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Plagues on Our Children

The Threat of Biological Warfare

United States Army Medical Unit, Fort Detrick, Maryland

Twenty-five years ago, at the beginning of World War II, chemical and biological weapons began to be developed in this country. At that time, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated: "Use of such weapons has been outlawed by the general opinion of civilized mankind ... we shall under no circumstances resort to the use of such weapons unless they are first used by our enemies."

A few years later the United States became the first country to use nuclear weapons. More recently, we have been employing non-lethal gases (tear and nausea gases) against the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The world's press has been terming the use of these gases a form of chemical warfare.

As for biological warfare activities, the current published position of the United States on this matter is stated in Army Field Manual FM 27-10: "The United States is not a party to any treaty, now in force, that prohibits or restricts the use in warfare of toxic or nontoxic gases, of smoke or incendiary materials, or of bacteriological warfare."

Many military leaders believe that if non-lethal chemicals and diseases were employed as weapons there would be less killing and less destruction of homes and factories. It is not our purpose here to discuss whether these weapons are truly less humane than flame-throwers, napalm, and nuclear bombs. But once we have accepted the use of chemical and biological weapons, there is no guarantee that only non-lethal ones will be used.

As Sidel and Goldwyn * pointed out recently, there has been little public discussion by the medical profession on the ethics or advisability of developing and using chemical and biological weapons. Yet we must remember that it is our medical and other scientists, both in civilian and in military positions, who are helping to perfect these weapons and also the defenses against them.

To collaborate in or even simply to condone the imposition of disease on a population of civilians is certainly a contravention of Hippocrates' oath: "... I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course...."

This issue is complex and uncomfortable, but each physician must evaluate his rights and duties—both as a citizen and as a doctor.

The dilemma has perhaps been best expressed by Albert Einstein when he said: Science has brought forth this danger, but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men. —ROBERT E. NOPAR, M.D.

Clinical Pediatrics, Vol. 6, No. 2, 63-73 (1967)
DOI: 10.1177/000992286700600201


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