Soviet Biopreparat: Inside the Toxic Matryoshka
When people think of pharmaceutical companies, they instantly associate the word pharmaceutical with medicine. There are scientists solely dedicated to find the remedy to cancer and incurable diseases. These professionals have devoted their educated lives to help the ailing human population recover.
At first glance, the All-Union Production Association Biopreparat appeared as a pharmaceutical company. It presented itself to the world as a civilian pharmaceutical and vaccine company. Behind closed doors, however, unbeknownst to most of its 32,000 employees, there lay a malevolent activity directed by the Russian government: bioweapons research and development. This activity was an uncanny metaphor to the Matryoshka dolls (McLeish, p. 60).
The Soviet Central Committee and the Council of Ministers (SCCM) established the All-Union Production Association Biopreparat in 1972. The Biopreparat had several facilities around the country, one of which was located in the city of Stepnogorsk, formerly of Soviet Union, now Kazakhstan. There were an estimated 47 facilities scattered around the Soviet Union.
Igor Domaradskij, who had roots from Saratov, had been successful as a public health official. While serving as the head of the Antiplague Institute at Rostove, he was recruited to be in the Soviet defensive program against biological weapons. “Problem Number 5” is the defensive program name in which Igor served. At 48, Igor continued his vaccine research to improve its biological sciences. Incidentally, his research was eventually utilized for the offensive biological weapons program.
In his memoir, Domaradskij recounted that research opportunities, high salary, and patriotism ...
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This summer we had an opportunity to dive into the world of bioweapons, through Richard Preston’s novel The Demon in the Freezer. His book explored the colorful world of smallpox and its use as a biological weapon. Earlier this week we were graced with this authors present for an ACES event. He discussed some of the found topics in his book such as animal testing, what small pox is, and even its eradication. One of the great things we had the chance of vocalizing were our many opinions on the gloom associated with this intriguing disease.
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston is an intriguing book that discusses the anthrax terrorist attacks after 9/11 and how smallpox might become a future bioterrorist threat to the world. The book provides a brief history of the smallpox disease including details of an outbreak in Germany in 1970. The disease was eradicated in 1979 due to the World Health Organization’s aggressive vaccine program. After the virus was no longer a treat the World Health Organization discontinued recommending the smallpox vaccination. In conjunction, inventory of the vaccine was decreased to save money. The virus was locked up in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia. However, some feel the smallpox virus exists elsewhere. Dr. Peter Jahrling and a team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland became concerned terrorists had access to the smallpox virus and planed to alter the strain to become more resistant. These doctors conducted smallpox experiments to discover more effective vaccines in case the virus were released. Preparedness for a major epidemic is discussed as well as the ease with which smallpox can be bioengineered.
Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From the invention of state-sponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism Columbia University Press.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system is not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication.
... Novikov, N. (1946). The Species of the World. The Novikov telegram. Diplomatic History: 527-537. 8.
The most devastating result of the 2001 anthrax attacks is the lack of consequences for those persons responsible. There has not been enough evidence discovered or presented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, to adequately declare exactly who is responsible for the anthrax attacks. Regardless, there has been great speculation around a man named Steven Hatfill, and a large portion of the American society has placed the blame for the attacks on his shoulders. By dispelling contradictory proof, dissecting evidence, and examining other possible solutions, Steven Hatfill can be proven innocent of any links to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
"History of Bioterrorism." Chronological. Office of The Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1997. Web. 22 July 2012. http://www.bio-terry.com/HistoryBioTerr.html
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...
4 Nov. 2014 http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/smallpox/ smallpoxeradication.html> McCrary, Van. “Smallpox and Bioterrorism: A Growing Threat.” 3 Aug. 1999. 6 Nov. 2014 http://www.law.uh.edu/health/lawperspectives/Bioethics/990803 Smallpox.html>. Preston, Richard. A. “A Demon in the Freezer.”
Ogden, Horace G.. CDC and the Smallpox Crusade. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1987.
The aftermath of a bioterrorist attack can be catastrophic to the population in any affected country. The effects can be medical, economic, political, psychological, and social, depending on what agent is used, and the conditions of its release. If the agent is professional prepared and released then the effects could be more both significant and long lasting, and although an attack can affect a country in a disruptive manner, it could also affect it in a positive way. Among the positive results are the cooperation among countries, a country more unified, and the procurement of more facts about the attack by authorities, leading them to the improvement of bio-security protocols to prevent future attacks.
Although previously represented as an achievement crafted primarily by the actions the World Health Organization (WHO) and a small group of other key players, recent interpretations of the eradication of smallpox are dealing with this international cooperation and its players from different angle. Current historians are examining this achievement as one shaped not only by the mutual understanding for the need to end smallpox but also by international and local sociopolitical forces.
For the perpetrators of an attack, biological agents can have great advantages over typical instruments of war. Like any weapon, however,
Strubbe, Bill. (1997). The World as Self, The Self as World. World & I. [Online], 12 (6), 12 pages. Available: http//insite.palni.edu/WebZ/FETCH:fulltext.html [1998, September 10].
Throughout the past, bioweapons have been used in wars. Such war strategies included throwing carcasses into the enemies' castles or forts, which caused terrible spread of diseases. As the world enters the modern age, these pathogens can be used more efficiently as a weapon. Countries such as United States, Russia, and Iraq are all participants in these dangerous competition of bioterrorism.