Human Bioweapon?

Just out of curiosity, is it technologically feasible to use humans as carriers for biological weapons?

All that would be really needed is a disease that is both virulent, but also has a long and asymptomatic incubation phase, and is transmissible via casual contact (like the flu).

solarz said:

Just out of curiosity, is it technologically feasible to use humans as carriers for biological weapons?

All that would be really needed is a disease that is both virulent, but also has a long and asymptomatic incubation phase, and is transmissible via casual contact (like the flu).

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Don't see why it can't happen (although I don't want to). I mean the Spanish Conquistadors were able to nearly wiped out the entire indigenous populations of the Mayans, Incas, etc. simply by passing their germs onto them. Because the indigenous populations didn't raise cattle, pigs, or sheep, as a result their immune system couldn't fight the germs or disease. As of today, I say probably and probably not. The human immune systems has gone through a lot of change and adapting through time, but I wouldn't be surprise some government scientist are working on it.

Equation said:

Don't see why it can't happen (although I don't want to). I mean the Spanish Conquistadors were able to nearly wiped out the entire indigenous populations of the Mayans, Incas, etc. simply by passing their germs onto them. Because the indigenous populations didn't raise cattle, pigs, or sheep, as a result their immune system couldn't fight the germs or disease. As of today, I say probably and probably not. The human immune systems has gone through a lot of change and adapting through time, but I wouldn't be surprise some government scientist are working on it.

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It has the potential to be the ultimate terrorist weapon: undetectable, unstoppable, and devastating.

solarz said:

It has the potential to be the ultimate terrorist weapon: undetectable, unstoppable, and devastating.

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True but it could also back fire on you if assuming you have the one and only defensive measure such as a vaccine to become ineffective when or if that bio weapon morphed into something unexpectedly different, therefore become more resilient to any vaccine or counter measures.

solarz said:

Just out of curiosity, is it technologically feasible to use humans as carriers for biological weapons?

All that would be really needed is a disease that is both virulent, but also has a long and asymptomatic incubation phase, and is transmissible via casual contact (like the flu).

Click to expand...

It's already possible via current biological warfare, and SARS already demonstrate how effective human as a vector and/or carrier of diseases which possess the character you suggested.

The problem with biological warfare is the it's messy to cleanup when the agent got into the environment, or worse, into non-human host that cause the bio agent's DNA to mutate into something new (like how H5N1 or H7N9), making original vaccine obsolete.

So, it's not something recommended when you're intended to use when you've the intent to occupy the land for yourselves.

Makes me worried about H1N7, which the Chinese gov't recently confirmed has made human to human transmission and the coming the mass migration of the Chines New Year season.

the problem with terrorists emploing the flu is it's likely that by the time they tried to do it. Flu like H1N7 is likely already a pandemic.
Most of the "super bugs" are pretty much so infectious that they are going to flare all on there own. the more "entertaining" virus's those with a 99% leathality rate burn out to quick.
Is it possible to a terror group to spread a viral agent? yes it is, but it would either in My opinion cause little that could not happen naturally or effect only a small scale.

solarz said:

Just out of curiosity, is it technologically feasible to use humans as carriers for biological weapons?

All that would be really needed is a disease that is both virulent, but also has a long and asymptomatic incubation phase, and is transmissible via casual contact (like the flu).

Click to expand...

There are serious practical problems with using this "weapon", provided the intention of the weapon is to enable one side to "win", and not simply to exterminate humanity. For the weapon to be effective, it must be highly contagious. Yet for the side developing it to "win", it must be debilitating when contracted by the enemy, and benigh when contracted by friends. Modern world is highly integrated, and the baseline immunity of different human populations are similar. Therefore few contagions can effect different groups dramatically differently. This is a different situation from Spanish and Native Americans, where the population of the old world and the new world had been segregated for 10,000+ years, as a result the Spanish and Native Americans had dramatically different baseline immunities. So the need to hurt one group more than another automatically greatly reduces the number of candidate contagion weapons, as well as the kind of vectors that can be employed.

solarz said:

It has the potential to be the ultimate terrorist weapon: undetectable, unstoppable, and devastating.

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Except the most likely targets for terrorists are also places with the best health care infrastructures. So any terrorist from fringes of modern world would more likely find the the results of their biological terrorism effecting their own friends more than their enemies.

chuck731 said:

Except the most likely targets for terrorists are also places with the best health care infrastructures. So any terrorist from fringes of modern world would more likely find the the results of their biological terrorism effecting their own friends more than their enemies.

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If something like SARS is able to completely paralyze modern health care system, I don't hold out much hope for an actual weaponized version of it.

What I'm talking about is a dozen guys injecting themselves with the disease, hop on a plane to the US, and start hanging out in places with large crowds.