[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 175 (Monday, December 17, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13349-S13351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                ANTHRAX

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, during the past few weeks, the American 
people have learned more than they thought they would ever want to know 
about the ancient scourge of anthrax. From reading the morning 
newspaper, and watching the nightly news, we have learned much about 
what anthrax is, how it infects, the dangers it poses, and ways to 
treat it.
  But there was been very little attention given to the history of this 
dreaded and deadly disease that is on everyone's mind. From where did 
it come? What has been its impact on the world?
  Let me begin by pointing out that the disease derives its name from 
anthracis, the Latin transliteration of the Greek word for coal, and 
the name probably stems from the black scab-like crust that the anthrax 
lesion develops. But through the ages, anthrax has been called by a 
variety of names. In Russia, cutaneous anthrax--infection through the 
skin--has also been called ``Siberian ulcers'' because of the 
prevalence of the disease in that region. Inhalation anthrax has been 
called ``wool sorters'' disease because it comes most commonly from 
inhalation of spore-containing dust produced when animal hair or hides 
are handled. A colloquial German term for anthrax is ``ragpicker's 
disease.''
  The exact origins of anthrax and the time of its arrival upon Earth 
are unknown. But, it is commonly accepted that anthrax has been killing 
animals, and humans too, for thousands of years, perhaps as much as 
10,000 years, dating back to the beginnings of animal domestication. It 
is certainly a

[[Page S13350]]

pestilence as old as pastoralism and the origins of civilization. It is 
believed that man probably became aware of anthrax when he turned from 
hunting to a life of farming and animal husbandry.
  The first recorded appearance of anthrax can be found in the Bible, 
where it appears that God may have used anthrax to punish the Pharaoh 
for holding the ancient Hebrews in bondage. The fifth Egyptian plague 
that affected livestock, and the sixth plague, known as the plague of 
boils, could well have been anthrax. These plagues are depicted in the 
Book of Exodus which reads: ``Behold thy hand shall be upon thy fields 
and a very grievous murrain upon thy horses, and asses, and camels and 
oxen, and sheep.'' Murrain, according to the dictionary, is a group of 
cattle diseases that includes anthrax.
  Anthrax may well have been Apollo's ``burning wind of plague'' that 
begins Homer's ``Iliad,'' a plague that attacked ``pack animals first, 
and dogs, but soldiers too.'' Ancient Greek physicians, Hippocrates and 
Galen, described skin lesions that were probably those of anthrax. Some 
medical historians believe that the ``plague of Athens,'' 430-427 B.C. 
as recorded in Thucydides's ``History of the Peloponnesian War,'' was 
probably anthrax. Thucydides describes symptoms of fever, bleeding, and 
``small pustules and ulcers,'' all consistent with a severe form of the 
anthrax infection.
  In ancient Rome, Virgil's ``Georgics'' laments the shortage of 
animals caused by what appears to have been anthrax: ``Now in droves 
she deals out death, and in the very stalls, piles up the bodies, 
rotting with putrid foulness.''
  For the next 2,000 years, animal and human anthrax ravaged Europe and 
Asia. At periodic intervals, plagues of anthrax swept across huge 
tracts of land killing massive numbers of livestock and people. In 
1613, for example, 60,000 persons in southern Europe died of anthrax.
  The disease was first recognized in North America during the colonial 
days. In Santo Domingo in 1770, about 15,000 people are reported to 
have died from intestinal anthrax contracted by eating diseased meat. 
The first recorded human case of anthrax in the United States occurred 
in Philadelphia in 1834.

