Is The Science Behind Fringe Plausible?

FOX Studios science fiction show, Fringe, has been one of the most talked about series in the past couple of years. The show is about an FBI agent Olivia Dunham, played by Anna Torv, who solves science-related cases with the help of jack-of-all-trades Peter Bishop, played by Joshua Jackson, and his father renowned scientist Walter Bishop, played by John Noble. Each episode they deal with occurrences or criminal acts related to that unorthodox branch of science known as Fringe science. In this show anything is possible. From reanimating corpses to telepathy nothing is too strange or incredulous that it could not happen. But are any of the occurrences in this show capable of actually happening?
One episode saw the Fringe team dealing with a biochemical attack on several people. A biochemist attacks a wedding event by unleashing harmful toxins in the air through a candle. Since it was a wedding many people were in attendance and almost all of them were exposed to the harmful toxin but surprisingly only some were killed by it. Specifically, people who were of Jewish descent were the ones who died from the attack while the others were spared. Upon finding out the objective of the terrorist the Fringe team figured it out that the terrorist was a Nazi criminal still intent on killing everyone while sparing the Aryan race for them to thrive and take over the world. The question here is: Could there really be a biochemical weapon designed to kill only specific races?

According to Professor Dale Johnson of UC Berkeley’s Nutritional Science and Toxicology Program some ideas that the show proposed might actually be plausible. He says that the idea of a biochemical weapon targeting specific ethnic groups can become a possibility. He explained that biochemical weapons that are taken from biological sources, like Botulinum and Anthrax, can kill certain cells in the body either by targeting the nervous system or the immune system or by creating chemical intermediates that are extremely toxic. He further explained that ethnic groups have varying genetic structures and designing a biochemical weapon to target a specific genetic structure might be possible in the future. Some ethnic groups have genetic structures that comprise a slow metabolism while other ethnic groups have faster ones. If a scientist would want to design a biochemical weapon to target specific ethnic groups then he or she might take this characteristic of genetic variants into consideration.
Professor Johnson was quick to point out though that this is far from happening with today's technology. He said that even if one were able to manufacture that kind of biochemical weapon it would still be hard to perfect it. According to him the problem lies with the objective of the weapon. No weapon, biochemical or any other kind, can target specific ethnic groups because it is very difficult to target the exact genetic characteristic or trait of that group. So far no one has been able to come up with a way to do such a thing, he only suggested that with the advancement of technology such an idea is not farfetched.