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US Looks At Bioterrorism
ChelleyBean writes "A group of security experts have put together an elaborate simulation that lawmakers viewed on Monday. The goal was to show one possible scenario should the US be hit with a bioterrorist attack. What purpose the exercise was to serve is not mentioned, but one would assume either someone wants more money to beef up defense or someone is looking for a new scare tactic for the next election. " I firmly belive this scenario is far more compelling and dangerous then rogue nuclear missiles - check out my review of Living Terrors for more information.
While I'd survive the initial round(born in 66, before immunization for Smallpox stopped in the early 80s), there's no telling what would happen afterwords - other diseases would probably run rampant due to the overwhelming effect of dealing with dead.
Nah. The sarin attack, while terrible, was the release of a poisonous chemical. The attack described here is the release of a dangerous living organism.... the gift that keeps on giving, if you will.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
What purpose the exercise was to serve is not mentioned, but one would assume either someone wants more money to beef up defense or someone is looking for a new scare tactic for the next election.
Yeah, god forbid we would want to actually plan ahead for somthing like that... damn, what an asshole.
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As somebody who's worked in the field (I did some work on detection systems) I can say that bioterrorism scares the shit out of me. It's something that's much more easily within the reach of a private organization than nuclear weapons, can cause a lot of damage, and would be very tough to stop once it got underway.
Sure, remember Om Shin Rikyo's fooling around an anthrax? They actually went as far as test releases of anthrax a couple of times, I think in a subway and on the American embassy in Japan. Fortunately, it is hard for somebody just screwing around to get their hands on a sufficiently virulent strain. They didn't manage to infect a single person. However, a competent biotechnologist might do absolutely frightening things with the flu.
It's also something that has not been adequately planned for, IMO, to the point that there's not even a reasonable idea about who would be in charge of dealing with it if it did happen.
I think the right people for this job are the CDC.
For one thing, is very likely that when we are attacked by a serious pathogen, we won't initially know that we were being attacked until considerable detective work had been done. The smallpox example was deliberately contrived. If people starting dropping dead with smallpox, it'd be virtually certain that the Russian government was responsible, since they're the only ones likely to have it available. If we face the flu, or tuberculosis, or some novel tropical disease, whether it is or is not deliberate will have to be determined after the fact, even if somebody claims to have introduced the pathogen deliberately.
Strengthening our civilian (and Public Health Service) capacity to respond to emerging pathogens is not only the best way to be prepared for bioterrorism, it is useful, possibly vital in itself. Historically, we have had in the US huge outbreaks of deadly influenza (the 1918 Flu Pandemic -- visit an old graveyard sometime and do a tally of death dates). There have been outbreaks of hemhorragic Yellow Fever (not the relatively mild kind that is like a bad flu -- the bleed from your eyeballs variety that kills painfully) that have emptied entire cities(Philadelphia 1794; Jacksonsville 1888). Most recently, we have had a terrifying out break of hantavirus in the four corners area in 1993; had a similar infection emerged in an urban area the effect would have been catastrophic. These were all natural events that any bioterrorist would consider a great success, had they been artificial.
Secondly, the CDC has the technical facilities to investigate highly dangerous pathogens. They have what I believe is one of the few remaining BSL-5 lab in the world (I believe the Pentagon has one too), now that Europe has shut down theirs. The CDC also has the technical knowledge and experience in responding to new pathogens. When Ebola broke out, it was a team of CDC scientists that went to Africa to chase it down.
What I am sure of is that this would be a very bad program to put under the military. While the military does have significant public health needs and capabilities (particularly around protecting troops from insect borne illnesses), it would be folly to try to create a duplicate set of military capabilities purely for bioterrorist attacks.
(1) We must maintain civilian (or quasi civilian) capacity to respond to pandemics anyway. Providing a similar capability in the military would take money away from crafting a single, more effective response.