  In the late 19th century, anthrax contributed to two medical 
breakthroughs. The first came in 1876 when the German physician Robert 
Koch confirmed the bacterial origins of anthrax. Koch grew the organism 
bacillus anthracis in pure culture. He demonstrated its ability to form 
endospores, and produced experimental anthrax by injecting it into 
animals. This was the first microorganism ever specifically linked to a 
disease and demonstrated that germs cause disease.
  Just 5 years later, in 1881, anthrax again contributed to medical 
history when the legendary French chemist, Louis Pasteur, produced a 
vaccine that helped prevent anthrax infection in animals. This made 
anthrax the first disease to be prevented by a vaccine.
  Inspired by Pasteur's contributions to control anthrax in animals, in 
1895, an Italian investigator named Achille Sclavo developed a serum 
for the treatment of anthrax in humans. Since then, the treatment of 
human anthrax has been further refined and the introduction of a 
succession of drugs, including penicillin, tetracycline, and, I must 
say, Cipro.
  Throughout the 20th century, despite all the progress that had been 
made in identifying and fighting the disease, naturally occurring 
anthrax has continued to take a heavy and widespread toll on the 
world's population, both animal and human. Cases of livestock being 
devastated by anthrax were reported every year throughout the world, 
with Spain, Albania, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Greece, and Russia 
suffering significant outbreaks on a regular basis. In 1945, an anthrax 
outbreak in Iran killed more than a million sheep. In the United 
States, an outbreak of anthrax in Kansas and Oklahoma in 1957 killed 
1,500 head of cattle, numerous pigs, horses, and sheep.
  In the United States, there have also been scattered, fatal cases of 
inhalation anthrax. Between 1930 and 1960, there was a football player 
who may have contracted the disease from playing-field soil, a San 
Francisco woman who beat bongo drums made of infected skin, a 
construction worker who handled contaminated felt, and several 
gardeners whose infections were traced to contaminated bone meal 
fertilizer. In Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1957, inhalation anthrax 
killed four woolen-mill workers. In the same year, a man and a woman 
living near a Philadelphia tannery also died of inhalation anthrax.
  The most deadly human anthrax epidemic in the 20th century occurred 
in Zimbabwe between 1979 and 1985. More than 10,000 people were 
infected, and at least 182 cases were fatal.
  But, it was in the 20th century that the history of anthrax took on 
another lethal dimension--anthrax became a weapon of war.
  Biological warfare, of course, was not novel to the 20th century. The 
Romans fouled water supplies of their enemies by dumping the rotting 
corpses of people and animals into the wells of their enemies. The 
Mongols catapulted the cadavers of persons who had succumbed to bubonic 
plague inside the town walls of cities they had besieged. The British, 
and later white Americans, destroyed Indian tribes by giving them 
disease-infected clothing.
  But it was in the 20th century that mankind started developing, 
experimenting with, and then deploying anthrax as a weapon of war.
  World War I is well remembered for introducing poison gas into 
warfare. But, during that war, Germany also established a large 
biological weapons program that involved anthrax. They infected 
livestock exports, bound for Russia and Allied countries, with the 
disease. In Norway, police arrested German agents carrying vials of 
anthrax bacteria with which the agents intended to infect reindeer 
being used to carry supplies to the Allied forces in Europe. In the 
United States, German agents were reported to have injected horses, 
mules, and cattle with anthrax.
  International revulsion at the horrors of World War I included a 
revulsion against chemical and biological weapons, and this led to the 
Geneva Protocol of 1925. This treaty, which 28 nations signed, 
prohibited the use of both chemical and biological weapons in war.
  The high hopes for this treaty were never achieved because it only 
banned the use of biological weapons in war, and did not expressly 
forbid their production and development. Furthermore, several nations, 
including the United States, reserved the right to use biological 
weapons in reprisal if first used against them--thus implicitly 
maintaining the right to develop and stockpile the weapons.
  The failure of the treaty was revealed in the early stages of World 
War II, when imperial Japan began a massive, deadly biological warfare 
program in Manchuria, the infamous ``Unit 731,'' which included the 
development and use of anthrax. Japanese scientists conducted 
experiments on Chinese prisoners, while the Japanese military targeted 
both the Chinese military and civilians as well as Manchurian civilians 
with anthrax weapons, killing thousands.
  There is no indication that Nazi Germany had any investment in 
biological weapons capability. According to Jeanne Guillemin, who has 
researched and written extensively on anthrax, a directive from German 
dictator Adolph Hitler forbade research on offensive biological 
weapons. However, late in the war, Guillemin writes, it appears that 
some of Hitler's subordinates, notably Reich Marshal Herman Goring, 
began supporting research on biological weapons at a small secret 
facility in Poland, but the war ended before the effort produced any 
results.
  Meanwhile, Allied governments had stepped up full scale anthrax-based 
biological warfare programs. In 1942, the British military experimented 
with explosives testing involving anthrax spores on an island just off 
the coast of Scotland. It would take the British 36 years, 280 tons of 
formaldehyde, and 2000 tons of seawater to decontaminate the island.
  In 1943, the United States began developing anthrax weapons. By the 
next year, 1944, American engineers, at what is now Fort Detrick, MD, 
had produced 5,000 anthrax bombs for use by the Allied forces, but they 
were never deployed.
  After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged 
not only in a full-scale, nuclear arms race, but also in a biological 
weapons race as well. At times, the cost was high, in

