Does North Korea Have Weaponized Anthrax? What You Need to Know

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The mainstream media has been speculating recently whether or not North Korea’s threats to hit the US with an anthrax-tipped missile are empty or not, and it turns out…not.  I contacted Lizzie Bennett, a medical expert from the UK, to tell us what we need to know about anthrax. ~ Daisy

What You Need to Know About Anthrax

by Lizzie Bennett

Sky News is reporting this morning that a North Korean soldier who defected to the South is immune to anthrax.  No big deal right? Well yes, actually it’s a very big deal. It means the guy was either exposed to anthrax or was vaccinated against it.

And that means North Korea has anthrax.

When anthrax occurs naturally, it’s a livestock disease. The treatment of anthrax isn’t medically difficult if the disease is caught early. A course of antibiotics can clear it up, BUT, and it’s a huge but, North Korea is poor, you may not think so with the amount of weaponry it displays and the rotund build of its leader, but in real people terms, it’s poor.

North Koreans, particularly those not in major population centers are malnourished. Medical facilities are sparse and under-equipped. It’s highly unlikely that a lowly grunt in the massive North Korean army contracted the disease on mom and dad’s farm and the military establishment took pity on him and rustled up some highly prized antibiotics to treat him.

Far more likely he was used as part of an experiment into the effects and treatment of anthrax. He is most likely the lucky one who was treated.

Now some will say his defection was planned, that the North knew his immunity would be discovered so they allowed him to escape, propaganda, nothing more and nothing less. The fact is, it doesn’t matter if it was a set-up or not. The fact is, the man is immune to anthrax.

What is anthrax?


Medically, anthrax is a gram-positive rod-shaped bacillus called Bacillus anthraxis (source) that causes a serious, often fatal, disease in humans. In short, it’s a bacteria. It’s commonly found in soil and in livestock and wild animals across the globe. The bacteria is protected by a hard case. It can lie dormant for years and then when conditions are right can re-activate, causing infection in animals and humans. Back in 2016, an anthrax outbreak sickened 72 people after the disease came to the surface as permafrost melted.

People can touch, eat, or breathe in anthrax spores. When this happens, the anthrax spores enter the human body and can turn into active bacteria. This is called exposure to anthrax. Not everybody who is exposed to anthrax will get sick. But many will, and as anthrax bacteria multiply inside the body, they can cause very serious illness.

For example, 1 person in New York in 2006 and 2 people in Connecticut in 2007 were exposed to anthrax while making drums from imported animal skins. The skins contained anthrax spores. These people became extremely sick with anthrax disease. Getting anthrax this way is very unusual. In California, there has been no anthrax disease in humans since 1983, but there are cases of anthrax in farm animals (usually cattle) every few years.

Terrorists could use anthrax to hurt people on purpose by releasing anthrax spores in public places. In 2001, letters containing powdered anthrax spores were sent through the U.S. mail, causing skin and lung anthrax in 22 people. Five people died, all due to lung anthrax. (source)

More worrying still would be a deliberate release of aerosolized anthrax, and it’s such a possibility that keeps many talking heads in the D.O.D awake at night.

Aerosolized simply means turned into a fine mist sometimes containing particles, by the use of a propellant. Think spraying anti-perspirant in the bathroom in a morning, the mist not only carries the particles of deodorant onto your armpits, the force of the propellant scatters it around. That’s exactly what would happen if anthrax was fired into the air with a propellant, a very small amount could go a long way further than the same amount sitting on a surface.

Now imagine aerosolized anthrax was put into the ventilation system of a shopping mall, the propellant turnsit into a fine mist, the ventilation system transports it to the lungs of thousands of people out doing their New Year shopping…not a nice thought is it?

Let’s take that one step further. A missile with an anthrax tip. Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun reports:

North Korea has begun tests to load anthrax onto intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to an intelligence source here.

The United States also has come to the same conclusion. The White House, in its new National Security Strategy issued Dec. 18, stated that North Korea is pursuing “nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that could threaten our homeland.”

The source in South Korea said Pyongyang is conducting heat and pressure resistance tests to see whether anthrax germs can survive at temperatures of 7,000 degrees or higher, the level an ICBM encounters when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

There was an unconfirmed intelligence report that North Korea has already succeeded in such experiments.
Washington had apparently been aware for some time that North Korea is culturing anthrax. Read More…

What types of anthrax are there?


Preparing yourself and your family against an anthrax attack isn’t easy. It’s odorless, tasteless and all but invisible in the air and there are no symptoms at all for up to six days. Once in the system the spores germinate and spread through the body. The first signs of exposure vary depending on how the anthrax was contracted.

Cutaneous Anthrax

If you have a wound, it can become infected. This is called cutaneous anthrax:

Symptoms of cutaneous anthrax start 1 to 7 days after exposure:

  • An itchy sore develops that is similar to an insect bite. This sore may blister and form a black ulcer (sore or eschar).
  • The sore is usually painless, but it is often surrounded by swelling.
  • A scab often forms, and then dries and falls off within 2 weeks. Complete healing can take longer.

