Yet Pine Bluff still feels itself at risk as long as nerve agents are stored at the arsenal.

ECONOMIST: Pine Bluff prepares for disposal

Also sitting pretty is Nexia, particularly since it began to focus on the use of transgenic animals to make medicines that can protect against nerve agents.

ECONOMIST: REPORTS

Nerve agents stop the body from breaking down the acetylcholine neurotransmitter, overwhelming the nervous system and causing convulsions that can lead to death within minutes of exposure.

FORBES: Marketing Fear

Last week, troops from the 101st Airborne found a stash of chemicals, which was investigated as possible nerve agents, but the material turned out to be pesticides, Freakly said.

CNN: U.S.: Mobile labs found in Iraq

AChEis are found in pesticides that were used to protect soldiers against sand flies and other insects, and in the pyridostigmine bromide pills given to soldiers as part of a pre-treatment against nerve agents.

ECONOMIST: Was Gulf-war syndrome caused by chemical poisoning?

The report does not rule out other possible contributors to Gulf War illness -- including low-level exposure to nerve agents and close proximity to oil well fires -- though it fails to establish any clear link.

CNN: Gulf War illness is real, new federal report says

This, he believes, will make it possible to work out which country, even which factory, supplied the original chemicals for the mustard gas - it will not be possible to trace the source of the nerve agents.

BBC: Magazine

In 2011, the US director of national intelligence concluded that Syria remained "dependent on foreign sources for key elements" of its chemical weapons programme, including precursor chemicals, which are generally dual-use chemicals that can be combined to produce blister or nerve agents.

BBC: Syria's chemical weapons stockpile