Covid-19 and the Course of Bioweapons

Abstract

The course of bioscience has taken the whole world by surprise particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. The pandemic is real though, what made us skeptical is about its origin. Is the virus byproduct of bioscience experimentation or is the world facing another natural outbreak? From scientific explanations to propaganda warfare, the literature has brought in all the types of explanations that includes the arrival of Messiah (let’s not forget about Antichrist or Dajjal). Whatsoever is the future course of subjectivity associated with COVID-19, this piece of research attempts to answer the ongoing developments in the experimentations of bioweapons. With this in mind Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) comes to the forefront and one of the most affected countries from the COVID-19 pandemic had broken her obligations of bioscience in 2016. In November 2016 during the 8^th Review Conference of Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) United States of America (U.S.A) rejected all proposals regarding inspection of American bio laboratories and underlined the un-acceptance of creating such kind of verification mechanism in frames of BWC. This article attempts to explain the course of bioscience laboratories and their clandestine activities, if not COVID-19. Also keeping in context the U.S. deviation from the BWC commitments, an attempt has been made to explain United States’ exposure with the bioscience research. The study is deductive in nature and uses the mandate of BWC as theoretical premise.  

COVID-19 and the Course of Bioweapons

1. Introduction

The US conducts development of bioweapons in its national laboratories located in mainland and abroad, particularly in the republics of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). One of the prime laboratories that host U.S. military research is the Fort Detrick Medical Facility situated in Frederick, Maryland. This facility is scientifically most well-equipped medical installation to conduct cutting-edge research on toxins and antitoxins. Even the research on Ebola was done here (though the writer does not suggest that Ebola was created in this facility). It is interesting to point out that the very same Fort Detrick facility was the installation to carry out ‘mind control experimentations’^[1] during the 1950s and 60s

The secondary cluster of U.S. laboratories is spread around the globe in 50 nations including Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asian Countries (CARs).^[2] In the past, CARs have witnessed outbreaks of diseases especially among animals that had been unusual to the locations.^[3] Why the United States had to maintain such a big presence around the globe and what does its staff do in such laboratories? With such discourse of over-spread presence of bioscience research ventures, what makes the puzzle unsolvable is the U.S. rigidity towards Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).       

In November 2016 during the 8^th Review Conference of Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) the US totally rejected all proposals regarding inspections of American bio laboratories and underlined the un-acceptance of creating such kind of verification mechanism in frames of BWC. The international expert community pays attention to raising American bioscience activities abroad. It is alarming that U.S. puts suspiciously large sums of money in construction of dual use biological laboratories in other countries, delivers special equipment and its own military bio scientists.

Washington forces some developing countries to accept American bio aid assistance, all this seems to be quite friendly, but as a result, the newly constructed lab or an old reconstructed one is totally controlled by the US military authorities. In fact, local authorities are not aware of  the actual experiments being conducted there, how the results are being used and what kind of dangerous infectious samples, strain or deadly viruses do they pose all this is totally blacked out for the host states. From a legal point of view, domestic healthcare organizations must control the experiments, receive the results and define further activities. However, the doors of these labs are closed for locals and are heavily guarded by the US soldiers.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 the epicenter of the pandemic was said to be the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is unrealistic to realistically contextualize the outbreak when it comes to its origin. China claimed that the COVID-19 was delivered to China from the U.S. for example through the American Consulate General in Wuhan. Specifically, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan”.^[4] This categorically suggested that the virus did not originate in Wuhan. Contrary to Chinese claims, U.S. President Donald Trump attempted to prove that China has created the virus when in every public appearance he tagged COVID-19 as “Chinese Virus”.^[5] Giving impetus to sensitivity of the issue, Trump furthered the discourse into military threat when he claimed that:

“This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Centre it should have never happened it could have been stopped at the source. It could have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped right at the source, and it wasn’t”.^[6]

The manner in which 9/11 became a nightmare for Pakistan as it had to face the full consequences of U.S. led Global War against Terrorism, when the source of terrorism was propagated not as a backlash to Ronald Reagan’s strategy of counter-insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan rather had been associated with ‘Do More’ phenomenon linked to Islamabad. The same very way, COVID-19 is about to become a nightmare for the Chinese and Beijing must get ready to face the consequences of U.S. led Global Campaign of establishing the source of the disease with China. This is how containment works in the 21^st century. Regardless of knowing the source of CPEC, OBOR or the BRI that altogether makes China the leader of this and the next century, the world would now propagate the notion of ‘China Virus’.

