Rating: 
Summary: Gripping and spine-chilling!
Review: If you read one book about biohazards/bioterrorism, make it this book! Dr Alibek does a superb job of presenting the terrifying facts concerning the extent of biological weapons of mass destruction that have been developed and are currently available to anyone looking for such a weapon. If you think stockpiling vaccines, vaccinating the military against specific agents, and/or there is no threat to the US from these weapons, you really need to digest the info provided here by an author "in the know". To make these facts even more frightening, think about this... I'm sure there are some things Dr Alibek could not include in this account as they are considered classified information. As Dr Alibek clearly shows, the R&D didn't stop just because the USSR collapsed. What horrors have been engineered and perfected since his defection in 1992? When one thinks about it, the world was probably safer before the Soviet collapse. At least there were massive safeguards in place to provide ultimate secrecy to this program and to keep the organisms in check in case of accidents. Now, there measures have dissolved with the Soviet state..... who is controlling/maintaining these bioweapons? Dr Alibek makes you think about these very hard questions. It is also very interesting to realize that both Yeltsin and Gorbachev were deeply involve in propogating these weapons under the guise of countermeasures/vacine development. All this was done with total disregard to the 1972 Bioweapon Treaty signed by the USSR. This certainly gives a new meaning to Peristroika! It is not easy to like or even accept the choices the author made in his life. He is quite frank in how he came to his decisions and the realizes the abhorrent results of his decisions. He apologizes for none of his work which is understandable considering the mindset of the Cold War mentality of a Soviet official in his position. It is amazing to read the extent to which Soviet leaders went to elude Western detection and keep their own reseachers "propagandized" against the West in order to perpetuate this deadly research. I applaude Dr Alibek's candor in stating his involvement and forthright reasons for participation in this research even I am totally opposed to such work. The past is done...Dr Alibek has shown tremendous courage in writing this very readable account that warns the world of what is out there and is a very real threat to all living thing. But, be forewarned... you may find the information presented here extremely disconcerting, creating more questions in your mind than the book has answered! This is a must read for everyone, but most especially for our civilian/military leaders!
Rating:
Summary: Onslaught
Review: I found this book Very exciting and gripping it helped me tounderstand the truth behind biological warfare...
Rating: 
Summary: An eye-opening look at a sometimes overlooked terror
Review: Biological/chemical warfare is quite often overlooked in general historical reviews of the Cold War; similarly, it tends to be overlooked in present-day foreign policy and national security. Too many in the general public don't conceive of such an attack because it is far more subtle than the image of mushroom clouds, but the sad truth is that bio-warfare is just as lethal as nuclear warfare. Fortunately, Ken Alibek has written "Biohazard", a look at the Soviet bio-warfare programs during his tenure at Biopreparat in the late stages of the Soviet Union. This book, written as part-science, part-memoir, and part-warning, excels at both opening the shrouds that surrounded this program during the Cold War and highlighting the potential for disaster in the modern world. I found the descriptions of the various projects the Soviets worked on to be fascinating, and Alibek did well to explain the science and epidemiology in such a way as to be understood by the layman. I also appreciated his statements late in the book about how America and others in the world are grossly unprepared for a biological attack, though this was an area I wish he would have fleshed out a little more. While I did also enjoy some of the political maneuvering that Alibek relates throughout, I thought this was a weak point in the book. I do not discount the heavy influence of the politics involved in his programs, but at the same time I thought he focused on this area a bit too much in several places. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has become perhaps more dangerous, what with Russia and the former Soviet republics selling military equipment to rogue nations for hard currency. We may never know what precisely is being sold, but given the immense secrecy surrounding the bio-warfare programs even to this day, it is only logical to suggest that some of this work (research or physical weapons) has been among those obtained. If that is the case, then it makes Alibek's work all the more revealing and, yes, sobering. Given what he has described in "Biohazard", one can only imagine the horrors that are in experimentation today.