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human as well as financial terms. In 1951, for example, two Fort 
Detrick employees died after exposure to anthrax. Neither country, 
however, was deterred. The cold war was underway and so was the effort 
to develop deadly weaponry. Therefore, both countries continued 
stockpiling germs as well as nukes.
  In 1969, President Richard Nixon had finally had enough. After 
reviewing the extensive U.S. investment in offensive biological 
weapons, he declared: ``Mankind already carries in its own hands too 
many of the seeds of its own destruction.'' He terminated the American 
offensive biological weapons program and began championing a British 
proposal that called for an international treaty to ban biological 
weapons, an effort that resulted in the Biological Weapons and Toxins 
Convention and Treaty of 1972. Since then, 140 states have signed the 
treaty agreeing to halt research directed at the offensive use of 
biological weapons.

  The high hopes for this treaty were smashed when both the United 
States and Soviet Union interpreted the treaty in such a way as to 
allow ongoing research on more than 200 projects. The failure of the 
treaty was vividly and tragically demonstrated in April, 1979, when an 
anthrax outbreak at a military microbiology facility in the Soviet 
Union killed about 70 people.
  The end of the cold war failed to end the threat of biological 
weapons. Because they are deadly, cost-effective weapons to produce--a 
major biological weapons program requires only about $10,000 worth of 
equipment and a 16x16 square-foot room--biological weapons became a 
weapon of choice for international terrorists. Domestic as well as 
foreign terrorist organizations have been caught attempting to unleash 
anthrax upon innocent civilians. In the 1990s, the Japanese terrorist 
cult that attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin gas, also 
released anthrax on Tokyo near the imperial palace, the legislature, 
and a foreign embassy. Fortunately, no one was injured.
  What these terrorist groups or nations could not produce themselves, 
American companies have been ready to provide.
  According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, 
licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported biological and 
chemical materials to Iraq from 1985 through 1989. Newsday reported 
that one American company alone made 70 shipments of the anthrax-
causing germs and other pathogenic agents to Iraq in the 1980s.
  Mr. President, I find it unfortunately ironic that American companies 
were supplying anthrax to a nation with which, just a few years later, 
we were at war, thus forcing American soldiers to face the prospects of 
encountering those same germs on the battlefield. I find it tragically 
ironic that American companies were selling anthrax to a country that 
the State Department now includes on its lists of states that sponsor 
terrorism--a nation that may now be participating in anthrax attacks 
upon the United States.
  I realize that Iraq had been at war with Iran, and Iran was our 
bigger enemy at the time. Therefore, it may have served our military 
and political interests to have been shipping supplies of anthrax to 
Iraq. But, I have to ask, shouldn't we have been a little more careful 
about which countries we supplied with such potentially deadly weapons? 
We realized the danger in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Why 
shouldn't we have been as vigilant with biological weapons? We may now 
be paying the price for our negligence!
  I also realize that this is hindsight, and, as they say, hindsight is 
twenty-twenty. The worst private's hindsight, they say, is better than 
the best general's foresight.
  We have recently had foresight--warnings that have been ignored.
  A short time ago, the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st 
Century, referred to as the Hart-Rudman Commission, pointed out:

     biological weapons are the most likely choice of means for 
     disaffected states and groups of the 21st century.

  Two years ago, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, CIA Director George Tenet pointed out:

       There are a number of terrorist groups seeking to develop 
     or acquire biological and chemical weapons capabilities. Some 
     such groups--like Usama bin Ladin's--have international 
     networks, adding to uncertainty and the danger of a surprise 
     attack.

  Last April, the State Department, in its ``Patterns of Global 
Terrorism,'' pointed out:

       Most terrorists continue to rely on conventional tactics . 
     . . but some terrorists--such as Usama bin Laden and his 
     associates--continue to seek chemical, biological, 
     radiological, and nuclear capabilities.

  There were plenty of warnings that an archenemy of the United States, 
an archenemy determined to kill as many Americans as he could, could 
well unleash this ancient scourge upon America.
  Who among us could have truly comprehended beforehand the horror of 
September 11? It is difficult enough to understand even after the fact.
  But if history teaches us anything, it is that we should never 
underestimate the enduring power of evil. No science fiction writer 
ever wrote of anything as horrible as the Nazi Holocaust. It took an 
evil madman and his fanatical followers to make it a reality.
  Now we are faced with another madman and his fanatical followers. We 
cannot allow ourselves to ever again underestimate him or others like 
him.

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