How this debate has entered into the domain of global politics needs to be first understood from the basics of bioscience experimentations. The next few sections of this study would present some historic facts that would allow the readers to pay attention towards evolving phenomenon.

2. Bioscience Experimentation for Military Purposes and Implications

Biological warfare is the deliberate spreading of disease amongst humans, animals, and plants. Biological weapons (BW) introduce a bacteria or virus into an environment for hostile purposes that are not prepared to defend it from the intruder. As a result, this agent can become very effective at killing plants, livestock, pets, and humans (depends on the purpose of the weapon). There are a huge variety of genetically or traditionally modified bacteria and viruses to withstand antibiotics that could be used as biological weapons, but some of the most common types today are bacteria, rickettsiae, viruses, toxins, and fungi. When compared to the cost of a nuclear weapons program, biological weapons are extremely cheap. It is estimated that 1 gram of toxin could kill 10 million people.

The use of biological weapons is not a new phenomenon, whereas the modern outlook of the military intensification has brought the greatest threats ever. The first recorded use of biological agents is the Romans using dead animals to foul the enemies’ water supply. This had the dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale. For example during:

• 1346-1347 – Mongols catapulted corpses contaminated with plague over the walls into Kaffa (in Crimea), forcing besieged Genoans to flee. Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing 25 million.
• 1710 – Russian troops allegedly use plague-infected corpses against Swedes. 
• 1767 – During the French and Indian Wars, the British gave blankets that were used to wrap British smallpox victims to hostile Indian tribes.
• 1916-1918 – German agents use anthrax and the equine disease glanders to infect livestock and feed for export to Allied forces. Incidents include the infection of Romanian sheep with anthrax and glanders for export to Russia, Argentinean mules with anthrax for export to Allied troops, and American horses and feed with glanders for export to France 1937.
• 1939 – Nomonhan Incident – Japanese poison Soviet water supply with intestinal typhoid bacteria at former Mongolian border. First use of biological weapons by the Japanese.
• 1937 – Japan begins its offensive biological weapons program. Unit 731, the BW research and development unit is located in Harbin, Manchuria. Over the course of the program, at least 10,000 prisoners were killed in Japanese experiments.
• 1940 – The Japanese drop rice and wheat mixed with plague-carrying fleas over China and Manchuria
• 1942 – U.S. begins its offensive biological weapons program and chooses Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland as its research and development site.
• 1945 – Only known tactical use of BW by Germany. A large reservoir in Bohemia is poisoned with sewage.
• 1951 – In a test of BW dispersal methods, biological simulants are sprayed over San Francisco.
• 1966 – The United States conducts a test of vulnerability to covert BW attack by releasing a harmless biological simulant into the New York City subway system.
• 1969 – President Nixon announces unilateral dismantlement of the U.S. offensive BW program.
• 1970 – President Nixon extends the dismantlement efforts to toxins, closing a loophole which might have allowed for their production.
• 1978 – In a case of Soviet state-sponsored assassination, Bulgarian exile Georgi Markov living in London, is stabbed with an umbrella that injects him with a tiny pellet containing ricin (a highly toxic, natural protein).
• 1979 – Outbreak of pulmonary anthrax in Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union.
• 1992- Russian president Boris Yeltsin acknowledges that the outbreak was caused by an accidental release of anthrax spores from a Soviet military microbiological facility.
• 1985-1991 – Iraq develops an offensive biological weapons capability including anthrax, botulium toxin, and aflatoxin.

(And the Story Goes On)

The military use of the bioweapons during a conflict allows the receiving state to respond with other strategic weapons, whereas the process of research that potentially increases the level of threat perception makes the states more vulnerable during the peacetime. The vulnerabilities maximize its anxiety due to the much hidden intentions of the threat posing state. Living in the ambiguous environment states uses to indulge in the arms race by developing their own, which leads to permanent instability between the states.     

