Marburg:
Part of the Next Generation Bio Weapons
According to Next Generation Bioweapons:Genetic Engineering and BW
US Air Force
Counterproliferation Center
Future Warfare SeriesNo. 14
...Alibek confided that Soviet biologists in the 1960s and 1970s were already interested in using genetics and gene manipulation to produce BW agents. In 1973, President Leonid Brezhnev established the ―Enzyme‖ program to modernize the BW program and develop genetically altered pathogens. Early in his career, Alibek had been in charge of developing Biopreparat‘s first vaccine-resistant tularemia bomblet.20 Later, by 1986, his team had also tripled the potency of the ―battle strain‖ of anthrax (Strain 836). He was the first to weaponize glanders, and supervised the first Soviet tests with the Marburg virus (an Ebola-like virus).
Alibek disclosed that by 1992 the Russians possessed a grand total of fifty-two different biological agents or combination of agents, including deadly Marburg, Ebola, and smallpox viruses, that could be weaponized. The most infectious and easiest to manufacture and transport microbes were labeled battle strains.
Most astounding of all, Alibek revealed that genetic engineering research was underway to create entirely new life forms. The goal of hybrid ―chimera‖ viruses was to insert genes from one virus into another to create an even more lethal virus. Alibek stated that the Russians had created the first chimera virus from inserting DNA from Venezuelan
equine encephalitis (VEE) virus into vaccinia virus (genetic structure almost identical to the smallpox virus). Chimeras, of VEE, Ebola, and Marburg genes inserted into the actual smallpox virus, were in the research phase when he left in 1991.
Advances in ―the dark side of biotechnology predict a future of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, vaccine-resistant viruses, and the creation of completely new pathogens
(chimeras).
The CDC has traveled all over the world and investigated outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, hantavirus, and other emerging diseases. These were challenging
natural outbreaks of pathogens that had not been previously known to man. An outbreak of a biologically engineered pathogen might create a similar situation and may have an even greater disease potential (contagion and mortality) than recently discovered naturally emerging
diseases. The epidemiological investigations of these emerging infectious diseases and other outbreaks serve as templates for responses to future biowarfare and bioterrorist events.
The JASON Group that met in 1997 grouped potential genetically engineered pathogens into six broad groups of potential futuristic threats.
Binary biological weapons
Designer genes
Gene therapy as a weapon This technology could be subverted to insert pathogenic genes. Research for similar gene splicing in humans continues for possible vectors to carry the replacement genes to their targets. As has been done for animals, there is potential for human ―vaccination‖ against certain diseases, or as a targeted delivery capability for therapeutic drugs or cytotoxic effects.
One class of experimental vectors is the retroviruses which permanently integrate themselves into human chromosomes. HIV, which causes AIDS, is a retrovirus. So it should not be hard to understand that gene therapy might have sinister capability.*
Stealth viruses As a biological weapon, a stealth virus could clandestinely infect the genome of a population. Later, the virus could be activated in the targeted population, or a threat of activation could be used as blackmail.
Host-swapping diseases
Designer diseases