WW2

Textbook WW2 lesson (that you'll never read in a textbook): This is what happens when you let scientists off-the-leash ...

Japan's Unit 731 in Manchuria - with it's 3000 scientists is a good example to begin with.  Acting as  a DIY intermediate species, these geniuses engineered/released  plague-infected fleas.  Wound up killing 10 000 Chinese at least. 

Meanwhile back at the lab: STAGE 3 TRIALS were conducted on POW's - inoculated with u-name-it deadly bio-bugs from anthrax to cholera - to evaluate promising candidates.

At the hearings an official repented , said: it was most regrettable from the view point of humanity

So prophetic!

The US's bio-scientists interrogated these war criminals - offering pardons for those who handed over the bio-tech - terms to which they happily agreed.  We'll get to that shortly  ...

But in the beginning it was The UK & Japan that were the world leaders - developing offensive bio-warfare tech like there was no tomorrow.  Porton Down Bio-Research Centre's Anthrax Island is one example.  Winston Churchill himself, personally ordered the great-leap-forward in bio-warfare.  Bombs laden with anthrax spores dropped by airplanes, or mortar-launched (which proved to be the best), released a white cloud of fine powder on tethered sheep .  Which died horrible anthrax deaths.  So it was a big success. 

Denied/lied about for decades, blamed on unsanitary Greeks, natural causes - everything else was a conspiracy theory - even as livestock in nearby areas started mysteriously dropping dead. 

Meanwhile: the anthrax spores dispersed on the island, lived happily on.

Defense Ministry reluctantly fessed-up when Dark Harvest activists left a bucket of contaminated soil from the island outside  Porton Downs Lab HQ in Wiltshire.   Technically an act of terrorism - but the Defence Ministry had denied the island was contaminated.  Caught in their own conundrum, Defence finally pledged to clean the island up.  Do better next time ...

First the military tried scorch-earthing it - setting the whole island alight - but that failed - so , quote: the land was decontaminated by using formaldehyde - which makes a great Govt oxymoron at least. 

The British were also accused by the Germans of trying to import yellow fever into India.  The UK denies it. 

Funnily enough, Hitler was the only one who refused to develop bio-warfare tech.  He thought it was unethical.  What does that tell ya?