling for more monitoring procedures and compliance measures.

The US rejects such suggestions. Last year, US Central Intelligence Agency director George Genet warned that “about a dozen states, including several hostile to Western democracies — Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria — now either possess or are actively pursuing offensive biological and chemical capabilities for use against their perceived enemies, which is either internal or external.” Balmer says much can be learned from Britain’s courtship of biological weapons.

“If anything, what history tells us is that there has been a pervasive interest in biological weapons and lots of money was put in by Britain, Canada and the US,” he said. “But after all that, nothing significant came out — what we had was only crude bombs.”

A biological bomb has its drawbacks — many germs have trouble surviving an explosive blast. Threats of poisoning reservoirs are eliminated by the use of chlorine in modern water systems, which effectively kills any harmful bacteria.

And even though the US grounded crop-dusters in September, after fears that terrorists planned to spread germs and chemicals from the air, such sinister plots depend on environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, wind direction and even sunlight, which can easily scupper such efforts.

Balmer warns against complacency about the threat of germ attacks - but also against exaggerating the threat.

“Obviously we should be concerned about biological weapons, but it would be wise to remember that they are a very unpredictable weapon.” —Dawn/Gemini News Service.