Various types of biological weapons have been known and practiced throughout history, including the use of biological agents such as microbes and plants, as well as biotoxins and the venoms that can be derived from them. In ancient civilisations, the attempt was to infect and kill enemies by throwing cadavers into water wells. Emperor Barbarossa during the battle of the Italian town, Tortona, in 1155, did the same. In modern times, America and the Soviet Union also undertook biological warfare and anti-biological warfare protection activities. This even intensified after WWII.When the Soviet forces captured and interrogated some Japanese scientists in 1945, they utilized the obtained information in their own biowarfare program and their research accelerated in 1946. Following this, a series of new biowarfare study centres and production facilities was constructed in the 1950s. The Soviet biowarfare program included tularemia, anthrax, brucellosis, plague, glanders, marburg virus, smallpox virus, and VEE virus. During the time of the Korean War, it was believed that biowarfare agents were used by America against Soviet Union. The Americans had began their own program in Fort Detrick (former Camp Detrick) in 1943 and a new production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas was constructed. The United States of America started producing tons of Brucella suis in 1954. In the peak year of their program, they involved about 3,400 people and a number of agents: Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, Brucella suis, Coxiella burnetti,Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, yellow fever, botulin, Staphylococcal enterotoxin, and the anticrop agents Pyricularia oryzae and Puccinia graminis. Due to public pressure, President Nixon declared a unilateral halt in 1969 to biological weapon projects. The only permitted research was defensive, such as diagnostic, vaccines, and chemotherapies tests – as evidenced in the UK where the base in Porton Down was converted into a defence institution.
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