Biological War: A Scenario

“‘When you are sick [with plague], normally, you feel lethargic,’ Heine explains. ‘You isolate. You stay at home. But if you have plague and you feel euphoric, you go out and socialize. And you contaminate a lot of other people with recombinant plague.’”

Dr. Heine explains the design of the engineered plague, which alters typical illness behavior. Instead of isolating, infected individuals feel euphoric and socialize, becoming more likely to transmit the disease. The pathogen is therefore engineered to encourage behavior that increases its own transmission.

“At Asilomar, Berg said, ‘We focused on the science…We didn’t discuss biological warfare.’”

Berg’s admission reveals an important omission in early discussions about the risks of genetic engineering: biological warfare was not discussed at Asilomar. This introduces the dual-use dilemma, in which scientific advances intended for legitimate purposes can also be adapted for biological warfare.

“‘You do not choose plague as a battlefield weapon,’ says Davis. ‘You chose plague because you’re going to take out the other person’s country. It’s a nuclear equivalent, except it’s cleaner. It leaves all the infrastructure intact. Full stop. That’s what it is about.’”

Davis’s assessment clarifies the scale of the threat posed by weaponized plague. He explains that plague would function as a strategic weapon of mass extermination, capable of devastating a country while leaving its physical infrastructure intact.