Overall View of Chemical and Biochemical Weapons

Abstract

This article describes a brief history of chemical warfare, which culminated in the signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It describes the current level of chemical weapons and the risk of using them. Furthermore, some traditional technology for the development of chemical weapons, such as increasing toxicity, methods of overcoming chemical protection, research on natural toxins or the introduction of binary technology, has been described. In accordance with many parameters, chemical weapons based on traditional technologies have achieved the limit of their development. There is, however, a big potential of their further development based on the most recent knowledge of modern scientific and technical disciplines, particularly at the boundary of chemistry and biology. The risk is even higher due to the fact that already, today, there is a general acceptance of the development of non-lethal chemical weapons at a technologically higher level. In the future, the chemical arsenal will be based on the accumulation of important information from the fields of chemical, biological and toxin weapons. Data banks obtained in this way will be hardly accessible and the risk of their materialization will persist.

Novichok Agents - Mysterious Poisonous Substances From the Cold War Period

“…They were designed as part of a Soviet program codenamed "FOLIANT" (Pitschmann, 2014), nevertheless Russia officially denies producing or researching Novichok agents (Borger, 2018). Novichok agents were developed during the Cold War period and have never been used on the battlefield.…”

Chemical warfare in the First World War: reflections 100 years later

“…Later years saw the addition of new chemicals, such as nerve agents sarin, tabun, and others, which represent the most toxic group of CWA so far. Moreover, new uses were employed for chemicals such as the defoliating Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, whose contaminating dioxins had adverse health effects on the population as well (Pitschmann 2014 (Yanagisawa et al 2006). The threat of CWA is probably real.…”

“…"Incapacitating", nonlethal agents, such as tear gas, are currently allowed under the CWC. The term nonlethal chemical weapon is problematic from a toxicologists point of view as such compounds can be nonlethal to some people but not to others, depending on gender, age, general health, and the actual exposure (Pitschmann 2014). A tragic example represents the Moscow theatre hostage crisis in 2002, when a mixture of opioids was used to overwhelm kidnappers and free the hostages, which caused the death of 15 % of all people present in the theatre (Riches et al 2012).…”

“…a chemical can be used either to harm or to save lives. Modern scientific approaches, such as combinatorial chemistry or nanotechnology, harbour a big risk for the development of new chemical weapons (Pitschmann 2014). On the other hand, chemicals used to synthesize CWA can be used as common industrial chemicals (Pitschmann 2014), as is the case for phosgene and analogues.…”

“…Modern scientific approaches, such as combinatorial chemistry or nanotechnology, harbour a big risk for the development of new chemical weapons (Pitschmann 2014). On the other hand, chemicals used to synthesize CWA can be used as common industrial chemicals (Pitschmann 2014), as is the case for phosgene and analogues. Maybe the best example for dual use of toxic chemicals represents chemical mustards; clinical findings of victims of a mustard release in Bari, Italy, in WWII, supported the discovery that mustards exert strong cytostatic effects on the hematopoietic system (DeVita and Chu 2008).…”