OK, why would someone use anthrax as a biological weapon? As far as I can see, it’s more difficult to create in quantity, as difficult to work with, and much less lethal than nerve gasses. I thought the main reason to use biological weapons instead of chemical weapons was that they can spread through the population, but anthrax (at least the inhaled version) doesn’t do that. I just don’t see why you’d mess around with anthrax when, if you’ve got the capability for it, you could just make nerve gasses.
I think it’s just that it’s a relatively low-tech setup to produce the stuff.
Oh, and it’s nasty, which seems to increase it’s appeal to terrorists.
Anthrax is not a particularly great biological weapon. It is infectous, but not very contageous, so it is quite difficult to spread effectively.
However, it is quite greusome, and fairly easy to produce, from what I’ve read.
Oh no, it’s not nearly as difficult to work with as nerve gasses. Anthrax is cheap and easily available - there are spores lying around in/on the ground everywhere. It’s much easier to store than nerve gas, the spores can live just about forever under all kinds of conditions, and if you have a ‘leak’ the stuff just sits there - it doesn’t seep out and kill everything within 50 miles.
Also, it’s a good sneak attack weapon - since it is a naturally occurring disease, an outbreak will most likely be attributed to natural exposure at first. Look how long it has taken them to determine that the FL cases were deliberate - and that is after we were already attacked.
And since the incubation period can be up to 60 days, it can be hard to trace the source of infection - favorable for a non-suicidal terrorist. Notice that they have still not discovered the who/why/how in FL.
Also, nerve gasses just kill, and kill everything (except maybe insects - not sure about that). Anthrax is going to basically kill humans and wild ruminants like deer, at least in the US where most livestock is vaccinated for anthrax. Preserves a lot of resources.
And disease outbreaks tie up a lot of resources - decontamination, manufacturing and distributing vaccines, testing for exposure, manufacturing and providing suitable antibiotics (unless it’s a virus), treating the sick people in hospitals (even if you’re almost certainly going to die once you develop symptoms, they are still going to try to save you).
No, it’s not a real good biological weapon, but it’s cheap and easy, considering how much damage it can do.
Just like hijacked airliners. 