Russia Studied Ebola as Bioweapon

Although Russia ended its biological weapons program in 1991, this year's outbreak has raised concerns that Ebola research has continued secretly in the former Soviet Union, reports The Washington Post.

"The bottom line is, we don’t know what they’re doing with any of the pathogens in their possession," Amy Smithson, a biological weapons expert, tells the Post.

While officials in the former Soviet Union remain tight-lipped as to what tests are being conducted at its labs, Russia recently announced it has launched production of a trial batch of the Ebola vaccine Triazavirin, according to the Russian News agency Itar-TASS.

The notion that the Ebola virus could be used as a weapon of biological terror has widely circulated on the Internet and in the blogosphere, as well as on Capitol Hill.

During a recent congressional hearing on the outbreak, Director of the National Institutes of Health Anthony Fauci said "it would take a state-type [agent]" to effectively weaponize Ebola.

Fauci reiterated his skepticism about the ability of terrorists to use Ebola as a bioweapon during an Oct. 5 appearance Fox News.

"I’m worried more about the natural evolution in West Africa than I am about a terrorist," he told host Chris Wallace. "If I were a bioterrorist, that would not be my choice."

However, a small-scale attack is not likely, but more realistic, reports Scientific American, which conducted interviews with infection and security experts.

"Ebola is a very lethal pathogenic virus," virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University told the magazine. "It’s basically weaponizing itself."

The most recent example of a nonstate actor attempting to launch a bioterror attack was in 1993 when the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used anthrax in a series of attacks.

"Reproducing the Ebola virus would present additional challenges because it is an extremely dangerous virus to work with. It has infected researchers, even when they were working in laboratories with advanced biosafety measures in place. Although Aum Shinrikyo had a large staff of trained scientists and a state-of-the-art biological weapons laboratory, it was still unable to effectively weaponize the virus," writes Scott Stewart, a security expert with Stratfor and a former State Department official.

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