Nathan Radke

And in 1972, the world's powers passed the Biological Weapons Convention Treaty to end the development or production of biological weapons.

And thanks to this treaty, now you had to be really sneaky and quiet when you developed and produced your biological weapons.

And in the 70s and 80s, the Soviets had a program called Biopreparat,

50,000 workers in secret labs supervised by the KGB working on things like anthrax and smallpox.

And there was even an accidental lab leak in Sverdlovsk in 1979 when lab tech forgot to replace an air filter and dozens of locals died from anthrax.

Oh boy.

Because this is the problem when you're dealing with these horrifying substances.

Yeah, anthrax doesn't get any press anymore.

It needs a new agent.

I don't know why I'm laughing.

I guess just aging.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mean, worse than anthrax, worse than smallpox, a new disease shows up in Marburg, Germany in 1967.

It shows great apocalyptic promise.

They called it Marburg, of course, and it's a hemorrhagic fever that could be spread from human to human through direct contact or indirect contact.

And Marburg, it's kind of like Ebola, but

In the symptoms and in the lethality, the difference is that there's a vaccine and treatment options for Ebola, but nothing for Marburg.

And since the consequences of contracting Marburg often include having your organs liquefy, including your brain, I mean, the lack of treatment or vaccine is particularly chilling.

So this thing would make a great weapon.