FEATURE ARTICLE
The Growing Threat of Biological Weapons
The terrorist threat is very real, and it's about to get worse. Scientists should concern themselves before it's too late
Steven Block
For the past 50 years or so
the world has lived under the shadow of atomic weapons, threatening
a "nuclear nightmare" that would bomb us back to the Stone
Age. The recent revolution in molecular biology may have
incidentally unleashed a new threat to a peaceful night's sleep with
"living nightmares": genetically modified viruses and
microorganisms that could be used to develop new biological weapons.
It's a danger that author Steven Block thinks will get much worse,
unless biologists take an active stand against bioweapons—much
as their colleagues in the physical sciences took a forceful stand
against nuclear weapons. Block sets his argument in the context of
how bioweapons have been used in the past and considers the chilling
prospects for the future.
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