An easily accessible weapon that can kill hundreds of thousands in a relatively small amount of time; this is the danger that biological weapons present (http://jama.ama-assn.org/ issues/v278n5/ffull/jco71009.html). Biological warfare is the deliberate use of disease causing organisms to harm or kill an adversary's military forces, population, food, or livestock (http://www.agls.uidaho.edu/biotech_society/Lecture_Presentations/Lecture34_Biologica_%20Warfare.pptv). There are many different biological agents, such as anthrax and brucellosis, which can be used as weapons. Although biological warfare is used today, it is by no means a new kind of warfare.
There is evidence that biological warfare first appeared during biblical times. It is suggested that the fifth plague in the book of Exodus, which was a murrain, and the sixth plague, which caused boils to erupt on men and beast, were caused by anthrax (http://www.npr.org/news/ specials/response/anthrax/features/2001/oct/011018.bioterrorism.history.html). Another early reported use of biological warfare was in the sixth century B.C when the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with rye ergot (http://www.healthri.org/environment/biot/history.htm). In 1763, during the French and Indian Wars, British commanders ordered that smallpox-bearing blankets be given to enemy tribes (http://whyfiles.org/059bio_war/history.html). During World War One, Germany uses Anthrax and Glanders to infect sheep that that they shipped to Russia (http:// whyfiles .org/059bio_war/history.html). In 1942, when the United States first began its offensive biological program at Camp Detrick, five thousand bombs filled with Bacillus anthracis were produced (http://www.npr.org/news/ specials/response/anthrax/features /2001/oct/011018.bioterrorism.history.html). In 1972, The United States and other countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which was a document that prohibited the stockpiling of biological agents for offensive military purposes (http://www.
