Multiple Uses of Chemicals: An Education Tool

Chemical processes determine who we are. Chemistry in the brain gives us our sense of being and helps to determine how we act. The oxygen we breathe is from chemical processes in plants, and many of the consumer products we buy are the output of some chemical process. Chemistry is central to our life on earth, with many of the major global issues we are facing requiring chemical solutions, be it understanding what happens in the earth’s atmosphere, providing clean water, improving food supplies, or discovering new medicines. Chemistry thus has enormous potential to contribute positively to global well-being.

But is has not always been like this. Ninety years ago in World War I, chemists were actively perfecting weapons that relied on the physical and toxic properties of chemicals. The use of chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas in WWI, which was promoted and perfected by chemists and chemical engineers, resulted in some 1.3 million casualties, of whom an estimated 90,000 died soon after exposure. Many others died years later from the lung injuries sustained on the battlefield following inhalation of the various chemical-warfare gases and aerosols.

In World War I, chemists considered it their duty to contribute to their country’s war effort. Munitions had to be produced to suit military strategy. But the carnage of WWI had a lasting impact. It led to calls for treaties outlawing chemical warfare. First there was the 1925 Geneva Protocol. But we had to wait a further 70 years for the Chemical Weapons Convention to enforce chemical disarmament.

Enforcement requires governments to ensure that their citizens do not develop or promote the use of chemical weapons. Chemists have a crucial role to play in this process. If the proscriptions of the CWC are to succeed, chemists will have to support them. For it is chemists whose help will be needed to make the chemical-warfare agents and test the suitability of new ones for use in munitions. Chemists will thus have to decide whether they will help to make chemical weapons or refuse to have anything to do with them.

The law is clear: Making chemical weapons is illegal. Not all chemists are aware of this. Many do not know about the CWC, and thus there is a need to inform them about the treaty and the choices they will have to make in their careers.

To facilitate this process, the OPCW and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) held a conference in Oxford, United Kingdom, in the summer of 2005 to discuss this issue. Two decisions came out of this meeting. The first was to have a working group consider how best to promote codes of conduct in the chemical industry, and the second was the recognition that there was a need for educational material for chemists, which both encouraged them to consider the implications of their research and informed them about the CWC and the OPCW.

A small international working group was established to develop this educational package to help foster debate. Four working papers were produced, which cover:

• the multiple uses of chemicals;
• the CWC;
• the toxicology of selected chemical-warfare agents; and
• codes of conduct.

The papers have been peer reviewed and tested in workshops in Italy, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom. Participants in the workshops have included chemistry students, teachers, university professors, diplomats and specialists in chemical warfare. These four papers have all been translated and are available in the working languages of the OPCW.

The papers are written to help foster discussion, and to encourage chemists to debate what happened in the past and to consider the implications of their own work. The papers make it clear that chemical weapons are illegal, and that any decision by chemists to assist in making these weapons is an active choice. Chemists will have to make a decision to break the law and to engage in some questionable deal with whoever wants chemical-warfare agents.

It is about conscious choices. Readers of the papers are introduced to the subject in the paper on the multiple uses of chemicals. They are told how easy it is to convert a common ingredient in cough linctus into an addictive and highly dangerous street drug. The paper also discusses the multiple uses of chemicals like thiodiglycol — a useful starting point in the manufacture of mustard gas, but a chemical used in many ballpoint inks. The widely used industrial solvent isopropanol is another example, chosen because it is a key ingredient for making sarin.

Having been introduced to these topics, readers are then encouraged to debate a number of issues, including how much information about chemicals (or drugs) ought to be made public; whose responsibility it is to control these substances; and to identify other chemicals where there are dual-use concerns. The subject matter is something with which most chemists will be familiar, either as individuals or as parents concerned about the welfare of their children.

Two other papers introduce readers to the CWC, the OPCW and the effects of exposure to chemical-warfare agents. These papers ask questions similar to those raised in the first paper about controlling drugs. Having already discussed the drugs question, most chemists will find it easier to engage in a debate about the control of chemical-warfare agents.

The final paper in the series is on codes of conduct. Codes may simply refer to ethical issues, such as the Hippocratic Oath for doctors. These aspirational codes set standards that should be upheld, but that are often very general and not enforceable. There are educational/advisory codes for how to conduct oneself in a place of work, for example, or more specific enforceable codes that may govern accreditation to a profession. These latter codes will be very specific and run the risk of being inflexible in a rapidly changing profession. They may also not say much about ethical issues, but might merely state a set of rules that needs to be followed. There are pros and cons with all codes, and debate within a profession is needed to decide which type best fits the needs of the group. Chemists are encouraged to debate these issues and to decide on a code that would encourage good (legal) behaviour.

A website now contains all this information and is to be found at www.iupac.org/multiple-uses-of-chemicals. The working group hopes that it will help to foster debate.

Members of the IUPAC/OPCW working group:

• Dr Edwin D. Becker (United States)
• Dr Alberto Fratadocchi (Italy)
• Dr Alastair W. M. Hay (United Kingdom, and Chairman of the group)
• Dr Peter G. Mahaffy (Canada)
• Dr Robert Mathews (Australia)
• Dr Brian Rappert (United Kingdom)
• Dr O.P. Sharma (India)
• Dr Rolando A. Spanevello (Argentina)
• Dr Natalia P. Tarasova (Russian Federation)
• Dr Ralf Trapp (Germany)

*Professor Hay is with the Molecular Epidemiology Unit, LIGHT Laboratories, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK, e-mail: a.w.m.hay@leeds.ac.uk

Categories: Disarmament, Non-proliferation of chemical weapons