On the Tuesday, July 28, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast:
Investigative journalist and best-selling author Annie Jacobsen joins USA TODAY's The Excerpt to discuss her new book, “Biological War: A Scenario.” In it, she explains how a biological attack or lab accident could spread, why the first 24 to 72 hours would be critical and how artificial intelligence and gene editing are lowering the barrier to creating dangerous pathogens.Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
For all our technology and safeguards, perhaps the biggest variable our survival hinges on is human behavior, the decisions scientists make, the choices governments make, even how individuals respond in a crisis. In New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen's new book, "Biological War: A Scenario," we get a chilling look at a very real and present danger, biological weapons. Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, July 28th, 2026. Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and investigative journalist, and it's so good to have you here, Annie.
Annie Jacobsen:
Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Annie, your book opens with something genuinely terrifying, how easily a biological weapon can be deployed and how easily that contagion can be spread. Was there a genuinely terrifying moment for you or a realization that compelled you to write this book?
Annie Jacobsen:
I was doing an interview with a former Pentagon war planner who planned biological catastrophes at the Pentagon. And when he said to me that there is very little you can do to prevent catastrophe once a pathogen is released, only things to mitigate extermination. I really took pause, it pretty much took my breath away.
Dana Taylor:
So I was unfamiliar with how the U.S. classifies dangerous pathogens. What are Tier 1 select agents and toxins and why does that classification matter? And then I want to ask, how and where are they stored?
Annie Jacobsen:
Interestingly, that is a list that is designated and controlled by the CDC, which everyone's familiar with. The CDC actually reports to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an organization with a budget twice that of the Defense Department, and yet many Americans are not familiar with HHS. And it is the CDC who decides what is dangerous, what is Tier 1, what is a select agent. And that is basically based on how lethal a pathogen would be were it to be weaponized and were it to get out. What's fascinating and also horrifying is that the Defense Department classifies a biological incident, a catastrophe as an attack, an intentional release, but also a lab accident.
And so the CDC and the DOD would work together in the event that a Tier 1 select agent, everything from Ebola to plague were to be released. Many of us have heard of BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs in the wake of the COVID pandemic. This refers to biosafety level-4, that's a maximum containment facility. BSL-3 is right below that. It's interesting to know that before 9/11, before the anthrax attacks that followed, there were only two BSL-4 labs in the United States of America. One was at Fort Detrick in Maryland, a Defense Department facility, the other at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Today, there are between 15 and 17 BSL-4 labs in America, many in cities with millions of people living nearby.
Dana Taylor:
For the U.S. government monitoring state actors, who are the clear bad actors here? And can you give me an example of how they've hidden their bioweapons programs in the past?
Annie Jacobsen:
Yes, it's good to remember that biological weapons are illegal. Biological warfare is illegal, and yet biological weapons exist. And that is of great concern to the U.S. State Department, specifically in its 2024 and 2025 report. It pointed to Russia and North Korea, identifying those two countries as having active biological weapons programs. And it also points to China and Iran as being countries of concern. I think it's also good to know that there is a lot of research going on under the guise of what is called gain-of-function or dual-use research, whereby scientists are working to modify pathogens in these BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs under the pretense or rather premise that they are working to determine medical countermeasures to prevent a pandemic in the event of the release of a biological pathogen. That is a very dangerous catch-22 situation I learned in reporting this book.
Dana Taylor:
How did we get from American biochemist Paul Berg's 1971 breakthrough where he successfully spliced monkey virus DNA into another virus, creating a hybrid that doesn't exist in nature, to where we are today with weaponization?
Annie Jacobsen:
That moment in time to which you refer is the kind of origin story of genetic engineering. It was similar to the splitting of the atom. And it has been a journey in the decades ever since as biotechnology advances now at lightning speeds. And so where we were in 1971 with that origin story experiment and where we are now, I take readers quickly through what has happened, but it is safe to say that the ability to modify pathogens, to genetically engineer pathogens now has an extremely low bar for entry because of machine learning, because of AI-assisted research. And that is a major concern with everybody in the business of preventing a biological catastrophe.
Dana Taylor:
This is a deeply researched book, just the list of people that you spoke to on this topic. I wonder what was shared with you about what happened and what should have happened when scientists realized the tools they were creating could be weaponized.
Annie Jacobsen:
Well, that is a critical moment that has happened in the past and continues today. And all people involved in public health and preventing weapons of mass destruction like biological weapons from killing a lot of people are deeply concerned with the idea of mitigating the threat, God forbid, a dangerous lab leak happens or an intentional release. Everything is about timing. If nations could be more transparent about their labs, about what's going on inside of them, and ultimately in the event that there was an accident, we would be in a much more potential position to stop an outbreak from becoming an epidemic, from becoming a pandemic. And if there's one thing I had hoped to bring to the table in my reporting, it is precisely that.
