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FLI Podcast (Part 2): Anthrax, Agent Orange, and Yellow Rain: Verification Stories with Matthew Meselson and Max Tegmark

Published
February 28, 2019

In this special two-part podcast Ariel Conn is joined by Max Tegmark for a conversation with Dr. Matthew Meselson, biologist and Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Meselson began his career with an experiment that helped prove Watson and Crick’s hypothesis on the structure and replication of DNA. He then got involved in arms control, working with the US government to renounce the development and possession of biological weapons and halt the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam. From the cellular level to that of international policy, Dr. Meselson has made significant contributions not only to the field of biology, but also towards the mitigation of existential threats.   

Part Two focuses on three major incidents in the history of biological weapons: the 1979 anthrax outbreak in Russia, the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam, and the Yellow Rain controversy in the early 80s. Dr. Meselson led the investigations into all three and solved some perplexing scientific mysteries along the way.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

  • The value of verification, regardless of the challenges
  • The 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak
  • The use of “rainbow” herbicides during the Vietnam War, including Agent Orange
  • The Yellow Rain Controversy

Publications and resources discussed in this episode include:

  • The Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak of 1979, Matthew Meselson, Jeanne Guillemin, Martin Hugh-Jones, Alexander Langmuir, Ilona Popova, Alexis Shelokov, and Olga Yampolskaya, Science, 18 November 1994, Vol. 266, pp 1202-1208.
  • Preliminary Report- Herbicide Assessment Commission of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Matthew Meselson, A. H. Westing, J. D. Constable, and Robert E. Cook, 30 December 1970, private circulation, 8 pp. Reprinted in Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, Vol. 118-part 6, 3 March 1972, pp 6806-6807.
  • "Background Material Relevant to Presentations at the 1970 Annual Meeting of the AAAS", Herbicide Assessment Commission of the AAAS, with A.H. Westing and J.D. Constable, December 1970, private circulation, 48 pp. Reprinted in the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, Vol. 118-part 6, 3 March 1972, pp 6807-6813.
  • “The Yellow Rain Affair: Lessons from a Discredited Allegation”, with Julian Perry Robinson Terrorism, War, or Disease? eds. A.L. Clunan, P.R. Lavoy, and SB Martin, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. 2008, pp 72-96.
  • Yellow Rain by Thomas D. Seeley, Joan W. Nowicke, Matthew Meselson, Jeanne Guillemin and Pongthep Akratanakul, Scientific American, September 1985, Vol. 253, pp 128-137.
  • 2017 Antiplant Chemical Warfare in Vietnam by Matthew Meselson Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Click here for Part 1: From DNA to Banning Biological Weapons with Matthew Meselson and Max Tegmark

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