Rating:
Summary: The Banality of Evil
Review: The Hippocratic Oath at root is: "Above all, do no harm". Would that Alibek, a doctor himself, would have heeded that simple credo. This book deals with the very scary world of biological warfare, one of the two so-called "poor man's nukes" (along with chemical weapons). I remember the early modern images of biowarfare in the 70s, with soldiers wearing gas masks and protective suits, looking like invading aliens. Of course, the basics of biological warfare have been around for a long time-the Mongols hurling plague-laden corpses over besieged city's walls, for example. At any rate, what makes biowarfare so frightening is that with today's superior technology and industrial methods, biowarfare becomes not an exception, but an actual business. Similarly, production on such a scale leads to inevitable bioweapons accidents, which Alibek ably documents. One of the most horrifying accounts is that of a Soviet scientist who gets infected by one of their superbugs, and then clinically documents the progression of his illness for as long as he can before he inevitably succumbs to a horrible, lingering death. This is the stuff of nightmares - the next time somebody sneezes near you in public, you'll shudder. Alibek was a high-up in the former Soviet Union's bioweapons program, and from his position, he reveals much of the USSR's bioweapons program in methodical and chilling detail as only an insider can. This book makes Richard Preston's "Hot Zone" seem like a folk dance, mostly because this is intentional, whereas superbugs like Ebola are simply freaks of nature. The book gives interesting glimpses of the Soviet Union in its dying days, of a bureaucracy run by Party officials who are like feudal barons - if ever there was a doubt that the USSR wasn't actually communist (anymore than the US is actually democratic), this book should reveal it. The paranoid secrecy and unaccountable authority of the Party bureaucrats can only seem like déjà vu to American readers, in our own national security state. Biotechnology is the shotgun marriage of science and business-and biowarfare is the monstrous offspring of biotechnology itself. Alibek elaborates on efforts to gene-engineer hybrid viruses combining aspects of smallpox, plague, and/or ebola. A Frankenstein's monster if ever there was one. The US claims to have not engaged in bioweapons research since 1969 (via a treaty banning it)-but given that the US is currently violating a 1967 accord against the weaponization of space, and that the former USSR moved forward with bioweapons in the wake of that 1969 treaty, I can't believe that our government isn't doing this kind of research, too, if only in that twisted logic of mutually-assured destruction that characterized the Cold War. To my mind, the Cold War continues - talk of the Peace Dividend lasted about two weeks, before bogeymen like narcoterrorists and Islamic fundamentalists were conjured up to justify the huge American military economy. In fact, that's the scariest thing of all - Alibek speaks of his regretful involvement in bioweapons research, turning his medical degree on its head and using it create lethal organisms. Yet he defects to the USA after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and puts his considerable knowledge to work for bioweapons research yet again. Admittedly, he says he's working to come up with countermeasures against biowarfare, while at the same time noting that there are scientists in Russia who will most likely turn mercenary and develop similar programs in other countries. Is a defense possible? I doubt it. Its seems that if bioweapons get used on a large scale (and it doesn't take much - that's what is so scary) - humanity will pay a dear price. My feeling with Alibek is he's a mix of Adolf Eichmann and Robert Oppenheimer. That may seem unfair, but the idea of the banality of modern evil comes readily to mind - he's not a scheming madman; rather, he's a doctor and former Communist Party bureaucrat, faithfully doing his job - just following orders, focusing narrowly on the task at hand, and not really thinking much about the larger consequences of his research. It is revealing to me that he sticks with the program in the USSR until it becomes inconvenient for him, whereupon he switches sides and continues to ply his talents, this time for different masters. I think he feels guilty for his past work, but I can't help but think that he hasn't learned his lesson. The Cold War was used as a justification of an ongoing militarization of both the US and the USSR, each the mirror image of the other, and each using the other as a pretext for domestic social control. The USSR is gone, but the programs remain in place, and American policy itself is largely unchanged. Americans should read this book, if merely to get a sense that the only answer to biowarfare is seeking alternatives to war itself -- check out "The Conquest of War" by Harry B. Hollins, Averill L. Powers, and Mark Sommer is a good place to start. It seems the sanest response, rather than fighting fire with fire - because with bioweapons, everybody loses. This book is worth your time, if only as a glimpse into a nightmare world not of science run amok, but science deliberately prostituted and perverted to suit the interests of nationalism, statecraft, and business, producing horrid offspring whose only purpose is to harm and hurt.
Rating:
Summary: wow.
Review: What an incredible book! I don't read books about real people that much, mostly because they give a very one sided view of events or situstions that I want to be objective about. But this book was so well written, and so precice and concice that it was impossible to put down. I started reading it as something to keep me occupied durring lunch and wound up taking it home and finishing it in a night. It gave me chills; I read parts out loud to my husband. He's reading it next. Not to promote paranoia, but this is definitely something that people in general don't think about enough.
Rating: 
Summary: A mine of information about all but the author
Review: This book is a fascinating account of the development of the Soviet Union's bioweapons program, but it focuses too closely on the development of the viruses, bacteria and toxins involved, and the office politics of the author's organization - but does not give enough information on why the Kremlin though spending billions of roubles on their development was worthwhile, given the risks of detection and their doubtful strategic advantage over nuclear weapons. Also, more space should have been devoted background detail about the author, the formation of his character before joining the army, and how he rationalized what he, a doctor, was doing. He took an oath to protect life, and then plunged into work that was the antithesis of what he had sworn. A little more detail about his current work in the United States would also have been interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Talk about a bomb!
Review: The author gives a narrative of events connected mostly by time and not drama. There is precious little detail about what chemical weapons can do to individuals or how they can be used tactically in a war. Rather he describes his rise in an organization dedicated to stockpiling weapons of mass destruction despite a climate of corruption and paranoia within the Russian government. His repudiation of his work came too late for me, and grew out of disillusionment with the Russian system rather than any moral epiphany. I say keep the author here but send the books back to the Kremlin.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK!
Review: I found this book to be very detailed and precise. It has also greatly enhanced my understanding of the subject which I might add is a very complicated one. But I must warn people that this book will seem very boring and cumbersome to the casual reader and only people who are interested in the subject should read this book. Overall though, I found this book exciting and even a bit frightening.
Rating:
Summary: not for the faint of heart, but quite descriptive
Review: Glanders. Vaccine-resistant smallpox. Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. Pneumonic plague. Pulmonary anthrax. Tularemia. This book is a rare chance to evaluate a man who devoted most of his working life to making them more deadly. I read this book with morbid fascination, I must admit; it suggests to me that bioweapon research is much further along than I'd realized. On the downside, I'm not sure how much of what Alibek says can be verified, particularly the details of the biological attack by the USSR during WWII, but I suspect he's mostly telling the truth. Recommended with mild reservations as to accuracy and as to the self-portrayal of the author. While he's honest enough to admit to having personally done a great deal to make these abominable weapons still more abominable, I am not so sure he switched sides for the most altruistic of reasons.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Frightful
Review: This book should be required reading for those interested in bioterrorism. If you work in public health this is great for awareness level training, it's informative and entertaining.
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