![]() Returning from a visit to their American and Canadian colleagues in April 1944, British scientists reported their fear that “the Germans had made considerable progress in developing methods of using dry powdered X (botulinum toxin)”, which would have the potential to spread botulism through inhalation. In 1944, intelligence reports about the potential use of botulinum toxin by German troops became even more worrying. The preparation of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate Europe, was the pinnacle of this misinformation war. General Eisenhower has asked that the matter should be looked into and an immediate approach was made to us since it was thought that we might have considered this particular possibility on earlier occasions” (shown in Fig. botulinus as a form of warfare against this country. ![]() On January 20, 1944, a letter from Philip Allen (1912–2007), a member of the British War Cabinet, stated: “A report has reached the American Chiefs of Staff from sources in Switzerland that the Germans are now in a position to use B. Nevertheless, the rumors continued to circulate. Nevertheless, major progress (purification, toxoid) arose from the military research, providing useful data for the first steps of the therapeutic use of botulinum toxin in the post-war years. These studies led to a succession of failures and myths about the weaponization of botulinum toxin. Misinformation spread by intelligence services stimulated military research at Porton Down facilities in England and at Camp Detrick in the USA. All these reports would ultimately prove to be inaccurate: botulinum toxin was not part of the German military arsenal even if some German scientists tried to use the results of the French pre-war military research. During WW2, Allied intelligence services regularly reported a major German threat related to the potential use of botulinum toxin as a biological weapon, especially during the preparation of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate Europe. Using documents from the British National Archives and other published sources, we discuss the main points of the attempts to weaponize this toxin in German and Allied armies. The Second World War was a crucial period for the first attempts to weaponize this toxin even if many unknown factors about botulinum toxin still existed at the outbreak of the war. ![]() Because of this toxicity, botulinum toxin was one of the first agents to be considered for use as a biological weapon. The extreme toxicity of this toxin-inducing botulism, a severe lethal muscle-paralyzing illness, has been well known since the seminal works of the end of the 19th century. Botulinum toxin is nowadays approved as an effective medication for various neurological disorders. ![]()
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