Rating: 
Summary: What a lifestory!
Review: Once you finish the book you cannot beleive it's one person's lifestory! IT IS A GREATE BOOK except for the fact how scary all that stuff is. I know Dr. Alibek personally, no doubt he is a very brave man. "Biohazard" is absolutely unforgettable and lots of humor too!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Boring autobiography of an evil man
Review: Why help support a man who has committed some of the worst crimes against humanity by creating strains of viruses that are specifically targeted against humans? Ken Alibek is an immoral, self-serving man. The book is terribly boring. His motive for writing the book is allegedly a plea for becoming more aware of the threat posed by bioweapondry-specifically the weapons he created, but only the last chapter weakly explores this idea. The book is mostly an insipid autobiography of a man with no feeling and no humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Look at Soviet Bioweapons Program
Review: I found this to be among the best written and informative books on this topic. There is an excellent discussion of how the Soviets (and now Russia?) have interwoven their military and production programs.Also discussed are the contributions the United States and other countries made to this program by supplying equipment and other material. This is a great book to develop an understanding of why we have so much more to fear from a rogue bioweapons attack than we do from being nuked. Where has all the material wound up? With Russia's current economic troubles, who has sold what where?
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: You won't want to put it down once you start reading it. And to think that you were worried about just getting nuked...
Rating: 
Summary: The book is repetitive
Review: A good look into the Russian Bioweapons program, but to me the book seemed repetitive. While the facilities, biological agents and people change, after the first few chapters the rest had a certain sameness that made the book less interesting as it went along. I doubt that anyone without a real interest in the subject would finish the book. The book does succeed in driving home the message we can't trust the Russian's to live up to any arms control treaty.
Rating: 
Summary: Strong early praise for BIOHAZARD
Review: "As the top scientist in the Soviet Union's biowarfare program and the inventor of the world's most powerful anthrax, Dr. Ken Alibek has stunned the highest levels of the U.S. government with his revelations. Now, in a calm, compelling, utterly convincing voice, he tells the world what he knows. Modern biology is producing weapons that in killing power may exceed the hydrogen bomb. Ken Alibek describes them with the intimate knowledge of a top weaponeer." --Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone "Biohazard is an important and fascinating look into a terrifying world of which we were blissfully unaware. While we all grew up with the anxiety of the threat of a nuclear winter, little did we know there was an equally horrific menace from biotechnology. Biohazard takes you behind the scenes of the Soviet Union's clandestine bioweapons program. Read and be amazed..." -- Robin Cook
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: I think every one in the United States should read this book. Reading this book makes Biological warefare seem suddenly not so far fetched. Another person reviewing this book claimed that he thought that the contents of this book could be a hoax. I have read most of every book on Bio-warefare out there, and every thing in this book is very credible according to the information contained in the other books on this topic. This is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. I would definitly recommend this book to any body who is interisted in reading it.
Rating:
Summary: I'd rather watch the grass grow
Review: It's hard for me to write a review, because I only read half the book. It was so poorly written that once I put it down, I never could pick it up again. If your kids are bad, make them read this book as torture. It's the only use I could find for the book.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting, informative, and understandable
Review: Very well-written in plain language thanks to Steve Handelman, this is a quick read. It is educational without being pedantic, and covers a well-balanced gamut of subjects, including: - the history of Soviet bio-weaponeering: the vast resources they (including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev) put into developing biological weapons in direct violation of the 1972 treaty and hiding it from the rest of the world, as well as from their own people; - the evolution of pathogen manufacturing processes; - the morality and justification (or lack thereof) of such weapons; - interesting details about various pathogens and the diseases they cause; - the dismal outlook for biodefense (sorry), with informative discussion of the shortcomings of vaccines, as well as the most promising possibilities; - Alibek's personal involvement and ascension through the Soviet military and scientific community, and the internal power struggles that hampered the Soviet regime; and - the truth --finally-- about the 1979 anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, its exact cause, the elaborate KGB attempts at a cover up, and simple, common sense refutations of the "contaminated meat" story proffered by the Soviet oligarchy. The book tells how a well-meaning Boris Yeltsin (who was then the Communist party boss of Sverdlovsk) inadvertently worsened the epidemic by ordering an inexpert clean-up. Straightforward explanations are given of viruses, the human immune system, cellular biology, and related topics. In the style of that most excellent author Jon Krakauer, this book occasionally makes a fascinating historical flashback; for instance, there are quick side bars on Edward Jenner and the history of immunology. There are also some somber, one-sentence paragraphs that have the enormous weight of a British understatement. These gave me pause. Names of people and places are given freely, and the book includes a good index. I learned a lot and feel thankful for every healthy day. The amazing thing is how little harm has been done considering what's possible! :-)
Rating: 
Summary: Chillingly blase--
Review: consider that he mentions smallpox, tularemia, brucellosis, anthrax, and a half dozen never-get-overs, and off-handedly supposes that there may be some chimera viruses currently in development. Given that we currently consider there to be a risk of the former USSR dealing in nuclear technology, we should be well and truly be concerned about what this man has revealed about the Soviet program--and what he may not have known about other areas where such research was done. Disease, BW/CW is the poor countries' nukes--this is a definite item of notice--a good read also for an insight into the last days of the Soviet Union and a picture of what lengths they would go to in order to cover up this program--the importance of it for military strategy.
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