EFFORT BEING MADE TO OUTLAW USE OF GERMS IN WARFARE

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 October 1947, Page 5

EFFORT BEING MADE TO OUTLAW USE OF GERMS IN WARFARE

Recd. 7 p.m. New York, Oct. 2. ; Poland intends to ask the United , Nations soon to begin negotiation’s for ; the prohibition of germ warfare, says ■ the United Press. Ignaxy Zlotowski, the Polish nu- | clear scientist, who represents his country in the Atomic Energy Com- j. mission, disclosed that he would pro- | pose a prompt start on negotiations at the Commission’s next meeting. < probably in mid-October. , The correspondent says: “It is not a secret that the United States, Britain and France had developed devastating ways of killing people, animals and growthings with a bacteria by the time ' the war ended. It is considered , certain the Soviet has not lagged I behind in that field. One scientist stationed at the United Nations i remarked: TEveryone has bacI teriological weapons. I’ve seen some of them myself. One was a

bottle containing enough stuff to . kill half the people in the world.’ ” ; The correspondent adds that the American Association of Scientific ! Workers sent a confidential memoran|dum this week to the United Nations delegates and high officials pleading I for an immediate consideration of , bacteriological warfare. The memorandum said: “Bacterial production could proceed in any civilised country irrespective of its size or relative wealth. Since it could employ facilities of modern medicine and biological research and development, bacteriological warfare could hardly be controlled by an international policing authority without interFeri cnce of the most intimate sort with activities upon which the health and welfare of the nations s depend.” The memoradum said that during the war ways were found of spreading terror and death in several diseases and plant poisons.