The special insight team of reporters for the well-respected Sunday Times has uncovered a number of laboratories around the world willing to sell or export highly lethal biological agents capable of killing thousands of people in one go for a mere $1,000. Posing as representatives for a medical lab in Africa, these undercover men were offered samples of anthrax and brucella by a lab in Indonesia.

This Asian plant made no check on their identities or even asked how these lethal products might be used. No questions asked! Another group of Sunday Times reporters were offered lethal botulinum bacteria by another plant in the Czech Republic. These two labs-one in Eastern Europe and one in the Far East-are among about 450 germ collectors globally. Some 50 offer anthrax; about 35 trade in the deadly botulinum bacteria, and so on.

Undercover British reporters contacted about 20 of these plants pretty much at random, including three in Mexico, Brazil and China. These latter ones did ask for an export license before approving the sale.

Microscopic amounts of these germs can kill hundreds at once if either inhaled or consumed in contaminated food products. Rogue countries such as North Korea and Iraq, along with various terrorist cells scattered throughout the world, are suspected of buying and storing these incredibly lethal biological agents. Several British politicians are, therefore, currently clamoring for much tighter international controls.

One particular feature article concluded with these words: "The CIA has warned that biological and chemical weapons represent the most urgent long-term threat to the West. There are fears that anyone with a basic scientific knowledge and a backroom laboratory could use the bugs to make biological weapons." (The Sunday Times, 22 November 1998 (two feature articles))