80sU2isBest said:For the record, I have said that I don't condone what they did to the American Indians. That was a very ugly and cruel part of our history. However, driving people from their lands and forcing them to live on reservations is not comparable to mass gassings.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/281/22/2127
Smallpox probably was first used as a biological weapon during the French and Indian Wars (1754-1767) by British forces in North America. Soldiers distributed blankets that had been used by smallpox patients with the intent of initiating outbreaks among American Indians. Epidemics occurred, killing more than 50% of many affected tribes. With Edward Jenner's demonstration in 1796 that an infection caused by cowpox protected against smallpox and the rapid diffusion worldwide of the practice of cowpox inoculation (ie, vaccination), the potential threat of smallpox as a bioweapon was greatly diminished.