All's Fair in Love and Germ Warfare: Bioterrorism Agents Pictures

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This … is anthrax. No, not the thrash metal band -- the disease. More specifically, this is the Bacillus anthracis bacteria, which is the biological agent that causes the disease. This scanning electron micrograph shows a highly magnified culture of spores from the Sterne strain of the bacteria. Anthrax is the Abrams tank of germ warfare: tough, resilient, adaptable and deadly. And we're not just speaking hypothetically -- unlike many proposed bioterrorism agents, anthrax spores have already been used in the world of terrorism, to murder civilians and cause panic among a targeted population. To see more images of this infinitesimal assassin and other potential biological weapons, click ahead.

This view of B. anthracis is illuminated in ghostly green by a direct fluorescent antibody stain. Anthrax can attack the skin, lungs or gastrointestinal tract, but in all three cases, it is not considered contagious from person to person. So if it's not contagious, how do people get it?

Above, a lab-grown culture of the anthrax bacteria lies in this substrate of sheep blood agar. B. anthracis is relatively easy to preserve, weaponize and distribute, making it a very dangerous candidate for terrorism and biological warfare. In 2001, just weeks after the September 11 attacks, authorities became aware that someone had been mailing packets of powder containing deadly B. anthracis spores to members of the national media and to several U.S. Senators. By the time the attacks were fully understood, five Americans had died and 17 more had been infected. An American microbiologist named Bruce Edward Ivins was eventually implicated in the attacks after his suicide in 2008, but this charge has since been called into question. See the effects of one type of anthrax infection on the next page.

There are several different ways the anthrax bacteria can attack the human body. This is a lesion from a cutaneous infection -- an infection of the skin. The patient in this photo was a woman who was a laborer in the wool industry. Many of the people who contract anthrax accidentally are involved in the processing of animal products, such as meat, wool and hides. While a cutaneous infection is nothing to brush off, it is less deadly than the ingested forms of the disease. Take a look at the next page to see an even more dangerous potential infection.

The most dangerous mode of anthrax infection is the respiratory disease. This radiograph shows what human lungs look like in the final stages of inhalation anthrax. Anthrax does massive damage to the respiratory system, escalating quickly from cold- or flu-like symptoms to coughing, shortness of breath and, eventually, death. The kind of anthrax that proved most deadly in the 2001 attacks was inhalation anthrax. To see a different dangerous germ -- one more familiar to the average person -- click over to the next page.

This electron micrograph shows a single, isolated bacterium of the species Salmonella typhimurium. Salmonella is a more familiar and less deadly germ than anthrax; in fact, it is a relatively common infection in the United States, usually causing fever, diarrhea and severe abdominal pain. Most people can survive the onslaught of this bacterium without medical assistance, but children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are at risk and may require hospital care. So how do you get Salmonella?

Here, the single bacterium you just saw at mega-magnification is now shown in its native culture. And yes, they might look like hot dogs up close, but trust us: This is the last thing you want to consume at a family cookout. You can get Salmonella in a number of ways, often from eating undercooked meat or eggs, or from eating contaminated food that was prepared by someone not following proper kitchen hygiene standards (PS: This person isn't just the hurried fast-food worker or the eccentric chef -- it can just as easily be you or someone in your family. So always prepare food on clean surfaces, and WASH YOUR HANDS). So we know how it usually shows up in our kitchens and restaurants, but how has Salmonella figured into the bioterrorism picture?

The Salmonella shown above is a candidate for those who wish to hurt people through intentional food contamination. Like anthrax, this bacterium is not merely a speculated weapon -- Salmonella-based attacks have been attempted before. For example, in 1984, a Buddhist cult known as the Rajneeshee poisoned at least 751 people in a small town in Oregon with Salmonella. This attack was part of a plot to manipulate a local election by making most of the electorate too sick to go to the polls. (The perpetrators believed that the low voter turnout would allow their preferred candidate to win). Their method of attack was simple: They spread an infected quantity of liquid over exposed food and drink items (such as salad bars) in grocery stores and restaurants around the area, and then waited. Their plot to steal the election failed, and though they did cause widespread misery, none of the infected died.

