Where do these new lethal bacterial infections come from?

Genetic engineering is regularly used to produce lethal bacteria

It sounds like science fiction, but it is a deadly reality: lethal microbes, with no cure,

invisible to detection systems, and able to overcome vaccines. In 'defensive' programs, researchers in the USA, UK, Russia and Germany have genetically engineered biological weapons agents, building new deadly strains. And this is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

Genetic engineering can be used to broaden the classical bioweapons arsenal. Through genetic engineering, bacteria can not only be made resistant to antibiotics or vaccines, they can also be made even more toxic, harder to detect, or more stable in the environment. By using genetic methods that are standard procedures in thousands of labs worldwide, bioweapons can be made more virulent, easier to handle, and harder to fight. In short, more effective.

Military experts are perfectly aware of the danger of genetically engineered bioweapons, as their traditional defense measures - e.g.detection methods or vaccines - are easily sidestepped by the artificial microbes. The speedy development of genetic engineering is one driving force to strengthen the Bioweapons Convention (1) and establish a verification system.

Example 1: Bacteria causing unusual symptoms

Researchers from Obolensk near Moscow inserted a gene into Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia and a well known biological weapon agent. The gene made the bacteria produce beta-endorphin, an endogenous human drug, which caused changes in the behaviour of mice when infected with the transgenic bacteria. (2) According to the published results, the endorphin gene was not introduced into a fully virulent strain, but only into a vaccine strain.
If inserted into virulent F. tularensis, the victims would not show the usual symptoms of tularemia, but instead unusual symptoms that would obscure the diagnosis and delay therapy. Development of symptom-altered BW-agents has been identified as one possible application of genetic engineering for BW purposes by the US Department of Defense. (3)

Example 2: Transferring a lethal factor to harmless human gut bacteria

Genetic engineering could make previously harmless bacteria lethal biological weapons by introducing deadly genes from a highly pathogenic organism. This was done by US researchers as early as 1986. They isolated the gene for the lethal factor of Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, and introduced into Escherichia coli, a normally harmless gut bacteria. The US team reported that the lethal factor protein was active in E. coli and displayed the same deadly effects as it did when in its native B. anthracis. (4)

Read more:
http://www.sunshine-project.org/bwintro/gebw.html