Humans have never had trouble finding weapons. Long ago, a stick, a rock, or a sliver of sharpened steel served the purpose. Later, a piece of lead and a pinch of gunpowder represented progress. In 1945, uranium and plutonium were packaged into weapons capable of destruction on a significantly larger scale. Recently, cultists in Japan and a dictator in Iraq have reminded us of other items that belong on the list: human pesticides with science-fiction names such as sarin, soman, tabun and VX; toxins like ricin and botulinum; and disease agents like anthrax, plague, and perhaps even a mysterious virus called camelpox.

The Web is an outstanding source of information about the scientific, medical, and political aspects of these chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. A single column cannot review more than a sampling of all the government, university, and private agency-sponsored sites on the subject. Like emerging diseases, chemical and biological warfare (CBW) holds a macabre fascination for many readers and elicits serious warnings from experts. Perhaps the threat of CBW during the next century could become as troubling as was that of "the Bomb" during the last half of this century.

Outbreak, an online service providing information about emerging diseases, provides a good introduction on Chemical and Biological Agents. On Outbreak you can find medical information regarding the treatment of patients and background on the weapons in question including anthrax, plague, botulinal toxin, staphylococcal enterotoxin, tricothecene mycotoxins, and sarin, cyanide, and VX gases. The News on Chemical and Biological Agents and Threats section is up-to-date and thorough.

The Journal of the American Medical Association's August 6, 1997 issue on biological warfare is an excellent primer on the "exotic agents" most likely to be used. If CBW interests you, the material in this issue is important to absorb.

The Medical NBC Information Server is a source of medical documentation, training material, audio and video clips and current news about biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Read about the signs, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, decontamination, etc. of the most common biological weapons as well as some less well-known options including brucellosis, cholera, Q fever, tularemia, variola (smallpox), and Venezuelan equine encephalitis in the Biological Agent Information Papers section.

The folks who live (but are careful not to breathe) CBW night and day can be found in the U.S. Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command. The group's motto is "Cum Scientia Defendumus." They offer hundreds of fact sheets, links, press releases, publications and other sources of information on the messy weapons that even the military wishes did not exist.

The synthesis and chemical structures of nerve gas agents such as sarin, tabun, and VX are, of course, online. One source of the information is the Cal Poly CBW Page. The site is a product of a California Polytechnic State University Chemistry 450 seminar. In addition to the relevant chemical structures, the site offers an overview of the history of CBW weapons and the efforts to outlaw them. Today's students may become more familiar with and worried about CBW than their parents were about nuclear weapons. The views of three chemistry students from Cal Poly, along with background material, are available at their Biological Warfare and the Implications of Biotechnology page on this site.

The one biological weapon that seems to be worrying defense experts and interesting leaders like Saddam Hussein the most is anthrax, sometimes known as "woolgatherer's disease." It is considered by many to be the most lethal biological agent. Its hardy spores protect it from adverse conditions and make it a prime candidate for use as a weapon. The Pentagon considers it such a threat that, last December, it decided to vaccinate all 1.4 million active duty men and women in the U.S. military against the effects of the bacillus. For a medical microbiologist's analysis of its use as a weapon, see Sheldon Campbell's 1990 article entitled Anthrax in a Biowar Environment.

The JAMA issue devoted to CBW bears an editorial by Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg. And writing in Science, Raymond A. Zilinskas discusses the options we have for dealing with CBW in his essay "Bioethics and Biological Weapons." (Paid subscription required for access.) He calls on scientists to help control research and production of germ warfare agents. Most important, Zilinskas says, is bringing Iraqi scientists "back into the fold of the international scientific community" after sanctions imposed by the United Nations are lifted. He also recommends supporting the efforts of a half-dozen or so agencies attempting to monitor, control, or influence those who were or are engaged in research on and production of weapons of mass destruction.

If this tactic fails and such weapons are used in terrorist attacks against civilian or military targets in the United States, you may be seeing some familiar and some not-so-familiar acronyms on the front page of your local newspaper :FBI, DoD, FEMA, EPA, HHS, TEU, and TERMM. John Roos explains what they are and what they will do if terrorists release nerve gas or biological weapons in "The Ultimate Nightmare," an article in Armed Forces Journal International.

Some analysts have suggested that the difficulty of storing, delivering and controlling CBW weapons make them less a threat than most people assume. This argument seems to be weakened by memories of the casualties produced by chemical agents in the first World War and by terrorists like the cult group Aum Shinrikyo, which conducted two biological and five chemical attacks in Japan. Nor is it strengthened by the track record of Saddam Hussein, who used nerve agents against his enemies in Iran and Kurdistan. At least a dozen countries are known or suspected of having CBW programs. In addition to Iraq, these include Iran, Syria, China, Taiwan, North Korea, Egypt, states of the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Israel, and the United States of America.

Chemical and Biological Weapons Web Resources - list of sites related to the Federation of American Scientists' analysis and advocacy for strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention treaty.

"The Specter of Biological Weapons" - states' and terrorists' growing interest in germ warfare may mandate more stringent arms-control efforts to discourage attacks. By Leonard A. Cole; from the December 1996 issue of Scientific American.

Chemical and Biological Defense Information Analysis Center - "collects, reviews, analyzes, synthesizes, appraises, and summarizes information" pertaining to chemical and biological warfare.

The Harvard Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation - Web site of an "international collaborative program of research and communication to promote the global elimination of chemical and biological weapons and to strengthen the constraints against hostile uses of biomedical technologies."

Bibliography: Matthew Meselson: Chemical and Biological Warfare Issues - of Chemical and Biological Warfare Issues covers three decades of his efforts to inform people about the dangers of CBW.