(2) In the event of an outbreak, we're asking for the response to be hobbled by jurisdictional issues until it could be determined whether or not we had a bona fide bioterrorism event.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Of the big 3 terrorist weapons, chemical, biological or nuclear, biological is the one that scares me the most. For a chemical attack, a fairly large ammount of material must be acquired and processed, and delivery to a significant portion of the population would be very difficult. The results would be terrible for the relatively few victims, but of marginal consequence for the nation. A nuclear attack would also be limited, unless a terrorist gained control of a significant portion of a nations nuclear forces. One bomb One city means that relativly few cities would be hit. A biological weapon??? you can brew it in a basement and for some pathogens, the victims can carry it around and infect quite a few other people before showing serious symptoms. If the proper venue for dispersal were chosen ( can you say Olympics?? Sure! ) you can affect a worldwide class of victims. There is much talk about the displaced Soviet nuclear engineers, and the threat that they pose for nuclear weapons. What about the similarly displaced Soviet bio-techs ? I read a novel with the premise of a Right-Wing militia type group using a former soviet biotechnician to brew up anthrax. It was a compelling read ( sorry I can't remember the name of it - I will look for it at home )
meanwhile - hold your breath.
Z
enough is too much
As somebody who's worked in the field (I did some work on detection systems) I can say that bioterrorism scares the shit out of me. It's something that's much more easily within the reach of a private organization than nuclear weapons, can cause a lot of damage, and would be very tough to stop once it got underway. It's also something that has not been adequately planned for, IMO, to the point that there's not even a reasonable idea about who would be in charge of dealing with it if it did happen.
OTOH, reasonable contingency planning and research into detection systems are not terribly expensive; my guess is that they're currently spending substantially less every year on bioterrorism than on one of those stupid anti-missile tests (as if a "Rogue" state would use a missile instead of smuggling a warhead into the country on a ship). Some simple precautions would not cost much, on the grand scale of things, while substantially helping the current woeful situation.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Hmmm...I actually think that money we are spending on missile defense is better spent on disease control (aka public health) anyways.
Making massive lethal doses of anthrax or some other airborne contagion is pretty easy. That is probably the reason some folks refer to biological weapons as "a poor man's nuke". Basically, all you need is a home brewing kit and some know-how. Well, bottling and transporting could be a bit more risky...
However, the smallpox scenario is pretty unlikely, but smallpox is an easily recognized disease. The "S" word is enough to make anyone's ears pop up. Better than anthrax (too many people might think that is a band or a bug spray).
Realistically, if the event were to happen in the US, anybody who has ever had US military service would be unaffected. Anyone vaccinated prior to, oh, about 10-15 years ago would also likely be unaffected. As for everyone else, getting cowpox ain't that hard (that IS the vaccine, btw). Find a farmer or rancher.
Now, anthrax, that would be easy to make and spread around. Not much you can do about vaccinating either (limited effect and duration). Problem is that the stuff lives in the soil forever. Not a big deal if you are a terrorist, I suppose.
Plague, though, now that could be made just as easily, and vaccination lasts for quite a while. Different types of plagues with different types of vectors (bubonic is just one...there is another that is spread airborne, and is more lethal). That is where the DoD scenario would really hit the fan, since AFAIK the vaccine only lasts for about 10 years, and most folks never go back for a booster unless they study bats or other stuff like that for a living. Hmmm...maybe I should get shot again, but that stuff hurts like heck.
mrgoat
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
1. Buy Monsanto.
2. Do nothing. (See 3)
3. Monsanto's god awful care of limiting the spread of its genes mixed with stupid patent law should ensure that within a few years you 'own' the entire US harvest.
4. Charge through the nose for basic crops/refuse to supply them unless the government does as they're told.
Wait a moment, that is what Monsanto's doing. Silly me. Still, so long as we spend money worrying about external threats, who needs to worry about fixing the laws to protect from external ones.
and I'm going to play them back without telling anyone they're fake and scare the shit out of my kids
Being a Dad can be loads of fun sometimes
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