The United Kingdom received intelligence in the 1930s, that several nations were involved in biological warfare-related activity. Continued intelligence concluded that these nations may have already acquired this capability.
In 1942, the War Cabinet sanctioned biological weapon field testing amid fears of the possibility of a biological or chemical weapons attack against Britain by the Nazis and possibly the Japanese. Anthrax was chosen because it is one of the best known agents of biological warfare and the most feared. The goal was to examine the vulnerability of Britain against a German biological attack during World War II. Also the viability of reciprocating attacks against Germany. Concerns, because of the nature of anthrax, determined that such an attack would cause widespread and long-lasting contamination by anthrax spores. In order to conduct the testing and limit contamination, they acquired the Scottish Gruinard Island. Gruinard was remote and uninhabited and deemed suitable for the testing purposes. It is 1.2 miles long and .68 miles from the mainland located between Gairloch and Ullapool.
GRUINARD ISLAND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE TESTING 3
Introduction
A secret group known as the Biology Department Porton was established in the Chemical Defense Experimental Station at Porton Down. Gruinard Island became known as X-base. R.L. Vollum, Professor of Bacteriology at Oxford University, provided a highly virulent strain of anthrax called “Vollum 14578”, named after himself, for testing purposes. Scientists placed eighty sheep on the island.
First year trials used a 30 pound bomb and the second year with a 4 pound bomb. The smaller bomb was designed to form part of a cluster bomb contai...
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...gh. He said his team encountered buried anthrax spores that have survived hundreds of years. He told a newspaper, “I would not go walking on Gruinard Island. If anthrax is still active at Soutra, there is no reason to suppose it has not survived on more recent sites. It is a very resilient and deadly bacterium.”
Works Cited
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Biological warfare cannot be explained by SCOT theory because stabilization and closure which is the cornerstone of the SCOT theory are not clearly apparent in the dynamic of biological warfare. In biological warfare, rhetorical closure has not yet been achieved within the international community. For example, the morality of using biological weapons is still an ongoing debate among the countries of the world. In fact, not all countries have signed the Biological Weapo...
This chapter gives detailed information about a man named Lawrence Brilliant and how his guru encourages his efforts to join the small pox eradication program. The eradication program is outlined through this chapter which was led by DA Henderson. Chapter four “The Other Side of The Moon” Starts with Vladimir Pasechnik and his desertion of his country to the United Kingdom. This chapter outlines how he gave information on the soviet biological weapons program to MI6. This chapter shows that the Russians had ICBMs armed with smallpox. This chapter also talks about biological weapons facilities located in Russia and Iraq. This chapter also goes through the what the Ad Hoc Committee on Orothopox Infections is and much of the work they do. It discusses the history of thr committee and debates between Da Henderson and Peter Jahrling on their differences. Chapter five “A Woman With a Peaceful Life” outlines a microbiologist and epidemiologist named Dr. Lisa Hensley. It describes the her story relating to how she was first hired to work with Ebola. It goes through the a January 2000 accident titled the “Hot
With the continuous advancements in biomedicine follows a continuous proliferation of bioterrorism, which uses biological agents for malicious purposes (Anderson 2). More specifically, bioterrorism is a method of terrorism that intentionally releases or disseminates biological weapons that may be in natural occurring or human-modified form (Botulism- Definition). Although bioterrorism is considered as a recent dilemma, the use of biological weapon predates recorded history, during the ancient times where biological toxins were extracted from plants and animals and ap...
Medical College of Wisconsin. “Facts About Anthrax and Smallpox as Bioterrorism Weapons.” Healthlink. 12 Nov. 2001. Medical College of Wisconsin. 24 July 2008 .
Williams, P., & Wallace, D. (1989). Unit 731: Japan's secret biological warfare in World War II. New York: Free Press.
The Demon in the Freezer is divided into eight sections. It begins with the upsetting details surrounding the sudden death of Robert Stevens, just three weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001. An autopsy showed Mr. Stevens died of inhalation anthrax. Subsequent anthrax illnesses among people exposed to letters laced with anthrax frightened the nation. Some thought the letters might also contain smallpox, but fortunately this was not the case. “There had been only eighteen cases of inhalation anthrax in the past hundred years in the United States, and the last reported case had been twenty-three years earlier” (5). It is no wonder that people became alarmed at the threat of a major anthrax outbreak.
A pivotal factor to fight back bioterrorism is the international cooperation (Rofrey). Every time something awful happens and in this case if a bioterrorist attack were to happen, countries would support each other, whether economically or by providing assistance in any other way; including authorities from different countries working together to stop further attacks. For instance since the beginning of the 20th century there has been hundreds of conventions, where countries gather and discuss possible solutions to the problem. One of the first convections took place at Geneva, Switzerland in 1928 (Danzig). This protocol did not necessarily focus only on bioterrorism but terrorism, in general. It prohibited the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices and the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. There have been also some treaties signed resulting from some of the conventions an example is the BWC in 1972 (Fidler). Nations also support each other when it comes ...
Buger, M., & Gould, C. (2002). Secrets and Lies: Wouter Basson and South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme. Zebra Press.
"Anthrax; Vical Receives U.S. Government Grant to Research Anthrax Vaccine". Vaccine Weekly 21 (Aug. 2002): 7-8
Roffey, R. R., Tegnell, A. A., & Elgh, F. F. (2002). Biological warfare in a historical perspective. Clinical Microbiology & Infection, 8(8), 450-454.
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It all started because Great Britain was afraid that Germany and Japan had a great advantage in biological technology in comparison to them. They were testing to see the range of spread of the anthrax spores. Great Britain tested its weapons on the coast of the Island of Gruinard in Scotland were they thought it was far enough from they coast so it would not contaminate or hurt the mainland. In the year of 1943 throughout many experiments that were conducted it was proven that sheep and cattle were affected with anthrax. The British government thought of decontaminating the island that that meant that they had to brushfire they entire island to kill all of th...