Of course, terrorism and poor food safety procedures aren't the only ways to contract food-borne illness. Flies, which often crawl and dine on festering garbage, raw sewage and other filthy treasures, can also spread such diseases. In this photo from 1946, a worker in Edinburg, Texas, applies insecticide to the city dump to help curb rampant fly populations and the health hazards they bring.

A Salmonella infection is miserable and sometimes dangerous. An anthrax infection is often deadly. But the Botulinum toxin, produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, is pound-for-pound one of the most hazardous poisons in the world. Above are several colonies of C. botulinum type E, which is known for infecting human beings through the consumption of contaminated seafood. Take a look at a different type of C. botulinum and find out what it does to your body on the next page.

The previous page showed type E -- this is a colony of C. botulinum type A, cultivated on a plate of blood agar. These bacteria produce a hyper-potent poison, the botulinum nerve toxin, which causes muscle paralysis. Some doctors inject body tissues with a version this stuff, sold under trade names like "Botox," to treat everything from excessive sweating to migraines to crows' feet. But don't let this specialized medical use confuse you -- out of the hands of a professional, botulinum toxin is absolutely deadly. If a bit of this toxin is slipped into your food, you can succumb to botulism, which entails symptoms including blurry vision, slurred speech, muscle failure and, if not treated with antitoxin, death.

C. botulinum could be deadly in the hands of a terrorist or other enemy, since it doesn't take much at all to cause a life-threatening dose of the toxin. But there are also accidental sources of botulism. Damaged or improperly canned foods are a commonly recognized risk. You can cut down on your chances of meeting up with C. botulinum by avoiding cans that are dented, leaking or otherwise damaged, and also avoiding cans that appear bloated or puffed-up. On the next page, you'll see a researcher who helped develop our understanding of the bacterium that causes botulism.

This is Dr. Ida A. Bengston (1881-1952) working with her microscope at the American Public Health Service's Laboratory of Hygiene, which was founded in 1887 by a physician and bacteriologist named Joseph J. Kinyoun to study the nature of infectious diseases. Kinyoun and researchers like Bengston played a crucial part in the history of pathogen research, focusing on epidemic killers like bubonic plague and cholera. Bengston herself went on to author important work on C. botulinum and its derivative toxins. Next, you'll see an ancient, defeated enemy that could spell disaster if brought back from its dormancy.

In the photo above, a culture of smallpox virus lays waste to the chorioallantoic membrane cells of an embyonated chicken. Smallpox had been one of the world's most deadly viruses for hundreds or even thousands of years by the time the British doctor Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in 1796. It is extremely contagious as an airborne pathogen transmitted from person to person, and it is also deadly: As many as 30 percent of those who met the disease without vaccination were expected to die. But if there's a readily available vaccine these days, why is anyone worried about the risk of smallpox as a bioterrorism agent?

Here, the embryonic chick's smallpox infection progresses to show an infusion of the hemorrhagic "pocks" associated with "pox" diseases. Following the successful implementation of Jenner's vaccine around the world, smallpox is believed to have been eradicated in the wild since the 1970s. Health organizations in the United States ceased issuing the smallpox vaccine in 1972 (since the vaccine itself carried a small set of risks that were deemed unnecessary after the disease's disappearance). Most of the rest of the world backed off of the vaccine around 1980. However, several laboratories still possess samples of the smallpox virus that they use for research. If this virus were to be captured and weaponized by a terrorist or other malefactor, it could do untold damage to a largely unvaccinated population.

A Bangladeshi lab worker cultivates batches of smallpox vaccine by inoculating chicken eggs with the smallpox virus. Vaccination carries an assumed risk -- some very small subset of people who receive the inoculation will suffer smallpox symptoms. But if smallpox were to reappear in the wild, or especially if there were a pandemic, the benefits of widespread vaccination would probably again overcome the risks. As a contingency, the U.S. government keeps on hand massive stockpiles of smallpox vaccine that could be administered during a public health emergency.

