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Blister agents, also known as vesicants, are a class of chemical weapon first used in combat during World War I. The prototypical and most common blister agent is sulfur mustard (SM) (bis-(2-chloroethyl) sulfide), known as mustard gas.

Although never employed as a bioweapon to date, R. prowazekii was studied as a candidate for airborne dissemination by Japan during World War II and by the former Soviet Union during the 1970s because of its potential lethality and its ability to spread between humans via lice. Typhus has the potential to produce fatal disease and has been identified by the CDC as a Category B biological agent.

The CDC has classified ricin toxin as a Category B threat agent. Category B agents are the second highest priority agents because they can be disseminated with moderate ease, they cause moderate morbidity and low mortality, and they “require specific enhancements of CDC’s diagnostic capacity and enhanced disease surveillance.”

Y. pestis was developed as an aerosol weapon that, when deployed, can cause primary pneumonic plague, a highly lethal, and contagious form of plague.

Glanders is caused by infection with the bacterium Burkholderia mallei, and melioidosis is caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei. Both have the potential to produce fatal disease and have been identified by the CDC as Category B biological agents. HHS has identified these diseases as top priorities for development of medical countermeasures.

Some HFVs are considered to be a significant threat for use as biological weapons due to their potential for causing widespread illness and death.  Ebola, Marburg, Junin, Rift Valley fever, and yellow fever viruses have been deemed to pose a particularly serious threat, and in 1999 the HFVs were classified as category A bioweapons agents by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

F. tularensis is considered to be a serious potential bioterrorist threat because it is one of the most infectious pathogenic bacteria known—inhalation of as few as 10 organisms can cause disease—and it has substantial capacity to cause serious illness and death. The bacterium was developed into an aerosol biological weapon by several countries in the past.

Smallpox was used as a biological weapon during the French and Indian Wars, (1754 to 1767) , and in the 1980s, was developed into an aerosol biological weapon by the Soviet Union.