3. The Incidents of Infections in US Project 112 and US Bioscience Laboratories:

Tens of thousands of military personnel and civilians were potentially exposed to chemical or biological substances through Department of Defense (DOD) tests since World War II. DOD conducted many biological weapons tests as part of its Project 112 test program, while many other tests were conducted under separate efforts.^[7] In 2004, DOD reported it had identified 5,842 service members and estimated 350 civilians as having been potentially exposed during Project112.^[8] Moreover, since June 2003, the non-DOD sources including the Institute of Medicine identified approximately 600 additional names of individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112.^[9]

Table 1 Number of U.S Service members Identified as Having Been Potentially Exposed during Project 112
Total number of Project 112 names identified as of December 2007	6,440
DOD’s 2003 Report to Congress	5,842
Number of names identified since DOD’s 2003 report	598
Institute of Medicine research                         (394 names)
Veterans’ inquiries                                          (165 names)
GAO research                                                 (39 names)
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data

Despite international agreements that regulate activities in the field of biological research, on this subject, just as on the subject of chemical weapons, the US remains a country of double standards. It is not reliably known what kind of research, especially research related to deadly viruses, is being carried out by the American military, or where.

Following the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001, biological threats were used to frighten America. The situation with the sending of letters containing powder with spores of anthrax was blown up to a level that caused public hysteria. It happened approximately a week after the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, which created the illusion that there was a link between the two events, united by the theme of the threat of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’. Ten years later, in 2011, declassified FBI documents showed that the spores of anthrax were developed at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

In ten years, the number of American laboratories engaged in developing ways to protect against bioterrorism, according to the official version, has grown from 20 to 400. Secret biological centers have appeared in Africa and Latin and America, biological laboratories of unknown function have opened in Ukraine and Georgia, and it also opened a biological centre in Kazakhstan in 2015. The majority of these activities are being supervised by the Pentagon.

Furthermore, the growing network of clandestine US bioscience laboratories angered Russian authorities who charged the Pentagon with expanding a network of biological weapons laboratories in Europe. The 2016 Russian national security strategy document described the United States and NATO as threats and warns of the “uncertainty about instances of foreign states’ possession of biological weapons and their potential for developing and producing them.” The strategy document also provoked that “the network of U.S. military-biological laboratories on the territory of states adjacent to Russia is being expanded”.^[10] Without any doubt this is an emerging area of silent war gaming where tomorrow (if not today) a full-fledged military response could be seen between the two powerful nuclear capable states.

Table 2 Number of Non-Project 112 U.S Service members Identified by DOD as of December 2007
Number of names in OUSD (AT&L) task order database	8,979
Number of names in OUSD (AT&L) task order database that have been identified as having been potentially exposed to a chemical or biological substance	7,120
Number of names in OUSD (AT&L) task order database that have not been exposed to any chemical or biological substances	1,859
Number of names awaiting entry into database	844
Total	9,823
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data

Many reports from different sources keep on saying that the US is developing a new generation of weapons that undermine and possibly violate international treaties on biological and chemical warfare. The Defense Department has been continuously expanding worldwide its military biological infrastructure. These facilities have sprung up in many countries, and in recent years they are being created increasingly closer to Russian borders. For instance, the US Richard G.Lugar Public Health Research Centre in Tbilisi is actually a high level biological research laboratory overseen by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The Central reference Laboratory near Almaty, Kazakhstan, is operational which is part of the Cooperative Biological Engagement Program led by the US Department of Defense. There is another smaller US-controlled lab at a military base in the town of Otar in western Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea.

In 2013 a Chinese Air Force officer accused the US government of creating the new strain of bird flu afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack. People’s Liberation Army Senior Colonel Dai Xu also said that the United States released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China in an act of biological warfare. “At that time, America was fighting in Iraq and feared that China would take advantage of the opportunity to take other actions”, he said. “This is why they used bio-psychological weapons against China. All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the United States wanted. Now, the United States is using the same old trick. China should have learned its lesson and should calmly deal with the problem”.

Ukraine is of particular interest to the US military particularly the Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute in Odessa. In 2013 alone, US-sponsored bio laboratories were opened in Vinnitsa, Ternopil, Uzhhorod, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Simferopol in Crimea, Kherson, Lviv and Lugansk. In April 2011, a Central Reference Laboratory supported by the US Department of Defense Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) was inaugurated in Azerbaijan. The practice of using such facilities in other countries shows they operate outside of national control. The secrecy is tight and quite often the laboratories are managed by former military or special services officials.

