In Reply to: Statement from American Society for Microbiology: posted by HasBen on November 17, 2024 at 11:09:10
That article mentions specific allegations about the French, Spanish, and English. I'll give you the one event in the 1830's.
I take issue with the perception that US settlers were systematically using biological warfare on the indigenous Americans. There is one assertion that it happened. The author's opening statement says it all "it is an accepted fact that white settlers distributed items, such as blankets contaminated with smallpox and other infectious diseases, aiming to reduce the population of Native people resisting their Manifest Destiny." That is the conventional wisdom amongst the world. That the US routinely engaged in biological warfare. Three of the 4 examples given were England, Spain, and France. But, throwing in Manifest Destiny puts the spotlight on the US. There is one, semi-documented instance of it. Which I accept. There is evidence it happened once. Everyone else on the frontier were such A-holes that they would overlook it, if they knew it was happening. No one else in the history of the US took umbrage at that in a tangible way? That's just too facile.