This chocolate agar holds a culture of Yersinia pestis bacteria -- the microscopic culprit behind another age-old pestilence: the plague. In the 14th century, a plague pandemic swept across Europe. When it hit London, it killed roughly one-third to one-half of all of the people in Britain's capital. Though our ability to treat plague in all its forms has certainly improved since the Middle Ages, plague is still taken very seriously as a potential bioterrorism agent, given its ability to spread quickly, and its ghastly mortality rate. So how is plague transmitted? Follow to the next page to find out.

The majority of infections of bubonic plague -- the most familiar and most common form of the disease from medieval history -- come from flea bites. More specifically, from the flea that bit the rat that that got the plague from another flea bite. This makes plague a primarily "zoonotic" disease, which means a sickness that is transmitted from one species to another.

This Direct Fluorescent Antibody micrograph gives us an extremely up-close view of the Y. pestis bacteria in its singular native shape. Though we are much better at treating plague than the doctors of medieval Europe, who were unfortunately ignorant of germ theory and mostly practiced treatments ranging from not-very-effective to needlessly harmful, plague still represents a very real threat -- especially in situations where hospital care and antibiotic treatments are not available.

This is the common brown rat, or Rattus norvegicus, which is still a frequent host for bubonic plague and the fleas that transmit it. But there is one important distinction worth noting about plague as a bioweapon: Experts believe that while sanitation and pest control have made transmission by rat and flea an unlikely way of infecting a modern population of humans, an aerosol dispersal of pneumonic plague -- the inhaled version of the same disease -- is a very real bioterrorism threat. According to the World Health Organization, in 2003, plague accounted for 2,118 infections and 182 fatalities in nine countries.

This technologist conducts laboratory research on the Y. pestis bacteria in his lab in California in 1961. While bubonic plague is unlikely to be shared from person to person, pneumonic plague can easily ride the waves of a cough or sneeze, and create an epidemic almost as easily as a strain of flu. Fortunately, if the infection is caught early enough, antibiotics are quite effective at defeating it. To see a common vector for the next disease we'll encounter, check out the next page.

This scanning electron micgrograph shows the solid outline of a Dermacentor sp. tick. Ticks can transmit many diseases that threaten humans, and anyone who has gone camping in the United States has heard warnings to watch out for tiny blood-suckers bearing Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But ticks like this are also known to trade in Tularemia -- the dangerous infection caused by Francisella tularensis. Click over to the next page to see it isolated in the lab.

This plate of Cysteine Heart Agar bears a colony of F. tularensis after 72 hours of incubation. Tularemia is a serious disease that can easily kill a person if not detected and treated early. Symptoms of Tularemia are similar to those of many flu-like diseases, and include fever, chills, aches, diarrhea and weakness. While F. tularensis is not highly contagious from person to person, it is extremely infectious, meaning even very limited airborne exposure can cause the disease.

At the Centers for Disease Control, microbiologists work hard to help us understand the nature of deadly pathogens and prepare the world to resist them with strength, efficiency and knowledge. At the time this photo was taken, this CDC researcher was part of the Special Pathogens Branch, which focuses on viruses that are highly infectious, such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever and hantaviruses. CDC employees who work with these types of pathogens must practice rigorous containment standards to prevent infection and accidental contamination of the outside air -- hence, the airtight suit.

Another CDC microbiologist from the Special Pathogens Branch finishes his work with a decontamination procedure, which includes a stint in this airtight shower room. After the shower has removed all possible infectious agents from the exterior of the airtight work suit, the worker can move on to the adjoining changing room to take off the plastic shroud. This is all part of dealing with Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) -- one of the CDC's many security and hygiene protocols. While it's vital to keep these dangerous pathogens on hand so we can learn more about them and shore up our defense, it's equally vital that these germs be kept quarantined from accidental diffusion, or from ending up in the wrong hands.

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