Fleas and other biting insects used as biological weapons

Having my cat bringing fleas in the house that have bit me to death got me wondering. If insects could be manufactured to cause mass death and destruction to populations at a reasonable price, do you think that this is being done?. I know that insects naturally cause death by transmitting disease ie Malaria and Bubonic Plague.Imagine now that we can alter DNA , someone could breed an insect that is resistant to pesticide and carries an incurable disease to people who don't have the antidote.This could be done in secret so that nobody knew who caused it.

Japan was working on this during World War II and had plans to attack California with flea-bombs infected with plague. They actually did unleash such weapons on China.

I think its the ultimate bio weapon , no one can stop it , makes me feel that eventually someone will do this and kill billions of people.

ive always wondered if it was possible that they could spread AIDS? if they bit a person with it then bit you could it be carried ?

I think the Bubonic Plague that decimated society in the 13 Century shows what insects can do , imagine one genetically engineered to do the same thing, its possible.

Unit's 731 and 100 did indeed attempt to develop this type of weapon.

I seem to recall they had a lot of difficulties due to survivability of the plague based carrier or vector which precluded high altitude and explosive delivery methods.

In terms of 'genetic engineering' I think you would find that there are many toxins which no insect could survive and which would be 'justified for use' on entire populations of pet species, just as happened in China and Hong Kong with the bird influenza. Many insect species have rather specific parasitic preferences and to create a universal vector which could act as a disease carrier while breeding outside a given area would be hard if you scattered them broadly enough to inhibit point countermeasures (In concentrations, the very frequency of infection rate acts as a beacon to both active pest control and quarantine isolationism as has been the principle die out and scorched earth method of plague containment for /millenia/.)

Perhaps the greatest gift to humanity in terms of biologics weaponization is simply that genetics research and filtration of enhanced cultures down to an exploitable vector base is NOT a 'home kit' type of effort, requiring many specific equipment items which are either restricted, expensive or both.

This is not to say that China or Saudi or or or some nation or citizen with money could not develop such a weapon and then hand it over to a terrorist.

But at some level of social development, once you are functioning past the instinctive animal response to any and all hostile stimuli, you tend to shy off of 'unknown outcome' type options which are open ended in their ability to escalate out of control. Or be traced back to _just you_.

If America suffered an 'Outbreak' type disaster in a major city with say more than 500,000 dead before a evacuation, isolation and burnout/starvation could remove the threat (and even insects need to eat to maintain generational survival); the only question would be how long it took to trace back the altered genetics of the bug or the microbe to a host nation with the capability and the researchers.

There WOULD be a massive (Interpol) level of response and should you ever be found out, the U.S.' official stance of 'nukes only' would likely mean a countervalue attack that amounted to decapitation and replacement of the government.

Quite beyond the difficulty people have in envisioning medieval level attrition from a Red Death type of uncontrolled vector progression, NOBODY wants -that- (fireball explicit) kind of idiocy coming back to haunt them.

Or at least so we commonly hope.


KPl.


LINKS-
Unlocking A Deadly Secret
www.nesa.org.uk...

Japan's Gloriously 'Unacknowledged' WWII History
www.skycitygallery.com...

Well there is West Nile Virus and Malaria carried by Mosquitos. Lime Disease by Ticks and who knows what by Fleas.
So, I suppose there is already enough stuff being carried by insects. I feel the thing with creating a new and lethal insect carrying disease would be a lack of control?

Dallas

does anybody have an answer to my question ? could it be possible for fleas/mosquitos or anyother blood sucking parasite to carry the aids virus ? it is a bio weapon of a kind

Originally posted by madmartinez
does anybody have an answer to my question ? could it be possible for fleas/mosquitos or anyother blood sucking parasite to carry the aids virus ? it is a bio weapon of a kind

I think the current scientific thinking is that the HIV virus is too fragile to be transported by a vector such as a flea or a mosquito. Anyway, it generally takes a long time (years to decades) for HIV to cause death, so I don't think it would be very effective as a weapon.

[edit on 8/11/2005 by djohnsto77]

im not really thinking of it as a weapon, just to deliver HIV is enough

To carry HIV?, that is a bit serious don't you think. Actually, that is a little beyond I feel.

Dallas