Biological warfare has tragically been around for centuries, including the famous example of the Mongols catapulting heads over the walls of Kaffa (which I’m almost certainly oversimplifying here and won’t cover today). However, I want to talk today about experiments conducted with anthrax on Gruinard Island, right here in the UK.
Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Gruinard Island (online) [Accessed 26/04/2021]. 2) Author unknown, Gov.uk (date unknown), The Truth About Porton Down (online) [Accessed 21/05/2021]. 3) Riedel, S. (2004), Biological warfare and bioterrorism: a historical warfare, BUMC Proceedings 17: 400-406. 4) Johnson, M. P., Pye, S. and Allcock, L. (2008), Dispersal mode and assessments of recovery on the shores of Gruinard, the ‘anthrax island’, Biodiversity Conservation 17: 721-732. 5) Madigan, M. T., Martinko, J. M., Dunlap, P. V. and Clark, D. P. (2009), Brock Biology of Microorganisms (12th Edition, International Edition), San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings Ltd. 6) Author unknown, BBC News (2001), Britain’s ‘Anthrax Island’ (online) [Accessed 21/05/2021].
The home of the Biopedia podcast