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Jan/Feb 2000 issue (#43)
One of the most interesting findings of the Human Genome Project was just how closely related all humans are and just what a myth the concept of race really is. The differences between individual humans are, in fact, much greater than the differences between groups of humans. Many of those early findings were contained in a 1000 page tome published by Princeton University Press entitled The History and Geography of Human Genes. Stanford researchers, for example, came to the conclusion that the DNA of Europeans was composed approximately of 65% Asian types and 35% African types, making the so-called white race a hybrid of two older types of human DNA.
Ominously, the Human Genome Project is currently being conducted under the auspices of the Energy Department, which also oversees America's nuclear weapons arsenal. While the similarity of the DNA of all humans seems to argue against the feasibility of "gene weapons," British and other scientists were not so sure. In October of 1997, Dr. Wayne Nathanson, chief of the Science and Ethics Department of the Medical Society of the United Kingdom, warned the annual meeting of the Society that "gene therapy" might possibly be turned into "gene weapons" that could potentially be used to target certain gene groups possessed by certain groups of peoples.
Nathanson warned that such weapons could be delivered to humans not only in the anticipated forms such as gas and aerosol but also might be introduced into water supplies. Backing off of any suggestion that such weapons might be capable of eliminating the majority of the world's population all at once, he suggested that the weapons might be used not only to induce death but to cause sterility and deformed births in the targeted groups. The result, just as certain as genocide but a slower, more insidious and therefore potentially undetectable attack. Current estimates of the cost of developing a "gene weapon" were placed at around $50 million, still quite a stretch for isolated bands of neo-Nazis but well within the capabilities of covert government programs.
The former Soviet Union, for example, was said to have developed a gene weapon utilizing the transplantation of the microbes that caused "liegu fever" into germs of ordinary wine yeast, which would have allowed the yeast to spread what the Soviets predicted would have been a "genocidal" plague of liegu fever. On another occasion the Soviets attempted to combine the genes of cobra venom with the influenza virus, which would have made for a deadly combination indeed. It was unclear, however, if the Soviets (whose potential enemies ran the gamut from Germans and Latvians to Chinese and Pakistanis) had intended to target any particular group. What was clear was the potency of the weapon. It was estimated that a mere 20 grams of liegu fever virus could potentially kill up to 5 billion people.
According to a story reported by the Sunday London Times (11-15-98), though curiously underreported by US media except for brief mention in Wired and the Village Voice, the government of Israel may have already successfully developed genetically specific "ethnic bullet" bioweapons which target Arabs. The report, which originated with the London based Foreign Report and quotes an "unconfirmed report" which originated in South Africa, states that the research was originally a joint Israeli and South African effort, and that the South African weapons would have targeted Blacks.
It may be recalled that South Africa recently became the first nation in the world to abandon its nuclear weapons arsenal, the origins of which were also the result of a joint venture with Israel. When an Israeli government spokesman was asked to confirm the existence of the ethnic bullet, he was evasive but did not deny its existence. "We have," he told Foreign Reports, a "basket full of strategic surprises which we will not hesitate to use if we feel that the State of Israel is under serious threat."
Israel is probably not alone in this sort of bioweapons development. Michael Risconscuito, the principal informant for investigative reporter Danny Casalaro (Casalaro died mysteriously a decade ago while researching the Justice Department's purported theft of an intelligence software called PROMIS), alleged to Pacifica Radio that he had also been part of a secret intelligence effort to develop genetically specific bioweapons that could potentially reduce the earth's population by a full two-thirds. After Casalaro's death, Risconscuito went public and was strangely then almost immediately arrested on drug charges. He remains in prison.
Scientist have called for a "definitely enforceable order to ban gene weapons, an important first step to the control of this perhaps most ultimate weapon. Certainly an international consensus on this issue is far preferable than continuing to ignore the issue until it is too late. Unlike genetically specific bioweapons, the absolute feasibility of such a ban is suspect. Indeed, if the experts are correct and genetically specific bioweapons can be developed for a mere $50 million, it puts them well within the reach of well-funded terrorists such as Osama bin Laden who already has expressed a desire to eliminate at least two groups, Israelis and Americans.
The reported existence of the Israeli ethnic bullet will almost predictably trigger a gene weapons arms race in the Middle East. Worse still the research and development of such weapons can be carried out in amazingly small facilities that are next to impossible to monitor. Perhaps most ominously, the "science" of genetically specific bioweapons is still in its infancy and no one knows if breakthroughs might reduce the cost of their production to the point that small and extremely malevolent groups such as the neo-Nazis may attempt to bring about a new Final Solution.