Dana Taylor:
You noted and it's threaded throughout the book that, "The human response is always the X factor." For an optimist, that could be a heartening thought, the hero comes in and saves the day. For pessimist, not so much. But still, if it weren't for a Russian defector, many of us might not be here right now. What's your read on the human X factor in the context of biological warfare?
Annie Jacobsen:
I'm so glad you brought this up because it could be a situation reading Biological War: A Scenario of potential doom and gloom, because I am writing a dystopian scenario that will hopefully never happen. But on counterbalance, I believe and have solid reason to believe that progress comes from people. Weapons of mass destruction like biological weapons, like nuclear weapons are man-made problems. Therefore, I believe they have man-made solutions. And hopefully that's what all of this is about.
Dana Taylor:
Okay. Despite that, I do want to turn to the ticking clock scenario. I mean, this book, it was fascinating, but there was a lot in there that did frighten me. Realistically, how quickly would anyone outside the government know a bioweapon has been detected in the U.S.? Or what might a make or break first 24 to 72 hours actually look like?
Annie Jacobsen:
I take the readers through precisely those moments that I learned from my sources in the Defense Department and the intelligence community who have eyes on these BSL-4 labs around the world so that in the event that there is an accident, steps can be taken immediately to try and air quotes, offer to help. And there are all kinds of intelligence community disciplines, everything from signals intelligence to something called MASINT, Measurement and Signature Intelligence, whereby sensors, covertly placed sensors run by the U.S. government are essentially sniffing to find clues to help learn about an outbreak in the immediate aftermath.
And what ends up happening, as I show in the book, is that it does all happen really fast. I mean, in essence, the scenario I report takes the reader from outbreak to anarchy in six days. Because if a pathogen is not contained, the greatest fear that the U.S. Defense Department has time and time again going over these war games is that the general population becomes consumed with fear over the fear of infection. And because we all went through COVID, I think we know precisely what that means.
Dana Taylor:
So if a sophisticated bioweapon were to be released, and I should ask, if you could give us an example of what one might be, with no existing treatment, is it already too late to act or are there still intervention points?
Annie Jacobsen:
Again, timing is everything. The pathogen that I chose in the scenario, I did so with real intention. I chose pneumonic plague. And people are familiar with bubonic plague from the history books because of the black death of the 14th century. But pneumonic plague is the variant, the advanced variant of bubonic plague whereby it enters the lungs and it becomes airborne. And looping back to that select one, the Tier 1 select agent list that the CDC is so concerned about, pneumonic plague is among the top threats on that list because it is airborne, because it is so deadly. COVID had a case fatality rate of 1%, meaning one out of every 100 people who had the disease died. Pneumonic plague has a case fatality rate of 100% if you don't get antibiotics within 24 hours.
Dana Taylor:
For the people currently developing these pathogens, having no cure might seem like a feature rather than a flaw. But is that part of what keeps us safe, the knowledge that it spreads easily and could spread back to them?
Annie Jacobsen:
One would hope. And that is where there is certainly a bit of an analogy, a parallel, if you will, with nuclear weapons, which the idea is deterrence will keep nuclear war from ever happening. No one would be crazy enough to launch a nuclear weapon. And for decades now, the idea behind biological weapons, illegal as they are, is that same fundamental. No one would be crazy enough to release this kind of a pathogen. But that does not rule out an accident or a lab leak, which is why that is precisely the spark, which begins the scenario of my new book.
Dana Taylor:
You mentioned this and I want to circle back to it. You wrote that biological warfare is essentially indefensible. That's part of the reason why you wanted to write this book, but there are active efforts to develop therapeutics and vaccines or countermeasures. Where do efforts like the U.S.'s Project BioShield stand right now?
Annie Jacobsen:
Well, you're referring to what is a national syndromic surveillance system. It's a big mouthful that really means the CDC is monitoring outbreaks as they occur in close to real time across the United States. Meaning: 7,200 emergency rooms, urgent care facilities, hospitals—these are all linked to the CDC so that they can report outbreaks or suspicious disease infections as they are occurring, so that the CDC can use computational science to be able to monitor these events. But like any system, there are holes in the system.
Dana Taylor:
You also mentioned this paradox of dual use technology. We have gene editing tools like CRISPR. We also have biological weapons. In reading your book against the backdrop of the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, it was really sobering. Are there other lessons here that stretch beyond the threat of bioweapons?
Annie Jacobsen:
I think the point of this for me is not panic per se. It's pressure. And pressure begins by people having conversations like you and I are having right here. It begins with an awareness and kind of an ability to be practical about the existential risk that biological weapons or pathogens in general propose to all of society right now. And by having a conversation, you can begin to become a little more literate about what to do next for you, for your family, and how to really encourage government in general to be on top of these ideas, not just looking to subject matter experts to find a solution.
Dana Taylor:
Annie Jacobsen's new book, "Biological War: A Scenario," is out now and it was an incredible read. Thank you so much, Annie.
Annie Jacobsen:
Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Let us know what story you'd like to hear next. You can send us a note at podcasts@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How biological warfare could trigger a global catastrophe | The Excerpt
