title: The anti-plague system and the Soviet biological warfare program.
abstract: The USSR possessed a unique national public health system that included an agency named "anti-plague system." Its mission was to protect the country from highly dangerous diseases of either natural or laboratory etiology. During the 1960s, the anti-plague system became the lead agency of a program to defend against biological warfare, codenamed Project 5. This responsibility grew and by the middle 1970s came to include undertaking tasks for the offensive biological warfare program, codenamed Ferment. This article describes the anti-plague system's activities relevant to both aspects of the Soviet Union's biological warfare program, offense and defense, and analyzes its contributions to each.
authors.affiliation: Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, California 93940, USA. rzilinskas@miis.edu
authors.forename: Raymond A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Zilinskas
mesh_terms: D001694:Biological Warfare / Q000266:history*; D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000266:history / Q000458:organization & administration; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history / Q000517:prevention & control; D006077:Government Agencies / Q000266:history* / Q000458:organization & administration; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D010930:Plague / Q000266:history* / Q000517:prevention & control; D010931:Plague Vaccine / Q000266:history / Q000627:therapeutic use; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000266:history*; D014586:USSR
chemical_list: D010931:Plague Vaccine