Editing Anthrax (section)

==== Sverdlovsk incident (2 April 1979) ====
{{Main|Sverdlovsk anthrax leak}}
Despite signing the 1972 agreement to end bioweapon production, the government of the Soviet Union had an active bioweapons program that included the production of hundreds of tons of anthrax after this period. On 2 April 1979, some of the over one million people living in Sverdlovsk (now called [[Ekaterinburg, Russia]]), about {{convert|850|mi|km|order=flip}} east of Moscow, were exposed to an [[Sverdlovsk anthrax leak|accidental release of anthrax]] from a biological weapons complex located near there. At least 94 people were infected, of whom at least 68 died. One victim died four days after the release, 10 over an eight-day period at the peak of the deaths, and the last six weeks later. Extensive cleanup, vaccinations, and medical interventions managed to save about 30 of the victims.<ref name=Guillemin_1999_275>{{cite journal | vauthors = Guillemin J |title=Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |date=2000 |volume=343 |issue=16 |url=https://archive.org/details/anthraxinvestiga0000guil/page/275 |url-access=registration |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-22917-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/anthraxinvestiga0000guil/page/275 275–77] |pmid=11041763 |doi=10.1056/NEJM200010193431615 }}</ref> Extensive cover-ups and destruction of records by the [[KGB]] continued from 1979 until Russian President [[Boris Yeltsin]] admitted this anthrax accident in 1992. [[Jeanne Guillemin]] reported in 1999 that a combined Russian and United States team investigated the accident in 1992.<ref name=Guillemin_1999_275/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/sverdlovsk/ |title=Plague war: The 1979 anthrax leak |work=Frontline |publisher=PBS |access-date=13 August 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080917132957/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/sverdlovsk/| archive-date= 17 September 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=18982 |title=Anthrax – From Russia with Love |work=Infectious Diseases: Causes, Types, Prevention, Treatment and Facts |publisher=MedicineNet.com |access-date=13 August 2008 | vauthors = Fishbein MC |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081024172944/http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=18982 |archive-date=24 October 2008 }}</ref>

Nearly all of the night-shift workers of a ceramics plant directly across the street from the biological facility (compound 19) became infected, and most died. Since most were men, some [[NATO]] governments suspected the Soviet Union had developed a sex-specific weapon.<ref name="Alibek">{{Cite book | vauthors = Alibek K |title=Biohazard |location=New York |publisher=Delta Publishing |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-385-33496-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/biohazardchillin00alib_0 }}</ref> The government blamed the outbreak on the consumption of anthrax-tainted meat, and ordered the confiscation of all uninspected meat that entered the city. They also ordered all [[stray dog]]s to be shot and people not have contact with sick animals. Also, a voluntary evacuation and anthrax vaccination program was established for people from 18 to 55.<ref name="Meselson">{{cite journal | vauthors = Meselson M, Guillemin J, Hugh-Jones M, Langmuir A, Popova I, Shelokov A, Yampolskaya O | title = The Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak of 1979 | journal = Science | volume = 266 | issue = 5188 | pages = 1202–08 | date = November 1994 | pmid = 7973702 | doi = 10.1126/science.7973702 | bibcode = 1994Sci...266.1202M }}</ref>

To support the [[cover-up]] story, Soviet medical and legal journals published articles about an outbreak in livestock that caused gastrointestinal anthrax in people having consumed infected meat, and cutaneous anthrax in people having come into contact with the animals. All medical and public health records were confiscated by the KGB.<ref name="Meselson" /> In addition to the medical problems the outbreak caused, it also prompted Western countries to be more suspicious of a covert Soviet bioweapons program and to increase their surveillance of suspected sites. In 1986, the US government was allowed to investigate the incident, and concluded the exposure was from aerosol anthrax from a military weapons facility.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Sternbach G | title = The history of anthrax | journal = The Journal of Emergency Medicine | volume = 24 | issue = 4 | pages = 463–67 | date = May 2003 | pmid = 12745053 | doi = 10.1016/S0736-4679(03)00079-9 }}</ref> In 1992, President Yeltsin admitted he was "absolutely certain" that "rumors" about the Soviet Union violating the 1972 Bioweapons Treaty were true. The Soviet Union, like the US and UK, had agreed to submit information to the UN about their bioweapons programs, but omitted known facilities and never acknowledged their weapons program.<ref name="Alibek" />