Man has used poisons for assassination purposes ever since the dawn of civilization, not only against individual enemies but also occasionally against armies. According to (Frischknecht, 2003)11 article on the History of Biological Warfare, during the past century, more than 500 million people died of infectious diseases. Several tens of thousands of these deaths were due to the deliberate release of pathogens or toxins. Two international treaties outlawed biological weapons in 1925 and 1972, but they have largely failed to stop countries from conducting offensive weapons research and large-scale production of biological weapons. Before the 20th century, biological warfare took on three main forms: (1) deliberate poisoning of food and water with infectious material, (2) use of microorganisms or toxins in some form of weapon system, and (3) use of biologically inoculated fabrics (Dire, 2013)8. This action plan is aimed at the recognition of the lack of current processes in place under an unidentified lead agency to detect, identify, track, and contain biological agents that can enter into the United States through a human host. This action plan program has been identified as the Consumer of Concern Early Entry Program or a simpler title is C-CEEP.

Date Published: 29 May 2014
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 9073, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XV, 907310 (29 May 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2048324

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9073:
Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XV
Augustus Way Fountain III, Editor(s)