Table 3 U.S Veterans Who the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Has Notified of Their Potential Exposure as of December 2007
OUSD (P&R)	Project 112	OUSD (AT&L) task order	Total
Number of names DOD has provided to VA	6,739	6,440	7,531	20,710
Names with no numeric identifier (e.g., social security number or service number)	666	385	none	1,051
Names of veterans known to be deceased	2,157	733	500	3,390
Possible number of veterans to be notified (i.e., veterans who have an identifier and are not documented as deceased)	3,916	5,322	7,031	16,269
Number of notification letters mailed by VA	319a	4,438	2,987	7,744
Percentage of veterans sent notification letters for those known not to be deceased and for which VA has a numeric identifier	8%	83%	42%	48%
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data

Furthermore, on June 11, 2015, the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said that, ‘the US is obstructing international efforts to eradicate biological weapons, seeking to involve other nations covertly in research on weaponized diseases America’s record of handling bioweapons is poor’.^[11]

In 2015, the accusations of mishandling biological weapons voiced by the Russian Foreign Ministry referred to a report that mentioned about the US military shipment of a live anthrax by mistake. Pentagon also admitted sending samples of the highly dangerous disease to at least 51 labs in 17 US states and three foreign countries.^[12]

Table 4 Number of U.S Civilians Potentially Exposed as of December 2007
Civilians identified during OUSD (P&R)’s investigation	882
Civilians identified during OASD (HA) investigation of Project 112	327
Civilians identified during OUSD (AT&L)’s chemical and biological office task order	715
Total number of civilians identified as being potentially exposed	1,924
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data

The delivery “posed a high risk of outbreak that threatened not only the US population, but also other countries, including Canada and Australia. Of great concern is the shipment of bacteria to a US military facility in a third country, the Osan Air Base in South Korea,” the Russian ministry also said in a statement. It added that an anthrax outbreak incident occurred earlier in 2001, also involved a US military lab.^[13]

4. Issues of Compliance against Bioscience Research

The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intensions, isn’t it?

The BWC does not currently have compliance details. Negotiations towards an internationally binding verification protocol to the BWC took place between 1995 and 2001 in a forum known as the Ad Hoc Group. The microbiological activity of the member states under the developed protocol would have been subject to on-site inspections by an independent authority. In 2001, the US refused to sign up. It has not changed its stance since then. Due to the refusal of the US to approve the verification mechanisms, the effectiveness of the BWC is questioned. Is there any logical explanation to this tough stance? Yes, definitely there is. Its name is ‘non-transparent military bioscience activity abroad’ in sake and under cover of peaceful goals declared.

In November 2016 during the 8^th Review Conference of Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) USA totally rejected all proposals regarding inspections of American bio laboratories and underlined the un-acceptance of creating such kind of verification mechanism in frames of BWC. Furthermore, recent developments have raised concerns that the US may be pursuing research that is outlawed by the BWC. Such concerns are expressed in the Russian Federation’s 2016 National Security Strategy. The document lists biological weapons as primary threats to Russia.

5. Lessons for Pakistan and Other States

Pakistan should not stay quiet and should closely monitor some alarming signals that should attract attention of the Pakistani government, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SPD and other related institutions. There is a dire necessity to place all the American bio-companies represented in Pakistan under strict control and prevent creation of any types of dual use labs with any type of assistance from US.

This set of questions can also be put in the agenda of bilateral relations with the other countries, which have such laboratories on its sovereign territory. Among them are Peru, Uganda, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Pakistan’s close neighbour Tajikistan.

Washington is sponsoring renovation and re-equipment of scientific center ‘Bio Preperaty’ in Tajikistan. This lab is directly dealing with strains of deadly anthrax and other extremely dangerous materials. Besides that, U.S. so-called specialists show interest in National Institute of Hazardous Infections in Tajikistan and two other crucial institutions: Center for Tropical Diseases, and Main Germ Laboratory.

As it has been many times before U.S. experts follow the same scenario. To receive the famous American bio-aid-finance assistance Tajikistan has to provide them with full-scale authorization for work in the country. It’s not mentioned directly but it includes extraction of dangerous micro-organism strains and uses the results of experiments for their own purposes.

Moreover, surprisingly Washington is also trying to involve Uzbekistan in its well known worldwide system of bio research. By now under US finance 10 bio labs in this country have been reequipped and united in a joint network. According to an agreement with Uzbekistan, the US experts are demilitarizing the old bio weapons facilities in the country. However, it is alarming that they were granted full scale access to the anthrax infected animal burial grounds on Uzbek part of Vozrozhdenie Island in Aral Sea and the samples are sent to US.

Thanks to former USSR republics the US enlarges its bank of pathogens for a particular region and inhabitants living there. There are evidences that Georgia has gratuitously transmitted to the US three large anthrax, plague and cholera strain collections. Kazakhstan also granted strains of plague and anthrax. It is also known that American experts in Uzbekistan are trying to get access to National Database of Strains, covering their interest with a program of creating vaccines against various diseases.

It seems that the days of international efforts regarding war against terrorism are now over. Without any surprises the U.S. exploited the topic of global terrorism for its own purposes just like the phenomenon of creating Daesh/ISIS and then using it against the Muslim World. In the same way based on the propagated threats of health, the US buys licenses on scientific inventions regarding human survival in extreme conditions and by intellectual rights on antidotes against lethal infections (in few cases invented by the former USSR scientists). COVID-19 will be helping the U.S to maximize such benefits. Furthermore, it will prove to be a strike on CPEC, Chinese policy and investment capabilities. COVID-19 is equipped with great potential of damaging Pakistan’s economy like Iran and other Asian nations. Islamabad must act more actively to strengthen BWC by establishing verification mechanism, but not via United Nations Secretary General investigation scheme. The reason is obvious and could be qualified through a simple fact of May 08, 2020 which exposes the vulnerability of United Nations. For example, according to Aljazeera news “the United States prevented a vote in the UN Security Council on a resolution calling to end worldwide hostilities amid the coronavirus pandemic”. The U.S. vs China will be now be fate of the United Nations unless one of the two qualifies to reassert its writ on the global system that in view of the author seems impossible. This predicts reformation of the global system with reemergence of a bipolar world replacing former Soviet Union with China, whereas U.S. would still be the leader of western block.

6. Conclusion

What conclusions can be drawn out of all this?

Washington masterfully manipulates developing countries and exploits their assets to extract all necessary knowledge. It seems to be a common strategy and sphere of bioscience that is just another example in a long line, what exactly alarming here is that one country receives something very crucial at the cost of vulnerability for another country.

The worldwide network of US controlled biosciences labs provides the American experts with unique opportunity to conduct research and experimentation prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention in local environment. This research is not trying to establish here that the use of alien US bioscience labs established on foreign territories are meant for bioweapons or are directed to devastate the host country, its economy or a whole region. The problem is that such activity, in case of a human failure, can easily lead to an extremely dangerous epidemic in an entire region with serious consequences in many neighboring countries. Do we still need evidence?

There are serious concerns about effectiveness of American control and prevention system in biosphere. Some examples of critical failures in American bio labs inside and outside US can be found in an article published by USA Today that mentioned, “between 2010 to 2014, there were 644 different incidents registered including infecting the laborers and personnel.”^[14] The above mentioned GAO analysis of DOD data is another example of it. The US duplicitous commitments on WMD conventions are grave threats to international peace and security. Furthermore, the US path towards clandestine activities for hazardous biological epidemics makes peaceful nations vulnerable to Washington’s agenda of biological warfare. It is important for all those states to get legal and political accountability over the bioscience activities with which the US maintains such bilateral bioscience cooperation. In case of a catastrophe the host states would be affected directly by compromising the safety and health of their nations. Moreover, any such incident could ignite a pure military action by the neighboring states against the host state because it deliberately allowed US clandestine bioscience research in the pretext of biological weapons. After all, among other things Russian and Chinese will likely be the last islands of opposition that the wave of democracy will land upon, but when it does, the US Military Force desires to have unique weapons at its disposal in order to swiftly bring the changes it seeks. Bioweapons will likely be the ultimate choice. Therefore, COVID-19 is a new weapon that must not be ignored from the inventory of 21^st century warfare.