assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment. (For example, look
at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
for 24 hours.)

How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.

Obviously I don't want anything that can help real terrorists (I'm in the
UK, and that stuff is illegal over here) but a list of dificulties they're
run into would be useful.

Wasn't it bealoid who wrote:
>assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment. (For example, look
>at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
>for 24 hours.)
>
>How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
>and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
>infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
>weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
>compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.
>
>Obviously I don't want anything that can help real terrorists (I'm in the
>UK, and that stuff is illegal over here) but a list of dificulties they're
>run into would be useful.
>

Genetic engineering is still pretty high tech. As well as having funds,
you also need several highly skilled people. It may well be harder to
find fanatically dedicated biochemists than it is to find fanatically
dedicated bomb makers.

You can't hide your objectives from your technical staff. It only needs
one of the lab techs to change his mind and decide that he's not OK with
helping to create something quite that nasty, and the whistle gets
blown.

We don't yet know enough to know precisely which bits of the measles
genome are related to the rate of infection and which bits are related
to its virulence. The only way to know if you're getting close to your
objective is to run tests. Testing with animals is going to be of
limited use because the rate of infection, mortality and incubation
periods of infectious diseases tends to be very specific to the host
species.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

On Feb 4, 2:30 pm, bealoid <sig...@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:

> assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment.  (For example, look
> at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
> for 24 hours.)
>
> How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
> and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
> infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
> weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
> compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.


Not too hard at all, with the right resources. You don't even need
gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'. Or
Smallpox. Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:30:01 GMT, bealoid <signup@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:

>assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment. (For example, look
>at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
>for 24 hours.)

>How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
>and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
>infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
>weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
>compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.

Virtually impossible with any existing or forseeable near-term technology.


>Obviously I don't want anything that can help real terrorists (I'm in the
>UK, and that stuff is illegal over here) but a list of dificulties they're
>run into would be useful.

Well, you might want to look at Aum Shinrikyo. They managed to aerosolize
Anthax into air for twenty-four hours, *repeatedly*, and nobody noticed.

Then they fell back on fifty-year-old chemical technology, produced IIRC
three gallons of Sarin nerve gas, released it in a subway, and managed to
kill a whopping twelve people. Nitwit Palestinians with nitrate-and-sugar
pipe bombs have managed to do more.

And Aum Shinrikyo is the dream (=nightmare) case for this sort of thing.
A staff of trained professional scientists, megabucks of funding, years
to prepare, and essentially no police scrutiny.

The sort of problems they'll run into? To misquote Barbie, "Science Is
Hard". And Mad Science is even harder.

First off, science requires specialized tools and materials. And everyone
in the business knows what those tools and materials are good for, so if
you go out and buy the right tools and materials for the job, you might as
well take out an advertisement in the trade press explaining what you are
planning to do.

If what you're planning to do is to make nerve gas, or weaponized anthrax
or some new SuperGerm, that's a Bad Plan. So you need to make, not just
your nerve gas or whatever, but all the specialized tools and materials
that will be required. Or steal them, most likely from guarded sites.
Or buy all of them plus a much larger set of "red herring" tools and
materials from multiple suppliers through multiple front companies.

And when it comes time to actually make the nerve gas, or build the tools
to make the nerve gas, you will find that the stuff published in the
science texts and journals is not really the equivalent of a cookbook
recipe. Or, perhaps, it *is* the equivalent of a cookbook recipe, as
seen by a bachelor whose mother never introduced him to the kitchen.
How much is a "dash", and what does "simmer" mean?

Point being, there's a *huge* ammount of critical information that never
gets written down, on account of A: there's too damn much of it to write
down, and B: anyone who is legitimately going to be using the data will
be an expert in the field who's spent the past twenty years learning all
the unwritten stuff or a student working under the supervision of such an
expert, and C: the author is only a phone call away for help with any
problems that come up.

If you're trying to brew a batch of nerve gas in your bathtub, and you
try to call the guy who wrote the seminal paper on the subject back in
the '70s for advice, you are probably not going to get the answers you
are looking for. You probably are going to be getting a phone call from
the police pretty soon.


So you'd better actually be the expert with twenty years' experience in
the field, and even then it's going to be a Hard Problem. Your experience
is probably only in a somewhat-related field, and the circumstances mean
that what you are trying to do is only somewhat like what the texts and
journals describe. About half of what you're doing, you'll be inventing
from scratch.

Most inventors, especially of advanced weapons systems, fail.

And if you fail while trying to make weaponized anthrax in your garage,
you may not get to try, try again. How good is the homemade safety gear
you pieced together from the incomplete information in the textbooks?


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Feb 5, 3:51 pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2:30 pm, bealoid <sig...@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment.  (For example, look
> > at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
> > for 24 hours.)
>
> > How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
> > and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
> > infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
> > weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
> > compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.
>
> Not too hard at all, with the right resources.  You don't even need
> gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'.  Or
> Smallpox.  Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).

Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?

Wasn't it who wrote:
>On Feb 5, 3:51 pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Feb 4, 2:30 pm, bealoid <sig...@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment.  (For example, look
>> > at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
>> > for 24 hours.)
>>
>> > How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
>> > and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
>> > infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
>> > weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
>> > compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.
>>
>> Not too hard at all, with the right resources.  You don't even need
>> gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'.  Or
>> Smallpox.  Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).
>
>Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
>guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
>Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?

It might be possible to obtain Spanish Flu if you can find other Arctic
graves containing victims. Presumably the Longyearbyen Cemetery has been
made safe now, but since there were an estimated 50 million deaths,
there may well be other such graves, and they can't all have been found
and made safe.

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/05/30/th
flu30.html>

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:07:19 +0000, Mike Williams
<nospam@econym.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Wasn't it who wrote:
>>On Feb 5, 3:51 pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On Feb 4, 2:30 pm, bealoid <sig...@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:

>>> > assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment.  (For example, look
>>> > at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax into air
>>> > for 24 hours.)

>>> > How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal spores
>>> > and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like measles,
>>> > infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within 4
>>> > weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
>>> > compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.

>>> Not too hard at all, with the right resources.  You don't even need
>>> gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'.  Or
>>> Smallpox.  Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).

>>Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
>>guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
>>Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?

>It might be possible to obtain Spanish Flu if you can find other Arctic
>graves containing victims. Presumably the Longyearbyen Cemetery has been
>made safe now, but since there were an estimated 50 million deaths,
>there may well be other such graves, and they can't all have been found
>and made safe.

That was basically Aum Shinrikyo's method of getting hold of a virulent
Anthrax strain, and it didn't work for them. There's *lots* of bugs in
the wild, even if you look specifically in plague-stricken graveyards,
and the ones which grow best in even a tailored culture medium are not
the ones you're looking for.

There's a whole lot of trial and error involved in that approach, with
each trial a substantial expense and a non-trivial risk of discovery.
Oh, and some of the errors will kill you.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Feb 6, 6:46 am, il...@rcn.com wrote:

> > Not too hard at all, with the right resources.  You don't even need
> > gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'.  Or
> > Smallpox.  Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).
>
> Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
> guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
> Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?


Said resourcers being a suitcase full of money for bribes. Lots of
poor russian scientists looking for their next meal in exchange for a
few flasks of smallpox.

Shawn Wilson <ikonoqlast@yahoo.com> wrote in news:f40ede10-7a9e-440a-86c3-
be88fc9c1ce8@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

> On Feb 6, 6:46 am, il...@rcn.com wrote:
>
>> > Not too hard at all, with the right resources.  You don't even need
>> > gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'.  Or
>
>> > Smallpox.  Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).
>>
>> Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
>> guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
>> Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?
>
>
> Said resourcers being a suitcase full of money for bribes. Lots of
> poor russian scientists looking for their next meal in exchange for a
> few flasks of smallpox.

I can believe radioactive material is easy to get from Russia - there's a
photo of cores on a beach somewhere which is *pretty scary* - but smallpox?
I dunno. that's pushing it a bit too far.

"John Schilling" <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:n0alq31p8q1gkteg2cf91v9b67e7ive1ov@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:07:19 +0000, Mike Williams
> <nospam@econym.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Wasn't it who wrote:
>>>On Feb 5, 3:51 pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> On Feb 4, 2:30 pm, bealoid <sig...@bealoid.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>> > assume a well funded group, with staff and equipment. (For example,
>>>> > look
>>>> > at someone like Aum Shin Ryko cult managing to aerosolise Anthrax
>>>> > into air
>>>> > for 24 hours.)
>
>>>> > How hard is it for them to get a bunch of virus / bacteria / fungal
>>>> > spores
>>>> > and 'gene hack' them into something really vicious - spreads like
>>>> > measles,
>>>> > infects about 80% of people it contacts, kills 60% of infected within
>>>> > 4
>>>> > weeks, leaves the rest immune from future attacks, but with severly
>>>> > compromised breathing (eg COPD) and with other weaknesses.
>
>>>> Not too hard at all, with the right resources. You don't even need
>>>> gene hacking, just get your hands on samples of the 'Spanish Flu'. Or
>>>> Smallpox. Or Plague (need fleas to spread that).
>
>>>Yes, what exactly are the "right resources" to get into the best
>>>guarded biolab in Russia and get away with it? Keeping in mind Tsar
>>>Vlad's area of expertise and likely priorities?
>
>>It might be possible to obtain Spanish Flu if you can find other Arctic
>>graves containing victims. Presumably the Longyearbyen Cemetery has been
>>made safe now, but since there were an estimated 50 million deaths,
>>there may well be other such graves, and they can't all have been found
>>and made safe.
>
> That was basically Aum Shinrikyo's method of getting hold of a virulent
> Anthrax strain, and it didn't work for them. There's *lots* of bugs in
> the wild, even if you look specifically in plague-stricken graveyards,
> and the ones which grow best in even a tailored culture medium are not
> the ones you're looking for.
>
> There's a whole lot of trial and error involved in that approach, with
> each trial a substantial expense and a non-trivial risk of discovery.
> Oh, and some of the errors will kill you.

