Why does everyone get so paranoid...? (Score 1)

I dont understand why everyone gets so paranoid whenever advances in gene therapy or biomedical are made public. All things considered, and any tactician will tell you this, the most efficient way to kill people is not with chemical weapons. Use a bomb, gun, knife, sharp stick...but chemical weapons? As a general rule, in order for a chemical weapon to be really effective, it has to have a pretty extended period ( in weapon terms ) to affect the victim (s). Compare this to a bomb, gun, or even a jug of detergent and fertilizer with a wick, and the only thing these weapons are good for is terror tactics. Can you imagine the sanctions against a group that used a bioengineered virus these days? I dont mean mustard gas, or even the lethal serin toxin that was used in the tokyo subway bombing, but a real bioengineered virus, 100% lethal and transmittable. On top of the environmental concerns ( your own population contracting it ) and having the technology and/or cash to handle a weapon of that magnitude, I dont think that you could handle the reprisals by the rest of the world. Even a superpower that decided on this course of action would invariably be discovered and I doubt they would have ( short of complete religious fanatacism ) the support of their population for long.