Pathogens

The Brookings Institute has a new report out on bio-terrorism and it is as terrifying as all the others. Most of these reports/studies are about straightforward chemical and biological agents. They don't even broach the issue of genetically-modified pathogens, which would ignore vaccines and pharmaceutical intervention.

The good news is that terrorists don't (yet) have the capability to develop genetically-modified pathogens, while the coalition countries (especially the US and Britain) are stepping up genomic research. But we are not far from this kind of warfare. I wrote about this in the February issue of Fast Company magazine. If you really want to stare into the abyss, read the free excerpts of Ken Alibek's book on the Soviet Bioweapons program, which he ran before defecting to the West.