Start with intent. Then examine the evidence.
The deliberate use of disease is a security problem with a public-health emergency inside it. A government must protect people while establishing what happened, who was responsible and what response is justified. Those tasks run on different clocks. Patients need care before an investigation is complete. Investigators need evidence that will survive scrutiny long after the first alarming report has disappeared from the news.
WHO defines biological and toxin weapons through their deliberate use to cause disease and death in people, animals or plants. It also warns that a deliberate biological event can resemble a natural outbreak. The presence of an unusual disease, therefore, does not establish an attack. Nor does the existence of a laboratory establish a weapons programme. These distinctions are central to a credible discussion of biological threats.
Our starting position is straightforward: governments should prepare for deliberate harm without making deliberate harm the default explanation for every outbreak. Underreaction leaves people exposed. Unsupported accusations can fracture cooperation precisely when laboratories, hospitals and authorities need to exchange reliable information. Preparedness requires the discipline to take the danger seriously while refusing to manufacture certainty.
State programmes are political decisions
A state can organise scientific activity over years, direct public institutions and protect a programme through secrecy. This makes its political decisions and the accountability of its institutions central to biological disarmament. Scientific capability alone tells us little about intent. The relevant questions concern the purpose of a programme, the authority behind it, and the evidence supporting claims about its activities.
The historical record provides concrete examples. On 25 November 1969, President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would renounce biological warfare and confine its biological research to defensive purposes. His statement also directed planning for the disposal of existing stocks. The archived presidential statement documents a deliberate change in national policy; the technology itself did not dictate the decision.
A different record emerges from Iraq. UN inspectors reported that Iraq acknowledged an offensive biological weapons programme in July 1995 after years of denial, and acknowledged weaponization the following month. The 1996 UNSCOM report describes persistent problems with the completeness and credibility of its disclosures. This is evidence about a specific historical programme. It should not be used as a shortcut to claims about a later period or another country.
Taken together, these cases show why policy commitments need a durable institutional record. Renunciation matters. So do credible declarations, external scrutiny and the ability to establish whether practice follows policy.
Non-state actors are not a single threat category
A terrorist organisation, a criminal group and an individual acting on a personal grievance do not necessarily share an objective, an organisation or a level of capability. Collapsing them into one imagined adversary makes prevention less precise. It encourages governments to build policy around a dramatic scenario instead of the range of cases that public institutions may actually encounter.
CDC's field epidemiology manual distinguishes politically or socially motivated bioterrorism from biocrime directed at harming particular people or groups. It notes that actual deliberate biological incidents have been rare in the United States and that threats and hoaxes also generate investigative demands. The manual treats intentional events as serious risks without presenting them as frequent occurrences. Its risk framing is more useful than a permanent atmosphere of emergency.
The 2001 anthrax attacks demonstrate the human cost of a real event: five people died and seventeen became ill, according to the FBI's account. The subsequent investigation extended for years. A defence policy must be capable of responding to such an event, while retaining enough proportion to distinguish a substantiated incident from a threat that has not been carried out. Careful classification is part of protecting the public.
Attribution must withstand scrutiny
The anthrax investigation also shows why an official conclusion and the scientific evidence supporting it must be discussed separately. The FBI closed its investigation in 2010 after concluding that Bruce Ivins was responsible, as recorded in the Justice Department's announcement. He died before charges could be filed, so the allegation was not tested in a criminal trial. That procedural history matters when describing what has been established.
In 2011, a National Research Council committee reviewing the investigation's scientific work concluded that the available scientific evidence alone could not definitively establish the origins of the material in the letters. The committee's published finding concerned the scope and limits of scientific inference. It did not amount to a review of every element of the criminal investigation.
For present-day policy, the lesson is to keep a visible distinction between an observation, an interpretation, an intelligence assessment and a legal finding. A scientific relationship may support an investigation without establishing the identity or intention of an individual. A government may act to protect the public before it has enough evidence to assign responsibility. Neither situation licenses stronger public claims than the evidence supports.
Our view is that this discipline strengthens deterrence. A state that can explain the basis and limits of its conclusions is better placed to secure cooperation and accountability. Certainty announced prematurely may be politically convenient. It can also make a justified response harder to sustain.
