The Greatest Chemical Weapon?

I've heard before of a chemical weapon that was so dangerous that if a mere teaspoon of it entered the air it could kill an incredible amount of the population of the world. Unfortunately, I have no idea if it's true at all or any links or background or anything on it. Has anyone else heard of something like this?

Sarin is extremly toxic like 1 gram can kill a person developed in ww2 by the germans

also i know the soviets were combining different types of Anthanx strans toghter to make antidotes useless

but the most kills buy any WMD is AIDs

this is the most powerful

Most Powerful Nerve Gas
VX – more correctly known by its scientific name Ethyl S-2-diisopropylaminoethylmethyl phosphonothiolate – was developed at the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment, Porton Down, Wiltshire, UK, in 1952, and is 300 times more powerful than the phosgene (COCl2) used in World War I. A lethal dosage is 10 mg-minute/m³ airborne, or 0.3 mg orally.

VX gas is a deadly substance of terrifying potency. Typically it's green and can smell of rotting fish. Once exposed to air, it vaporizes immediately and is absorbed by living things. The first symptoms on exposure to the substance are the loss of muscle control, shortly followed by convulsions and death.

Wow that sounds devastating...just out of curiousity why haven't countries in wars used more of these substances to kill people at a large scale?

And I think this substance was still stronger capable of wiping out the populations of entire countries with small amounts.

extremly hard to make. you have to breed the bacteria.
well thats what i heard.

its classed as WMD its in the same class as nukes. If any nation used them international backlash

[edit on 14-5-2005 by chinawhite]

Originally posted by chinawhite
extremly hard to make. you have to breed the bacteria.
well thats what i heard.

its classed as WMD its in the same class as nukes. If any nation used them international backlash

[edit on 14-5-2005 by chinawhite]

Are you talking about the chemical weapon that you were describing, or the one that I heard about?

Originally posted by Omniscient

Originally posted by chinawhite
extremly hard to make. you have to breed the bacteria.
well thats what i heard.

its classed as WMD its in the same class as nukes. If any nation used them international backlash

[edit on 14-5-2005 by chinawhite]

Are you talking about the chemical weapon that you were describing, or the one that I heard about?

WMD is chemical Biological and nuclear weapons

Originally posted by Omniscient
I've heard before of a chemical weapon that was so dangerous that if a mere teaspoon of it entered the air it could kill an incredible amount of the population of the world. Unfortunately, I have no idea if it's true at all or any links or background or anything on it. Has anyone else heard of something like this?

I don't know of any substance that could do this, at least an airborne one, but I do recall reading about a substance that if one gram was put into the water supply, it would kill an entire city. I did a google search, and I'm not sure if this is the same substance or not, but it does fit the bill.

www.txtwriter.com...

[i[from the above website:
Lethal Non-Infectious Agents. For a lethal bioweapon that will kill anyone directly exposed to it, but no one else, there are really only two choices that satisfy all the requirements noted above. One is botulinum toxin, a highly poisonous protein manufactured by the bacteria responsible for food poisoning. This toxin is one of the most deadly chemicals known—a hundred millionth of a gram (a few molecules) is enough to kill you. As a bioweapon, it could be expected to kill large numbers of people, but would not be easy to administer on a battlefield without endangering one’s own troops. It is an ideal bioweapon for a terrorist intent on attacking a city, however, as it could be added to a community water supply and reach large numbers of people.

Ugh I don't know how hard it is to manufacture this stuff, but imagine dumping a few kilos into the water supply of a major city.

Originally posted by chinawhite
VX gas is a deadly substance of terrifying potency. Typically it's green and can smell of rotting fish.

Actualy, VX is amber in color. Green was a myth created by the movie The Rock.

i didn't write that copy-paste

but when released into the air it turns transparent/vapourish

C. botulinum

Clostridium botulinum produces one of the most potent toxins in existence and the cause of the deadly botulism food poisoning. Because Clostridium spores can be airborne, they sometimes find their way into foods that will be placed in anaerobic storage such as cans or jars. Once the jars are sealed, the spores germinate and the bacteria release their potent toxin. Patients will experience muscular paralysis as well as blurred vision. Immmediate treatment with an anti-toxin must take place for the patient to have a chance at survival. Infantile botulism is acquired in a similar manner but is much milder than the adult version. Honey, however, is the most common source of the spores which germinate in the child's intestinal tract. Bacterial proliferation and subsequent toxin production cause symptoms which last a few days and then subside without the use of an antitoxin.

