What if Biopreparat facility in Chernobyl?

[General Mosh]

Biopreparat (Russian: Биопрепарат, "Biological substance preparation") was the Soviet Union's major biological warfare agency from the 1970s on. It was a vast network of secret laboratories, each focused on a different deadly agent. Its 30,000 employees researched and produced pathogenic weapons for use in a major war. (from Wikipedia)

So what if the Soviets had set up one of these secret labs in the Chernobyl area? What if the nuclear disaster happens, and some nasty biological agents get out? Possible?

 

[ModernKiwi]

How would they get out? Does radiation unlock the doors?

 

[Cook]

How would they get out?

They knock down the fences when the electricity fails.

 

[General Mosh]

How would they get out? Does radiation unlock the doors?

Well I'm assuming in the haste to get out there's an accident of some sort. According to Wikipedia, there was an outbreak of pulmonary anthrax in Sverdlovsk in 1979, in which 105 Soviet citizens died. So, its not impossible to break out. Perhaps some people get sick while escaping, and when symptoms begin to show up they're at first diagnosed with radiation sickness of some sort.

 

[LostCosmonaut]

It's going to depend a lot on what gets out. Depending on the agent, it could mean anything from a few dozen people getting sick to the apocalypse.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I would play this S.T.A.L.K.E.R. spin-off.

 

[General Mosh]

It's going to depend a lot on what gets out. Depending on the agent, it could mean anything from a few dozen people getting sick to the apocalypse.

Biopreparat is rumored to have had a nasty little bug called Ebolapox, a cross between Ebola and smallpox. That's probably your apocalypse bug, luckily I don't think its airborne. Then there's various enhanced Anthrax strains and Smallpox strains and a couple hemorrhagic fevers. I'm thinking about where I might want this to go. I can either make it be a disastrous epidemic in the Soviet Union, and make it less bad in the rest of the world due to the tight control over their borders the Soviets had, or it could be more of a worldwide pandemic. The Soviet epidemic would be probably an enhanced strain of smallpox or maybe anthrax, which would be easier to contain in my opinion. And the worldwide pandemic would be Ebolapox.

 

[Mike Stearns]

Biopreparat is rumored to have had a nasty little bug called Ebolapox, a cross between Ebola and smallpox.

So basically the RL equivalent of Ebola Shiva from Rainbow Six? Nasty.

 

[General Mosh]

So basically the RL equivalent of Ebola Shiva from Rainbow Six? Nasty.

Yeah, similar to it.

 

[dropbearabroad]

Ebolapox??

Sounds like a lot of rubbish, beware internet rumours. Ebola and smallpox are both viruses, do you understand the basics of how viral replication work and how this is related to their structures? It is completely different to that of bacteria. Two research papers were pulled this year on influenza mutations that could lead to a weaponisable form of flu, showing what is currently possible, but somehow merging Ebola and smallpox is a completely different case. For starters, Ebola is a single strand RNA nonenveloped filamentous phage while smallpox has a double stranded DNA contained in a complex spheroidal and enveloped virion. They are about as different as two virions can be. You cannot combine the two.

There is no such thing as Ebolapox, regardless of what any website rumour may claim. Operation Sealion has more chance of success than 'Ebolapox' has of ever existing.

 

[MattII]

I'd also have thought there was only a very limited chance of an outbreak, I mean sure something might get lose in the lab when they evacuate, but I suspect they'd have thought of that to, and would wear anti-biological suits the first time back until everything can be accounted for.

 

[General Mosh]

Sounds like a lot of rubbish, beware internet rumours.

Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov defected to the US in 1992. As second in command of Biopreparat, he had access to everything they did. He claims that Biopreparat created Ebolapox and Veepox, two nasty little bugs. They also weaponized Bubonic plague, Anthrax, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Tularemia, Influenza, Brucellosis, Marburg Virus, Ebola, and Machupo Virus. As for it being possible to combine the two, I'm not sure, but I don't think the Alibekov guy is just pulling shit out of his ass here. Its not as if the US bio war research hasn't done similar stuff. There's a term for it, by the way, "Chimera Virus".

I'll get back to you on all this when I start taking virology courses like 3 years from now

 

[asnys]

Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov defected to the US in 1992. As second in command of Biopreparat, he had access to everything they did. He claims that Biopreparat created Ebolapox and Veepox, two nasty little bugs. They also weaponized Bubonic plague, Anthrax, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Tularemia, Influenza, Brucellosis, Marburg Virus, Ebola, and Machupo Virus. As for it being possible to combine the two, I'm not sure, but I don't think the Alibekov guy is just pulling shit out of his ass here. Its not as if the US bio war research hasn't done similar stuff. There's a term for it, by the way, "Chimera Virus".

There is some disagreement on that subject:

Some experts question Alibek's characterizations of the threats.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a retired Army major general and physician who joined the Bush administration from 2001 to 2004 to confront the perceived threat of smallpox, said he was convinced that Alibek had solid firsthand information about the former Soviet Union's production of anthrax. But regarding other threats, such as genetically engineered smallpox, Russell said he "began to think that Ken was more fanciful than precise in some of his recollections."