The prohibition is broad. Implementation is national.
The Biological Weapons Convention opened for signature in 1972 and entered into force in 1975. Its central prohibition covers biological agents and toxins whose types and quantities have no justification for preventive, protective or other peaceful purposes, together with equipment and weapons intended for hostile use. It also protects peaceful scientific cooperation. The UN's legal account makes clear that the treaty is concerned with purpose as well as material.
That distinction matters for biotechnology. A research field does not become illegitimate because someone could misuse it. The difficult responsibility is to preserve beneficial work while assessing the purpose, oversight and risks of particular activities. Broad suspicion of biology is a poor substitute for competent governance.
UN Security Council Resolution 1540 addresses another part of the problem. Adopted in 2004, it places binding obligations on states to refrain from supporting non-state actors seeking nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, enact relevant prohibitions and establish appropriate domestic controls. The 1540 Committee's explanation locates responsibility with governments, including their legal and regulatory systems.
The practical implication is that an international commitment has to become an everyday institutional capability. Laws need responsible authorities. Authorities need expertise and resources. Researchers need clear expectations and a route for raising concerns. A signature cannot perform those functions by itself.
International investigation needs readiness
The international architecture has important limits. UNODA explains that the Biological Weapons Convention has no implementing agency equivalent to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The UN Secretary-General's Mechanism can investigate allegations of biological weapons use following a report from a member state. It is distinct from the BWC and is not a permanent investigative body; it draws on nominated experts and laboratories. These are the terms of the mechanism's mandate.
An investigation of alleged use is also a different task from continuous verification that every state is complying with a treaty. Treating those functions as interchangeable creates unrealistic expectations about what international institutions can establish and when.
Our judgement is that maintaining independent investigative capacity should be a routine national-security investment. Expertise, institutional memory and international working relationships take time to develop. They are most valuable when they exist before a disputed event. Governments should be prepared to support scrutiny that may complicate their preferred explanation. Otherwise, appeals to an impartial investigation become a rhetorical position rather than a commitment to finding out what happened.
Research governance is part of scientific competence
Biological research creates knowledge that may serve more than one purpose. A responsible research system has to consider foreseeable misuse alongside scientific value, without assuming that every institution or researcher presents the same risk. Blanket restrictions can obstruct useful work while doing little to improve the quality of oversight.
WHO's 2022 framework for responsible life sciences distributes responsibility across the research cycle. Its audience includes researchers, institutions, funders, educators, publishers, regulators and security organisations. This is a useful corrective to the idea that biosecurity can be delegated to a single review committee at the end of a project.
For a young research organisation, the implication is demanding but practical. The purpose of a project should be intelligible. Decisions should be documented. People should know who can review a concern and when independent expertise is needed. A junior researcher should be able to question a decision without putting their career at risk. These are standards we believe research institutions should be judged against, regardless of their age or prestige.
Good governance also explains its decisions. A refusal, restriction or request for further review should have a reason connected to the work. Consistent explanations make it easier for researchers to plan responsibly and for oversight to earn their trust.
Build a defence that helps before an attack
Much of the infrastructure needed to protect people from deliberate biological harm also supports ordinary health security. WHO's preparedness architecture identifies five connected systems: surveillance, community protection, clinical care, access to medical countermeasures and emergency coordination. The 2023 framework places them across health services, government and wider society.
This gives policymakers a way to invest without betting everything on a prediction of the next event. Reliable diagnostics, a supported health workforce, continuity of essential care and institutions that communicate clearly have value during natural outbreaks as well as deliberate incidents. They can be assessed through actual performance rather than the dramatic quality of a planning scenario.
The additional requirements of a suspected crime still matter. Public-health teams and investigators need established relationships and an understanding of their different responsibilities. CDC's guidance emphasises building those relationships before an incident. Cooperation should enable protection and accountability while preserving the trust people need to seek care and report illness.
Hades Labs' view is that biological defence should be measured by the society it preserves: people able to obtain care, researchers able to work responsibly, institutions able to investigate without inventing certainty, and communities able to trust the information they receive. The threat is real. The response deserves sustained work, precise evidence and public accountability.