Yes, it is not commonly realized regarding biological warfare: virulent
germs are extremely rare in nature. When one hears about microorganisms with
warfare potential (plague, anthrax, tularemia, etc.) it sounds like you just
need to get a sample of this stuff and you've got yourself a weapon. Not so.
Nearly all the strains you will find will be useless or next to useless for
this purpose. One of the major challenges for a national level weapons
program is finding cultures that have the required properties and
maintaining them (very important! cultures tend to adapt to lab conditions,
not future intended hosts) .

The difficulty is in large part due to disease virulence being an extremely
specialized ecological niche. Even with all the tools of modern molecular
biology and genomics science is currently quite ignorant about what
properties bestow virulence in any given organism, or how to enhance them.

Smallpox is possibly the only exception to this rule - but it is the hardest
to get since it is extinct in nature.

Wasn't it Carey Sublette who wrote:
>
>The difficulty is in large part due to disease virulence being an extremely
>specialized ecological niche.

Diseases tend evolve away from high virulence because killing the host
also means death for the disease organisms. Incapacitating the host
reduces the number of contacts, thereby reducing the ability of the
disease to propagate.

High virulence tends to occur in situations where the disease organism
has evolved in a different host population. That could be a different
species or an isolated population of the same species. The original host
population gradually evolves resistance to the disease, and the disease
evolves to increase the strength of its attack on the host. High
virulence occurs when the disease jumps to a different population which
has not evolved such resistance.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

"Mike Williams" <nospam@econym.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:PhGIqpDmWSuHFw1e@econym.demon.co.uk...
> Wasn't it Carey Sublette who wrote:
>>
>>The difficulty is in large part due to disease virulence being an
>>extremely
>>specialized ecological niche.
>
> Diseases tend evolve away from high virulence because killing the host
> also means death for the disease organisms. Incapacitating the host
> reduces the number of contacts, thereby reducing the ability of the
> disease to propagate.

The term "virulence" refers to the ability to cause disease, and thus
contains the notions of contagiousness and the ability to cause disease
symptoms. A highly virulent disease does not necessarily kill its host with
significant probability, in fact most don't. Influenza epidemics kill
people, a lot in fact as humans count it, but far too few to have any
relevance for disease transmission. Even host incapacitation is questionable
as being effective in reducing transmission since infectious phases often
preceed severe disease symptoms, and in high population density environments
(cities - where nearly half the world lives) reduced mobility may have
little relevance to maintaining the transmission chain.

> High virulence tends to occur in situations where the disease organism has
> evolved in a different host population. That could be a different species
> or an isolated population of the same species. The original host
> population gradually evolves resistance to the disease, and the disease
> evolves to increase the strength of its attack on the host. High virulence
> occurs when the disease jumps to a different population which has not
> evolved such resistance.

That's a pattern that occurs, yes, but the notion is commonly over
generalized.

HIV crossed over from a natural non-numan reservoir, true, but is
contagiousness and lethality appears to have *increased* as it adapted to
its human host. This is possible due to the very long latency for full AIDS,
but it illustrates that what is involved is the complex balance between rate
of disease development, speed of transmission, and role of disease symptoms
(if any) in the actual transmission process, i.e. the disease ecology.

In some diseases the symptoms of the disease have a direct role in
transmission - i.e. the pustules in smallpox, the cough in diptheria and
other respiratory diseases. In these cases there may be no long-term
tendency to become milder since this would interfere with disease
transmission.

There are also microbes that have been around humans a long, long time and
are even common infections in some cases, but only rarely turn into severe
diseases. For example culturing Neisseria meningitidis from symptom-free
humans is fairly common. This bacteria only infects humans; there is no
animal reservoir, yet occasionally it turns into a killer epidemic.

The processes are complex, and so is the balances between them. In any case
my point is well established - the fallacy of assuming that if microbe X
"causes disease" then if one obtains microbe X one can use it to cause
disease. With most microbes, very rarely will microbe X actually be an
effective disease causing strain.

Biowarfare programs, BTW, liked to obtain their specimens from people who
were really sick - thus proving the organisms pathogenicity. Maintaining
that trait in lab culture is still a problem.

Finally, many diseases of interest to biowarfare programs aren't even
transmissible between people. This is actually a favorable trait for most
weapons uses since the idea is infect a target population through weapon
dispersal, not have it turn into an uncontrolled epidemic. Examples are
vector borne-diseases (yellow fever, dengue, rocky mountain spotted fever),
ones picked up from the enviroment (San Joaquin Valley Fever), or ones
normally only transmitted from infected animals (glanders).