Arch Dermatol. 2012 Aug 1;148(8):910. doi: 10.1001/archdermatol.2012.2097.
Arch Dermatol. 2012;148(8):910. doi:10.1001/archdermatol.2012.2097
Full Text
Various skin infections (eg, smallpox, anthrax, typhus,
tularemia) have been used or have the potential for use as biowarfare
agents for the purposes of causing widespread disease.
1
By contrast, to my knowledge, the use of infectious skin diseases as
instruments of targeted political violence are unreported in the medical
literature. However, declassified records from the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) have revealed what may be the only known
assassination attempt using a skin mycosis.
2
In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA planned to exploit
Cuban leader Fidel Castro's affinity for scuba diving by adulterating a
wetsuit to cause eumycotic mycetoma (ie, Madura foot), a chronic
granulomatous infection of cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues caused by
Eumycota fungi.