Inhalation Anthrax

As with our shopping mall scenario anthrax can be inhaled but it doesn’t have to be aerosolized to be dangerous, inhaling anthrax spores from an animal or a hide or even from soil can still kill.

Symptoms of inhalation anthrax:

  • Begins with fever, malaise, headache, cough, shortness of breath, and chest pain
  • Fever and shock may occur later

Gastrointestinal anthrax

Anthrax can also be ingested, for example from eating tainted meat this is called gastrointestinal anthrax.

Symptoms of gastrointestinal anthrax usually occur within 1 week and may include:

  • Abdominal pain
  • Bloody diarrhea
  • Diarrhea
  • Fever
  • Nausea and vomiting (the vomit may contain blood)

How is anthrax treated?


The antibiotics of choice for treating anthrax are penicillin, doxycycline, and ciprofloxacin for inhalational anthrax. These need to be given intravenously for 60 days as not all spores germinate within the body at the same time. The overall outcome for people with second-stage inhalational or gastrointestinal anthrax is grave, even when given antibiotics. Early treatment is imperative.

Unlike smallpox, (something else North Korea has been experimenting with) anthrax is generally not communicable person to person.

Note from Daisy:

Prepping for an anthrax attack is nearly impossible for the average person, since 60 days worth of IV drugs would be required. Your best bet, if possible, is avoidance. If a situation were to occur in which anthrax was detected, going into pandemic lockdown would be the best way to protect your family.

If someone shows signs of anthrax, immediate medical attention is necessary. Please don’t call your local essential oil distributor – you need antibiotics.

Picture of Lizzie Bennett

Lizzie Bennett

Lizzie Bennett recently retired from her job as a senior operating department practitioner in the UK. Her field was trauma and accident and emergency and she has served on major catastrophe teams around the UK. Lizzie publishes Underground Medic on the topic of preparedness.

Leave a Reply

  • I’m sure if NOKO doesn’t have weaponized anthrax Ft Detrick would be more than happy to backdoor them some. It worked in the US shortly after 911

  • But, one thing that NK may or may not have taken into consideration is that an attack on the United States with anthrax would justify us (under international law) to respond with nuclear weapons. Supposedly we destroyed all of our chemical and biological weapons. (If you believe that I have a bridge that I’d like to sell you) But since we officially destroyed our stockpile, the nuclear option is the only WMD that we posess. Kim Jung may be crazy, but he’s not ignorant of what would happen. Above all else he wants to remain in power.

  • No, they do not. Well, let me rephrase that. Since North Korea doesn’t even exist as a “real” country and are nothing but a cardboard-cutout construct of the CIA, they don’t have weaponized anthrax unless, of course, the CIA has given it to them to scare us.

  • Dear Lizzie and Daisy, thank you for posting this interesting, helpful, and timely article. I have several questions 🙂 Are I.V. antibiotics are required to treat all three types of anthrax infection or only the inhalational and gastrointestinal types? For example, if someone had a cutaneous anthrax infection, would a course of treatment with Ciprofloxacin or Doxycycline tablets work for them or would they still need the I.V. form of one of those antibiotics? Also, if a patient who is allergic to Penicillin (and presumably also to other antibiotics of that same type) is infected with anthrax, what antibiotic would be safe for their treatment? Are there decontamination methods that should be used if, for example, you are in “Pandemic Lockdown” in your home and someone wishes to enter your premises. That is, should they be required to remove their possibly anthrax spore laden clothing and wash off before entering your premises? If so, is there any special sort of soap or cleanser that should be used? Should their possibly contaminated clothing be burned or would that release spores into the air? Will chlorine bleach kill anthrax on surfaces? Will the NBC filters used in most “gas masks” filter out anthrax spores? Thank you!

  • I have said this before, North Korea is just flipping off the US and Tramp, sorry Trump, and Trump does not like it, he wants his ass kissed. North Korea has done nothing to the US and does not deserve all this attention. The US should be more concerned with another false flag like Sep 11, 2001 and the Mossad

  • I was amazed when I read that the South Korean military hasn’t inoculated their forces against something like anthrax …. if any SOB since Sadaam Hussain was going to use gas/bio weapons it would be Little Fat Boy …

    And they don’t seem to be in any hurry to correct – it’s on the budget for 2019 … US military got the shot going into Desert Storm & Iraq – hope the NK anthrax threat isn’t being under concerned ….

  • The MSM lies far too often for me to trust them based on blind faith.
    In fact the MSM lies so often that I am inclined to think this story is probably false. The MSM is meant to change our beliefs in such a way that we act according to the wishes of those that rules us. It is not meant to inform us.

    And this should be no surprise to us. We know that the most powerful people on earth could control the MSM, they control the money after all. We also know they care a lot about power, since getting and keeping as much power as they have requires hard work and dedication. So is it really such a stretch that they would use the MSM to indoctrinate us in order to get more power or keep their power? Especially considering the fact that the beliefs of the people is key for the ruling class in order to stay in power. And what better way to control our beliefs than the MSM whose messages are acted on as if it is gospel by many people?

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