Biological Warfare
C. immitis was investigated by the United States during the 1950s and 1960s as a potential biological weapon. The Cash strain received the military symbol OC, and original hopes were for its use as an incapacitant. As medical epidemiology later made clear, OC would have lethal effects on several segments of the population, so it was later considered a lethal agent. It was never standardized, and beyond a few field trials, it was never weaponized. Most military work on OC was on vaccines by the mid-1960s. It is still on the CDC's list of select agents however.
Read more about this topic: Coccidioidomycosis
Famous quotes containing the words biological and/or warfare:
“No poetic phantasy
but a biological reality,
a fact: I am an entity
like bird, insect, plant
or sea-plant cell;
I live; I am alive.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)