Small quantities of Bacillus anthracis—the bacterium that causes the disease anthrax—were produced at the principal South African BW research, testing, and production facility, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), under the auspices of Project Coast. Portions of these bacteria were then added to a variety of common items, including foodstuffs, some of which were reportedly consumed by targeted enemies. However, controversial claims that South African special operations units may also have been secretly responsible for the 1979-1980 "anthrax epizootic" in Zimbabwe—an incident that took place prior to the establishment of the South African CBW program—have not been confirmed.

Dr. Mike Odendaal, a researcher at RRL, played a major role in a project to freeze-dry various pathogens, including B. anthracis, in larger than normal quantities (Project R47). He was also involved in two projects employing mice to determine the pathogenicity of some of RRL's 45 strains of anthrax bacteria, which were obtained from Kruger National Park. (In 1992, he published the results of this study in the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Science.) Much more worrisome was that RRL tried to develop antibiotic-resistant strains of the anthrax bacterium, and that both Odendaal and Dr. James Davies contaminated various items with anthrax bacteria, which they were told was to be done so that protective testing could be carried out at Protechnik Laboratories by bioengineer Jan Lourens. After producing these organisms and contaminated items, the two scientists handed them over to Dr. André Immelman, RRL's R&D director. Odendaal also regularly provided Immelman with instructions concerning dosages and safety precautions for handling the dangerous substances he made. Immelman then stored these and other lethal materials inside a refrigerator in a bombproof, fireproof walk-in safe in his office. According to Army Surgeon-General Niel Knobel, members of the Co-ordinating Management Committee, the official Project Coast supervisory body, were "generally aware" of the studies being done on B. anthracis.

On the purported instructions of Project Officer Wouter Basson, Immelman later secretly transferred anthrax bacteria and other highly toxic substances to military and police personnel through various channels. Some of these dangerous materials were provided to Dr. R. F. Botha (alternately known as "Koos", "Mr. R", and "Frans Brink") and thence to Vernon Lange (otherwise known as "Mr. T" and "Theo"), both of whom were operatives of the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB), a covert assassination unit operating under the aegis of the Special Forces (SF). Others were provided directly to Chris Smit, Gert Otto, and Manie van Staden, three Security Branch (SB) officers from the South African Police (SAP). According to the 1989 "sales list" (TRC document 52), as well as firsthand testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings or Basson's criminal trial, Immelman passed such items on, either to the aforementioned persons in innocuous public places like restaurants, or to Basson himself in the latter's office at South African Medical Services (SAMS) headquarters in Centurion. Another reported recipient of RRL's poisons was Johnny Koortzen, an ex-South African Defence Force (SADF) psychologist who in 1988 assumed control over Systems Research and Development, a company that Jan Lourens had set up in part to manufacture special "applicators," i.e., arcane assassination devices. Some of these toxic materials and devices were subsequently used to assassinate designated "enemies of the state"—guerrillas in neighboring countries, troublesome prisoners, untrustworthy members of the security forces, or activists in the African National Congress (ANC) and other South African opposition groups.

Among the items listed on the "sales list" were several that had been contaminated with anthrax bacteria by RRL scientists and then distributed by Immelman, including cigarettes, envelopes, and soft-centered chocolates. Basson later testified that he himself had ordered the anthrax bacteria to be placed in the filters of those cigarettes, a technique allegedly developed by the Soviets, so that the efficacy of this particular delivery method could be tested at SF headquarters. He further claimed that some of the contaminated chocolates were given to mice and rats in order to observe their effects as part of a training process. This conflicted with Immelman's own testimony, not to mention his annotations on the "sales list," which revealed that most of these contaminated items were in fact handed over to Chris Smit and other SB personnel. Odendaal suspected that they were then distributed covertly to infect Angolan and Mozambican "terrorists," and Dr. Schalk van Rensburg heard about one instance in which B. anthracis-contaminated food was supposedly used in Lusaka to poison three Russian advisors to the ANC, one of whom later died. Although this claim has not been verified, it is scarcely improbable given the South African penchant for using toxic substances to murder or poison its proclaimed enemies. For example, under the rubric of "Operation Dual," a clandestine program initiated by the SADF in 1979, toxic agents were regularly used by the D[elta]40 and Barnacle units – the CCB's predecessors—to secretly eliminate prisoners and security risks. According to Johan Theron, the SADF's chief executioner, this program was sanctioned from the outset by General Fritz Loots, the first commander of the fledgling SF. With the establishment of the Teen-Rewolusionêre Inligting Taakspan (TREWITS: Counter-Revolutionary Intelligence Task Force) in the mid-1980s, the "Dual" assassination program was later expanded and coordinated at an even higher level. However, the allegations that South Africa intentionally precipitated the "anthrax epizootic" in Zimbabwe are far more tenuous, since that particular outbreak could well have occurred naturally despite its scale and virulence.

In 1990 President F. W. De Klerk prohibited the carrying out of any further work on lethal CBW agents, and in 1993 Project Coast was officially terminated. The stocks of BW agents produced by South Africa were supposedly destroyed in conformity with international agreements, despite the fact that the actual destruction process was never independently verified and there is evidence that some of the substances were removed and retained by Coast scientists. Although several laboratories there continue to produce highly toxic substances for normal industrial, veterinary, and agricultural use, none of these substances appear to be intended for deployment as lethal anti-personnel agents. The current government still has access to the type of technical expertise and the sort of sophisticated R&D facilities that would enable it to initiate a new BW program, but there is little reason to suppose that it has any interest in doing so.

	Updated February 2006