Ethics of Biological Warfare Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethics of Biological Warfare - Essay Example modern wars are characterized by the use of biochemical and thermo thermonuclear weapons rather than manual force. Thus, contemporary wars deport erupted on all levels ranging from domestic to international. The increase of knowledge in such fields as nuclear physics, chemistry, biota and radiology has generated a fear among the scientists about the potential of the modified pathogens to comprise overwhelming agents for the warfare. This paper presently discusses the history of warfare and the ethics of sciences role in the advancement of modern warfare in universal and the chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) warfare in particular. The evolution of all sorts of weaponry foundation essentially be attributed to the dual-use dilemma. Researchers may not be intending to develop something potentially harmful, yet they assume great disposition to do so while experimenting with noble intentions. A inquiry done in 2001 d emonstrates the dual-use dilemma. In this research, the researchers efforts were tell at creating a contraceptive vaccine for the pest control, but on their way, researchers ended up develop a bioweapon. Australian researchers hypothesized that introducing a gene that creates large amounts of interleukin-4 (IL-4) into mice would stimulate antibodies against mouse eggs and render the animals barrenThe scientists chose a benign mousepox virusthat killed all of the mice in the study. IL-4 suppressed the immune system, making it unable to push the mousepox virus. With no defensive launched by the immune system the virus was 100 percent lethal. The virus was importantly lethal even in mice vaccinated against this particular strain of mousepox. (Nowak cited in Reyes). The same technique can be used for the humans since the human smallpox is equivalent to the virus of the mousepox. Before getting their research report published, the Australian researchers seeked guidance from Australia s Department of Defence regarding their proceedings. Jackson, one of the researchers said, We wanted to warn the general population that this potentially dangerous technology is available. We wanted to make it clear to the scientific community that they should be careful, that it is not too difficult to create severe organisms (Jackson cited in Nowak). This also speaks of the fact that many techniques have been brought to the attention of the concerned parties by the scientists with the positive intention of warning them against such experiments. It is hard to justify the information of nuclear weaponry by any standard of ethics until one country developed it for the beginning(a) time. In the current circumstances, its development is inevitable given some countries that possess nuclear weapons can not be allowed to rule the world just because other countries dont have them. Countries need nuclear weapons not because they want to attack others, but because they need to be sufficien t in their self-defense. A nuclear war does not make anyone succeed as long as both the countries are in possession of the nuclear weapons. Even if not suddenly, many abnormalities show up eventually. Citizens of Heroshema and Nagasaki have retained the effect of nuclear war in their genes and many have thus lost the tendency to give nascency to normal children. International treaties to outlaw the biological weapons have surfaced from time to time first in 1925 and accordingly