Biological warfare

Coronavirus outbreak is an opportunity to end all bioweapon programs

The emergence of Coronavirus has sparked a fresh controversy over biological warfare programs being run clandestinely by some countries and the need to put an end to them

The United States recently filed a class-action lawsuit worth $20 trillion against China claiming that Coronavirus is a bioweapon that the latter has designed to kill populations en masse. But, in the absence of any conclusive evidence, the claims still remain speculation.

The origin of the controversy

The ongoing controversy around coronavirus being a bioweapon began with US senator Tom Cotton alleging that the virus was created in Wuhan laboratory, which have been given credence by the statement made by Dr Francis Boyle–the creator of Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act and a professor of International Law. Dr Boyle has agreed that the Coronavirus is a biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent with DNA-genetic engineering. On the other hand are experts like Professor Richard Ebright, a biosecurity expert and a professor at Rutgers University’s Waksman Institute of Microbiology, who disagree and call it mere speculation.

What exactly is a biological warfare weapon?

That brings us to the question of what afterall a biological warfare weapon is. Also called a germ weapon, it is a biological threat that is deliberately released to cause a number of diseases. Biological warfare agents differ in their potency, length of incubation, lethality, and the ability to be treated with medicines. A biological weapon costs much lesser than a nuclear weapon but can be much more lethal...