Reducing the Demand for Bio-Weapons

Abstract

Fifteen years ago I published in the Lancet appealing for a reduction in the threat of biological weapons by reducing global inequalities [1]. That was before the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and before the emergence of the Islamic state and other organizations such as Boko Haram [2]. It was also before climate change emerged as a definite “threat multiplier” of conflict, famine, mass migration [3] and, by extension, of biological war.