World almost destroyed - by accident!

[Dudley]

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4439053.stm" target="_blank">World almost destroyed by accident

[Byron Virgo]

Not really the end of the world - it'd only kill off those born after 1969 (which, admittedly, would be he majority). Still, I'd like to see a post apocalypse world totally inhabited by octogenarians.

[longmanshort]

Pffp, that's nowt - when Reagan got shot they lost the card with all his nuclear codes on ...

[Jared Katooie]

Let's not forget that that terrorists have had access to much more dangerous diseases in the past. Dodgy Russian scientists apparently made a fair bit of moolah from selling smallpox to various wierdos.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

bah bah philosophise, bloody idiots, heres me struggling on with a million petty battles & some twelve monkey could wipe us all out...mind you i'd be okay, being old.

and as for a world inhabited by octogenarians, i already live in one, trust me, it smells of wee & the only work is in the oatcake & steradent business.

[longmanshort]

Pffp, if you're looking for nasty bugs to spread around the world you don't need to break into any hi-tech lab ... just walk along the dried-up bed of the Aral Sea to Vozrozhdeniye Island, which is technically now a peninsula rather than an island.

It's where the former Soviet Union tested biological weapons from the 1930s. The work eventually stopped with the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

However, anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, plague, typhus, Q fever, botulinum toxin, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis had been tested in open-air sites on the island.

The US and Uzbek governments have begun a project to decontaminate the island but the Russian government has refused to provide any information on how much anthrax is meant to be there.

Because the Aral Sea is shrinking, a land bridge has appeared, connecting Vozrozhdeniye with the Uzbek mainland - and the peninsula is growing wider. Hence, there is a danger of island animals carrying diseases organisms will migrate to the mainland. Also, if people start traveling to the island, they might come into contact with disease agents, either buried in the soil or carried by rodents and insects.

Over the past several years, local residents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have flocked to the island to seize abandoned equipment, building materials and scrap metal after the Russians left. Reportedly, there have been some cases of infectious diseases among people who had spent time on the island or used equipment carried from it.

So, no need to panic then ...

Link: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040225-042707-9905r" target="_blank">Not exactly *difficult* to find, is it ...

[Funt Solo]

"Ironically, much of Iraq's chemical arsenal was made by U.S. companies"

Life, November 1995.