"He would claim that certain things had been done, and then when you came right down to it, he didn't have direct knowledge of it -- he'd heard it from somebody. For example, the issue of putting Ebola genes into smallpox virus. That was viewed, at least in many of our minds, as somewhat fanciful. And probably not true."

Alibek told The Times that the comments in question were based on articles he read in Russia's "scientific literature." Source

Possibly Alibek may be referring to a program called Hunter. This is from a review of The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History:

Hunter, which attempted to make hybrids of bacteria and viruses — apparently they were trying to come up with agents that were essentially bacterial, but if you used antibiotics to kill the bacteria, they would then release viruses into the system, which sounds like something from a movie. Source

That looks like a really good book, BTW; I'm going to read it myself when I have the time. But, from the sound of it, Hunter wasn't about combining two viruses into one virus, it was more like mixing a bacteria and a virus in the same weapon, so that victims would be infected by two things at once.

 

[General Mosh]

There is some disagreement on that subject:

People also deny the Holocaust. People deny everything. I've seen plenty of people, intelligent and educated in the field, who think such a thing is possible. But, its not like Ebolapox is required to create a massive epidemic. They also had the Marburg Virus, Bubonic Plague, and enhanced Smallpox.

 

[dropbearabroad]

This is nothing like Holocaust denial. I have performed research on viruses, not these ones, but I have some idea what the difficulties are. When you say you have seen people "in the field", what field are you talking about? When you say you have seen them, do you mean you have talked to them?

Do you have any idea of how virions are constructed? Ebola and smallpox have dramatically different structures, you can't just mix and match like they're a lego set. One has a 19 kilobase ssRNA, the other has a 200 kilobase dsDNA. The way the genetic information is contained, released and then transcribed will be very different in each case.

And you are right in that Ebolapox isn't required to create a pandemic as the USSR, US, UK, China and others have/had plenty of other biowarfare nasties to do the job. But you did bring up 'Ebolapox', and it isn't going to work, particularly in the mid 1980's when the structural understanding of viruses was much more limited.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

A photo of the triffids?


I've got Wyndham's book right here, so there's a bit of irony.

 

[PMN1]

From Plague Wars by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg.

Alibekov also confirmed that the Soviets were attempting at Vektor to genetically engineer entirely new life forms – super-viruses –, which, if successful, were intended to cause unimaginable consequences to the world’s population. These ‘doomsday’ viruses were combinations of the most deadly germs available – smallpox, Marburg, Ebola, VEE and Machupo. The grotesque ‘marriage’ would be between speed of infection and high-kill factor. The aim was to insert genes from one virus, like Ebola, into another, like smallpox, to create an even more lethal ‘chimera’ virus.

By 1990, Alibekov alleged, the Soviets had successfully created the first ‘chimera’ – by inserting genes from VEE (a brain virus, that causes a sever coma) into smallpox. Biopreparat spent several million dollars on this programme. Subsequent combinations under development included the insertions of Ebola and Marburg genes into smallpox.

(Alibekov’s claims about the ‘chimera’ research were later vociferously denied by Sandakhchiev. Western intelligence analysts believe the programme was still in its infancy; however, to dismiss it as a potential threat, they say, would run contrary to everything the Russians have achieved in their biological weapons development programmes so far.)

 

[General Mosh]

This is nothing like Holocaust denial. I have performed research on viruses, not these ones, but I have some idea what the difficulties are. When you say you have seen people "in the field", what field are you talking about? When you say you have seen them, do you mean you have talked to them?

I mean I've seen some papers from Virologists stating Chimera Viruses, such as Ebolapox, are quite possible.

And you are right in that Ebolapox isn't required to create a pandemic as the USSR, US, UK, China and others have/had plenty of other biowarfare nasties to do the job. But you did bring up 'Ebolapox', and it isn't going to work, particularly in the mid 1980's when the structural understanding of viruses was much more limited.

I didn't think about the fact that if Ebolapox is real, then it likely wouldn't have been created yet.


Anyways, how do you guys think a nasty bug such as smallpox might interact with the radiation exposure it may get if a spill occurs? I'm not sure it would do anything at all, but I'm not sure so I'll ask you guys.

 

[mowque]

Anyways, how do you guys think a nasty bug such as smallpox might interact with the radiation exposure it may get if a spill occurs? I'm not sure it would do anything at all, but I'm not sure so I'll ask you guys.

We need to get SyFy off the air...NOW.

 

[Brasidas]

I mean I've seen some papers from Virologists stating Chimera Viruses, such as Ebolapox, are quite possible.

I didn't think about the fact that if Ebolapox is real, then it likely wouldn't have been created yet.


Anyways, how do you guys think a nasty bug such as smallpox might interact with the radiation exposure it may get if a spill occurs? I'm not sure it would do anything at all, but I'm not sure so I'll ask you guys.

This makes me think of spiders and radiation.

Irwin Allen movie, anyone? Stan Lee, maybe?

Just no.