BMJ 2002;324:362 ( 9 February )

Letters

Response to bioterrorism

    Terror weapons are regarded as weapons of mass destruction
    US anthrax incidents led to scares in Scotland
    Screening for agents of bioterrorism increases terror
    Countermeasures against weapons of mass destruction must be assessed now
    Anthrax issue underlines need for infection specialists trained at bedside

Terror weapons are regarded as weapons of mass destruction

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Wessely et al speculate that a major reason why "armies have generally acquiesced in international treaties to contain" biological and chemical agents is these agents are "particularly ineffective as military weapons [and] have only limited uses."1 This piece of reasoning does not do justice to the intelligence and serious intent of the drafters and signatories of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the 1972 Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons, and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, nor does it explain why spears and stones are not similarly prohibited.

Terror weapons (biological, chemical, and nuclear) are so called not because they are capable of wreaking psychological destruction far in excess of their actual destructive capacity but because their use is considered inherently abhorrent. Somehow, in the collective psyche of our civilised world, killing and maiming with conventional weapons has always been considered more acceptable and less inhumane. Why should that be so?

Unthinkable . . . [Full text of this article]
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