Nerve Gas

I

Introduction

Nerve Gas, military chemical agent designed to attack the human nervous system. Nerve gas works by blocking the body’s production of an enzyme called cholinesterase. This allows the neurotransmitter acetylcholine to build up in the body. When this happens, muscles contract but cannot relax. Victims suffer from headaches, runny nose, narrowing of the pupils, and a tightened chest. If a person is exposed to a lethal dosage, uncontrollable muscle contractions occur and quickly lead to death by asphyxiation.

Nerve gas is designed for use against attacking troops. However, it has also been used against civilians, both by governments and by terrorists. Bombs, artillery shells, and short-range rockets have been designed to deliver nerve gas in military attacks. Any container can be used for terrorist attacks.

II

Types of Nerve Gas

Most nerve gases are organophosphates, a class of organic molecule originally developed for use as an insecticide (see Pest Control). Specific varieties of nerve gas (with their common code initials) include tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), and VX, which is the most lethal. Two of the most frequently mentioned nerve gases are sarin and VX.

Sarin usually enters the body through the lungs. It breaks down quickly after release and soon poses little danger to the targeted area. Recovery from a nonlethal dose can take two weeks. A good gas mask and protective clothing can reduce or block sarin’s effect.

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VX can kill either as an inhaled vapor or as a liquid spilled on the skin, and is several times more lethal than sarin. Also, VX is persistent, which means that days and weeks later, a person touching a VX-covered object can still get a lethal dose.

III

History

German scientists first developed tabun as an insecticide in 1936. Other nerve agents soon followed, and a factory at Dyhernfurth, Germany, produced 12,000 tons of tabun, sarin, and soman. Germany was the sole possessor of nerve gas during World War II (1939-1945). Concentration camp experiments killed prisoners and industrial accidents killed workers, but the Germans never used nerve gas in combat. This was likely due to fear that the Allies would retaliate with existing chemical weapons like mustard gas or chlorine.

After World War II, several countries built up large stockpiles of nerve gas. Britain seized tabun gas from Germany, and American and Soviet chemists worked on nerve gas production. Researchers first produced the more lethal VX nerve gas in the 1950s. Great Britain ended development of nerve agents in 1957, but production in the Soviet Union and the United States continued for decades.

Many Americans became aware of nerve gas in the late 1960s, when nerve gas accidentally released from an airborne spray tank killed thousands of sheep near the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Eventually, both the United States and the Soviet Union had large stores that were never used. Earlier treaties, such as the Geneva Protocol of 1925, prohibited the use of poisonous gases, but not the development or stockpiling of these weapons. Starting in the 1980s, agreements like the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) led governments to begin dismantling their reserves of nerve gases. The CWC prohibits the use, production, and stockpiling of chemcial weapons. Over 160 countries have signed the CWC since 1993, including most of the industrialized world, and at least 117 countries have ratified or approved the agreement.

Despite international efforts to eliminate nerve gas, serious global threats remain. Nerve gas is inexpensive to make, and production can be set up secretly because many of the chemical components of nerve gas have legitimate uses. Sarin was made by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan and was used in a terrorist attack in a Tokyo subway station in 1995 that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000. In the late 20th century several nations, including Libya, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria, were developing nerve gas.

Iraq in particular showed a willingness to use nerve gas. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi military fired artillery shells filled with tabun against Iranian infantry. In 1988 Iraq used a variety of chemical agents, including nerve gas, against Kurdish civilians in the Iraqi town of Halabja, killing approximately 5,000 individuals. At the start of the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991), Iraq threatened to use nerve gas against U.S.-led coalition forces, but U.S. and British warnings of nuclear retaliation deterred any such use. After the war, United Nations (UN) weapons inspectors found large stockpiles of nerve gas in Iraq.

See also Chemical and Biological Warfare; Arms Control.