Does anthrax make a good biological weapon?
It depends. Anthrax is among the most feared of the biological weapons, but in fact, this is because it has been released so seldom, that very little is known about its potential and much of the data is still incomplete. The culturing of large quantities of anthrax spores is a complicated task that is beyond the capacity of most individuals and smaller terrorist groups. For instance, the Japanese cult, Aum Shinri Kyo, responsible for releasing the fatal Sarin nerve gas in Tokyo’s subway system in 1995, previously released large amounts of anthrax into populated Japanese areas on no less than eight (8) occassions. Japan’s health agencies reported that not a single person died as a result of those attacks. However, in contrast, the former Soviet Union saw sixty-eight (68) people die in 1979, after one (1) tiny gram of anthrax was accidently released from a military research laboratory near Sverdlovsk. All of those infected lived some four (4) kilometers (2 1/2 miles) downwind of the faci
