Writer Morgan Gendel's original pitch for this episode involved a Federation team going to an alien civilization and demanding they destroy their biogenic weaponry. However, the alien race encode the weapon into O'Brien's DNA, meaning if the Federation want to destroy the weapon, they must kill O'Brien.
The Rule of Acquisition #57 "Good customers are as rare as latinum; treasure them" is mentioned in the episode.
This episode is generally seen as the beginning of the O'Brien/Bashir relationship which would become so important over the next few years.
With this episode, the Ganges became the second DS9 runabout to be destroyed; the first was the Yangtzee Kiang in "Battle Lines". The Ganges was later replaced by the Mekong.
Alexander Siddig considers this Episode to be an important episode for Bashir and his friendship with O'Brien.