Hi everyone, new here, but been lurking for a while...........anyway, my two cents worth -

VX, botulinum, Agent Orange, etc. are all old hat - developed years ago. I don't think they've just been drinking tea for 50 years at Porton Down and similar American establishments..............

Just as an aside, "The Satan Bug" is a 1962 book from Alistair Maclean in which a nutter gets hold of botulinum and the fictional Satan Bug........... It was filmed in 1965 - the plot was relocated to America. All sorts of little things to look out for - references to Palmdale and the like - be worth seeing who the filmwriters were. I'll check it out and send a link later.

James Clavell.......very interesting

Well the 3 most potent chemical agents are in order of lethality VX GB ( Soman ) and GA ( Sarin ), the last 2 being developed by the Germans in WWII.
There are more lethal substances around but they are incapable of being weaponized, to the extent that they would be useful in a battlefield situation.

As for an ultra lethal nerve agent I think that is more fictional than real. It sounds like you're tlaking about Nerve Agent S which was in clive Cussler book, can't think of the title off hand.

Interesting, I can't say I'm quite sure if any of these are what my friend was talking about, but that one that said it could be released into a water supply...that isn't good. Like someone said earlier, can you see terrorists putting that in the central water supply of New York or Tokyo?

Also, I think that this chemical that my friend talked of not only targetted humans, but nearly all living things, which was why it was so dangerous.

Maybe your friend was talking about ricin made from castor beans. This theoretically is extremely potent, however it is a poison and not a chemical weapon.

VX is the most powerful neve agent that is publicly know about. There is probably more powerful agents, but any use of a chemical weapon is agains the geneva conventions, and would be met with a lot of crap be other countries.

Yes, I don't think it was something that they have revealed to the public or plan to use in a war, except maybe as a last resort of some type.

Mustard gas is pretty bad stuff too, it blisters the skin and tissue in the eyes mouth lungs, etc. sarin and tabun are other nerve agents that are pretty bad, but the soviets came up with a type called soman, its bad stuff too, but i have to agree VX is the worse.

Originally posted by Omniscient
Wow that sounds devastating...just out of curiousity why haven't countries in wars used more of these substances to kill people at a large scale?

Because its illegal.

And I think this substance was still stronger capable of wiping out the populations of entire countries with small amounts.

You're probably thinking of something fake, if they are talking about a teaspoon killing over 3 billion people and such.

. Like someone said earlier, can you see terrorists putting that in the central water supply of New York or Tokyo?

Tokyo has alread hada chemical weapons attack, in their subway, from a doomsday cult. I don't recall what they used.

But heck, forget about VX. Plain old mustard gas will blister your flesh and burn out your lungs, and is easy to make. Ever forget about Massive scenarios. Imagine if a cell or whathaveyou manufactured some in side the US, then released it from the back of a simply pick up and drove it down the street, especially on a stagnant day in a town thats in a valley. Not many dead, but the sheer horror of roving chemical death squads would be terrible.

chinawhite
extremly hard to make. you have to breed the bacteria.

VX?

Interestingly, VX was made (by the brits I beleive) after chemical weapons were made illegal. The weapons aren't actually illegal, its just that most nations, after using them in the Great War, decided that they were simply too horrendous to ever use again, and signed agreements to not use them.


Another note on chemical warefare and things like mustard gas. This is from a foggy memory and a parahrase at best.

One of the people researching these thingsor some such, in and around the wwi era. realized that african-americans (or afro-anglos, I ferget what country this was in), possibly due to properties of their skin, didn't suffr quite as much from mustard gas as non-africans. He figured (logically I suppose, but reprehensibly) that they should make 'blacks only' platoons/units to fight in chemical battlefields.
And this is before any sort of civil rights movement. Horrible. Chemical Weapons,

They are WMD, as noted. What this means is if you are attacked by a chemical weapon, you will respond with another WMD, ie a nuke.

Originally posted by Omniscient
I've heard before of a chemical weapon that was so dangerous that if a mere teaspoon of it entered the air it could kill an incredible amount of the population of the world. Unfortunately, I have no idea if it's true at all or any links or background or anything on it. Has anyone else heard of something like this?

VX! According to the Guniss Book of World Records, one tea spoon of VX dispirsed in the open air will kill everything within an 8-block radius from the point of dispersal.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance