Biological Warfare

Hi Hello!

Well, I chose Biological Warfare for my CAJ. So, what am I supposed to make out of it? I have no idea.
I basically chose it because I think it's an interesting topic...how people use science and inventions to actually just hurt others or destroy them in whatever way.

One of my favourite series, Perception, treated this subject once:
The story was about a farmer who lost everything because, and that's where it gets complicated - but I'll do my very best to explain it - the grain he harvested and sold was of a new genus that a huge company invented and patented. He, however sold it without permission and said that it was another genus, and when the company found out that it actually was their new genus they sued him so that he lost everything. After some further investigation, the FBI agents who were working on this case find out that it actually never was the farmers fault because the grain this company invented was spreading over the surrounding area all by itself and growing rampant like some super effective weed. The company knew about it and used this characteristic for suing and destroying the business of all the small farmers that might present a potential threat for their predominance in the grain market.

That was one point when I thought that this might be an interesting topic for my CAJ, so here I am.
As this basically is the only thing I know about Biological Warfare so far I will start at the very beginning and then hopefully find somewhere to go into depth about this topic so that I will achieve the task we are given.

So, what is the actual definition of the term Biological Warfare?
According to merriam webster it is "the use of harmful living things (such as germs that cause disease) as weapons in a war", according to Oxford Dictionaries it is "The use of toxins of biological origin or microorganisms as weapons of war". 

Well, Biological Warfare already started in the early years of men and of course was used mainly in wars. Some techniques of the past were poisoning wells with decomposing bodies or dipping weapons in decomposing bodies in order to infect the wounds they were causing. Another example is that colonialists gave smallpox-infected blankets to the natives in order to decimate their numbers.
Since these simple yet rather effective methods we've developed rapidly and the methods used nowadays are far more efficient and malicious.
The Geneve Protocol, signed by 108 nations already in 1925, prohibits chemical agents (as the germs and viruses used in Biological Warfare are called). However, there is no way the compliance with this multilateral law is guaranteed.

So, in my next blog post I will hopefully already have managed to actually inform myself a little more and have a better overview over my whole topic.


http://www.emedicinehealth.com/biological_warfare/article_em.htm