Biohazard

Reader Haaz contributed this review of Biohazard. Since my typical airport reading consists of lurid thrillers about either medical examiners in murder-prone counties or terrorists with nasty bioweapons stolen from secret labs in Uzbekistan, this sounds like it might be a bit too scary. In the case of bioagents, being forewarned is only partly the same as being forearmed.

Biohazard author Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman pages 336 publisher Random House rating 8 reviewer haaz ISBN 0375502319 summary A fascinating and chilling account of the Soviet Union's bio-weapons program, by the man who ran it.

Biological warfare has usually been a nightmare constrained to the realm of theory and bad dreams. If you have read The Hot Zone, which documents people who work with the world's most deadly viruses, such as Ebola, you know how frightening even a small outbreak of a deadly disease can be. But imagine a nation carefully researching, stockpiling, and preparing to use these nightmarish weapons in a major war.

From the middle of World War II -- and possibly to the present day -- the Soviet Union (now Russia) did just that. In a super-secret military program, the country developed, stockpiled and prepared to use biological weapons in an expected ultimate war with the West. Among their tools: bacterial weapons including anthrax and tumerlia, and weaponized viruses. Enhanced smallpox was being prepared as a weapon, as were a whole host of hemmoragic fever viruses, including the famous Ebola and Marbug viruses.

Ken Alibek's Biography Mr. Alibek was a unique person in the Soviet system. As the grandson of a Kazhakstanian kahn, he was one of the few non-white Russians to achieve high ranking within the Soviet military and society. After graduating from the Tomsk Medical Institute in 1975, he joined Biopreparat, a secret Soviet military program that fronted as a pharmaceutical research organization. Their actual mission: develop the most deadly conceivable biological weapons probably meant to be used in a war with the United States.

How did a physician, originally dedicated to healing and treating illness, become one of the top researchers in harnessing infectious diseases as weapons? Mr. Alibek himself seems to be unsure of this, or at least chooses not to talk about it. He documents his entry into the Biopreparat weapons program, and gradual rise to the position of head researcher for the program, but never addresses this question.

Mr. Alibek defected to the United States in 1992 after an official visit, during which he saw how much better life in the United States was as compared to Soviet life. What he is doing now is a very good question. The cover of the book simply states that "he is now working in biodefense," but nothing is stated beyond that.

The Book Biohazard is a very easy read for anyone with the slightest medical or technical background. A great deal of time is spent describing life within the Soviet system and the secret weapons program. The book's lack of technical information and its relatively brief length make it fairly easy to read, but the continuing parade of names and people within the system does get tedious.

You may want to have a notepad handy to keep track of the long Russian names, not to mention the myriad installations for researching and preparing the agents. The authors have a tendency to jump back in time to describe an episode or sequence of events; something may start in the 1970s and end in the 1980s. This semi-constant contextual leaping can be a bit distracting. The book's details of the Soviet systems will be quite fascinating for some people. One of the first pages in the book is a two-page map of the former Soviet Union, showing the locations and functions of about forty bioweapons installations, ranging from stockpiles to testing grounds and laboratories. Several of them, including a lonely Siberian outpost, the infamous Rebirth Island, and the Sverdlosk manufacturing plant are described in detail.

Perhaps the most intriguing story is about the time an anthrax contamination in a city, and the government's official response to this. Most interesting of all: the mayor of the town was none other than Boris Yeltsin, the future president of Russia.

In summation, as long as you can deal with the relatively minor flaws, Biohazard is not difficult to read. What can be difficult to deal with is the possibility of biological warfare. It is very disturbing to read about what happened to the animals exposed to these diseases, and then to imagine the same things happening to people in a city. Let's hope that Mr. Alibek's prediction of a terrorist biological attack never happens.

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

Comments

Wakeup Call

[anto]

If nothing else the descriptions of just how powerful & easy to deploy some of the agents discussed makes an absolute joke of technology such as a glabal missile defence. A modified smallpox could wipe the US off the map without so much as an ICBM in sight.

Dr. Alibek's Writings Available On The Web

[cybrpnk]

This is one scary book that everybody should read. The Russian author, Ken Alibek, moved to Alabama (where I live) where he was a consultant after his defection to the US Army Chemical/Biological Warfare Group at Fort McClellan in Anniston, so I have actually followed this story fairly closely. Dr. Alibek is basically the guy behind the drive to vaccinate the US Army against anthrax, which has caused quite a furor over the past few years. A slide show he gave/gives fairly frequently is here and his Congressional testimony is here... it's VERY interesting reading. If Dr. Alibek's writings don't induce a rising sense of worry in the back of your mind, just keep reading here.