As a general principle, is vaccination a good defense against biological warfare?
What if the vaccine was 100% effective against all natural strains of anthrax, which nobody claims? An enemy would simply choose another biological agent: one that occurs naturally or one created using genetic engineering. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) identified 65 naturally-occurring biological and toxin warfare agents directed against humans: there exist vaccines for less than ten of these. “It takes 18 months to develop a weapons-grade (biological) agent, and ten more years to develop a good vaccine against it.” William Patrick, former head of the Biowarfare Program, Fort Dietrick, New York Times, November 3, 1998. “The plethora of real and constructible microbial pathogens, and the numerous ways in which exposure to them can occur, makes development of agent and route-specific defenses both foolish and futile.” J. Jacobsen, M.D., “Biologic Warfare Testing”, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, May 3, 1988 “One cannot overstate our inabilit
