biological warfare
biological warfare
biological warfare
biolog′ical war′fare
n.
biological warfare
| Noun | 1. |  biological warfare - the use of bacteria or viruses or toxins to destroy men and animals or food |
| 单词 | biological warfare | |||
| 释义 | biological warfarebiological warfarebiological warfarebiolog′ical war′faren. biological warfare
biology(baiˈolədʒi) nounbiological warfarebiological warfare,employment in war of microorganisms to injure or destroy people, animals, or crops; also called germ or bacteriological warfare. Limited attempts have been made in the past to spread disease among the enemy; e.g., military leaders in the French and Indian WarsFrench and Indian Wars,1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent. ..... Click the link for more information. tried to spread smallpox among the Native Americans. Biological warfare has scarcely been used in modern times and was prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Convention. However, many nations in the 20th cent. have conducted research to develop suitable military microorganisms, including strains of smallpox, anthrax, plague, and some nonlethal agents. Such microorganisms can be delivered by animals (especially rodents or insects) or by aerosol packages, built into artillery shells or the warheads of ground-to-ground or air-to-ground missiles and released into the atmosphere to infect by inhalation. In 1972 the United States and the Soviet Union adopted an agreement, endorsed by the UN General Assembly and now ratified by more than 140 nations, to destroy existing stockpiles of biological weapons and refrain from developing or stockpiling new biological weapons. The treaty does allow research for defensive purposes, such as to develop antidotes to biological weapons. After the fall of the Soviet Union, however, it was disclosed that the Soviets had secretly increased research and production of a wide variety of deadly biological agents. Although Russian president Boris Yeltsin publicly ordered (1992) the abandonment of germ warfare, some expressed suspicion about the continued production of biological weapons in post–cold war Russia. With the rise of extremist groups and the disintegration of the established international political order in the late 20th cent., biological weapons again began to be perceived as a serious threat. In the 1990s, after the Persian Gulf WarPersian Gulf Wars, In 2001, shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, anthrax was sent through the mail in bioterrorist attacks against several locations in the United States. There was, however, no clear connection between the two terror attacks. In an attempt to develop a warning system for a bioterror attack, the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality monitoring system was adapted (2003) to permit detection of an outdoor release of smallpox and other pathogens. Such a system, however, would not have detected the narrowly focused indoor anthrax attacks of 2001. See also chemical warfarechemical warfare, BibliographySee study by J. Miller et al. (2001). biological warfare[¦bī·ə¦läj·ə·kəl ′wȯr‚fer]biological warfarebiological warfare,BWbiological warfareThe use of micro-organisms capable of spreading and causing epidemics of disease, for military purposes.biological warfarethe use of living organisms, particularly microorganisms, or their products, to induce illness or death in a population.biological warfare
Synonyms for biological warfare
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