Page 3 of 6

Without the vaccine, animals are highly vulnerable to this disease, which makes it an extremely effective form of biological warfare. During World War I, German agents were sent to five neutral countries (Romania, Spain, Norway, the United States and Argentina) with instructions to infect animal shipments sent to the Allies. Targeted animals included sheep, cattle, horses, mules, and, in Norway, reindeer. Animals were infected either by having anthrax injected directly into their blood or by being fed sugar laced with anthrax.

In the inter-war period, attention shifted to human anthrax and its potential as a biological weapon. Although the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited biological weapons, several nations, including the United States, experimented with anthrax during the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1930s, the Japanese Imperial Army performed covert experiments on anthrax and began deploying biological weapons in Manchuria. During World War II, American, British and Canadian laboratories began developing biological weapons, especially anthrax. By 1944, the Allies had developed thousands of anthrax bombs. Hitler had forbidden biological weapons research; however, the Nazis did conduct anthrax and biological weapons research at a small secret facility in Poland.

Following World War II, the Americans and British continued to research anthrax and its potential for biological warfare, with the American program being centered at Fort Detrick, Maryland. In 1969, Richard Nixon limited biological weapons research to defensive purposes, saying "mankind already carries in its own hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction."

continue