This article critically reviews the literature on the history of biological warfare, bioterrorism, and biocrimes. The first serious effort to review this entire history, made in 1969, had numerous limitations. In recent decades, several authors have filled many of the gaps in our understanding of the past use of biological agents (including both pathogens and toxins), making it possible to reconstruct that history with greater fidelity than previously possible. Nevertheless, there are numerous remaining gaps, and closer inspection indicates that some supposed uses of biological weapons never took place or are poorly substantiated. Topics requiring additional research are identified.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 64. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 September 2026.
All research outputs
#846,254
of 34,347,532 outputs
Outputs from Health Security
#34
of 678 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,923
of 300,638 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Security
#1
of 11 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,347,532 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 678 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 300,638 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 11 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
