A dangerous development
Before the development of genetic manipulation technologies, states were limited to collecting pathogens during epidemics. “When we had a virulent pandemic, viruses and bacteria were collected and tested in the laboratory on animals. We tried to determine their dissemination capacities while trying to develop vaccines to protect against them. This was what essentially determined of research into biological weapons”, explains the expert. But research has evolved since the 1990s. Scientists from all countries are extending their limits and beginning to manipulate existing or former viruses. “From the 2000s, we have had numerous tools allowing us to modify pathogens or even create new ones from scratch,” explains Eric Muraille. “For example, we were able to resurrect viruses present in the frozen soil of Siberia. Researchers were even able to reconstruct the 1918 Spanish flu virus. These experiments sparked significant controversy due to the risks of spreading these virus in the event of an accident. We were trying to take a harmless virus and make it more and more aggressive,” he continues, “Today, we are able to do exactly what we wanted to do with it. wanna”. These manipulations were carried out with the aim of being able to deal with potential mutations of formidable viruses, but by these methods, this same danger was created in the laboratory.
“If we do not act quickly to deter our adversaries, we risk facing catastrophe”
These modifications are completely prohibited, on a global scale, in “conventional research”. “No university laboratory can carry out research for this purpose. It is impossible to be funded for this. When we do research on biological weapons, it is always with the aim of protecting ourselves from them. It is very locked down “, specifies the immunologist, before qualifying, “obviously, certain countries will not respect this ban.”
Currently, a concrete threat?
“There is always a potential threat. Biological weapons are easy weapons to create because they multiply on their own,” says the expert. “What has most often prevented the use of biological weapons is that they are almost impossible to control. Once you put this crap in the wild, it spreads and attacks everyone They can also mutate, evolve and become uncontrollable. The only way a group can attack while reducing the risks to itself is to create in advance the vaccine against the pandemic it has spread, not counting mutations. But, due to the evolutionary capabilities of viruses and bacteria, even this strategy would be very risky. This is why the use of this weapon has not become popular. “We have to go back to the Middle Ages or the colonial era to find some cases of the use of biological weapons. We could throw the corpses of people who died during epidemics into besieged cities or poison wells,” explains Eric. Wall. He takes the example of cases where settlers in the United States gave Indians clothing infested with germs such as smallpox. According to him, it was “rather anecdotal. There have not really been any major attempts on the part of the armies to use it, but there have been research and some tests […] But precise information on these projects has not been disclosed,” he concludes.
Views on Russia
Despite the risk, are any nations or groups working to sharpen this weapon? The eyes of the world are turning to Russia for these fears. “Practically all countries have the means to develop it. Russia, for example, has the expertise and the means to do so. Especially since they had, at the time of the USSR, a major biological weapons program And current Russian science is not at half mast at this level So, it is likely that biological weapons are being developed in the world at the moment,” determines the expert. .
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Targeting specific ethnic groups?
This is what the experts interviewed in the Washington Post article suggest. To this, Eric Muraille responds clearly: “The idea of these projects really existed, and South Africa worked on it during apartheid.” Some white supremacist radicals wanted to create biological weapons that would have targeted only African populations. “The result of this research is not known. Was it achievable with the means at the time? I don’t think so,” he says. “On the other hand, today, with the genetic modification tools we have at our disposal and the help of artificial intelligence, we could probably create pathogens that target one ethnic group more than another,” he warns. Which is alarming, because it would open new perspectives to certain radicals who might believe that these weapons would be without danger for themselves, but Eric Muraille specifies that “human genetic diversity is such that the idea of developing a pathogen which does not would kill only one ethnic group while not affecting the others is probably only a fantasy.
According to the expert, “there are only supremacist and very racist groups that could want to develop this. There is not really a state that has this profile. In the scenarios that we can imagine, these are mainly small terrorist groups who may consider it because they don’t care about the damage they do because they have no population to protect. Note all the same that “in the past, States have done it, so I would say that we cannot completely exclude it, especially since the means are really much more important. North Korea for example example, no one knows what’s going on there. They already have nuclear weapons and chemical weapons, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have biological weapons for Russia, for two years, following this. invasion of Ukraine, there was a massive boycott of scientists Russians who work in Russia are increasingly isolated, and some may be increasingly radicalized. This is the kind of situation that could lead researchers to agree to work on this type of research if they believe that. the survival of their country is at stake,” concludes Eric Muraille.
