00.30—04.30
Introduction to the new era of germ warfare, where breakthroughs in genetic engineering designed to help people suffering from disease could also be misused to create an ‘ethnic weapon’.

04.30—09.00
The chemical attack in the Tokyo subway in which 12 died and 5,000 were injured. How the same fanatical group were looking to use the Ebola virus as a biological weapon. The story of Larry Harris, the American who was prosecuted for obtaining and culturing bubonic plague and other deadly viruses. His view that ‘biological weapons level the playing field between individuals and nations’.

09.00—17.30
The problems of handling biologically active weapons and delivering them to their targets. The US government’s worst nightmare — a biological attack on New York. The domestic preparedness programme, designed to ‘make a bad situation not as bad’, but which does not address the issue of how hospitals would cope in the event of widespread infection by a biological weapon.

17.30—20.30
The secret tests on the spread of biological agents carried out in the US and the UK.

20.30—30.00
The development of biological weapons in the US, Europe and the former Soviet Union. The 1972 treaty to ban further developments, and how it was broken by the Soviets, who built up vast arsenals of biological weapons as well as the means to deliver them. The spread of expertise to Iraq and other countries, and the consequent inspections and eventual attack on sites suspected of manufacturing biological agents.

30.00—35.30
How the US armed forces are developing defensive and early warning systems against biological attacks.

35.30—39.30
How the shortcomings of existing biological agents are being overcome as a result of genetic engineering techniques associated with scientists’ ever-growing knowledge of the human genome.

39.30—43.30
How the South African government during the apartheid era looked for an ethnically targeted weapon to add to its armoury of repression. The more recent discovery by FBI forensic scientists that DNA analysis allows not only for individuals to be identified but also identifies genetic ‘markers’ which are characteristic of a person’s ethnic origin.

43.30—end
The Human Genome Diversity Project and the combination of genetic markers present in the DNA of Palestinians and not Israelis. The possibility of designing a virus to look for these markers and insert itself in the host DNA only if the markers are present. The similar technique that is already in use in targeting cancer cells with the plant toxin ricin. The sobering thought that ethnically targeted biological agents won’t be far behind, since knowledge, once available, is almost impossible to contain.