Arguments Against Bioterrorism

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, coordinate efforts in conjunction with states and other partnersto offer a system of health surveillance, which would monitor and prevent disease outbreaks, which includes bioterrorism. The goal of the agency is to implement strategies to prevent diseases as well as maintain national health statistics. Another role of the CDC is to safeguard against international disease transmission, this is vital as the agency has personnel located several countries outside the United States. Looking at the agency’s core functions, examining influences in the workplace, and identifying roles of the agency personnel is vital to

“Bioterrorism remains a major threat for the United States despite more than $65 billion spent on protecting the country from myriad dangers, the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center said in its latest report Wednesday. The center's Bio-Response Report Card evaluated U.S. preparedness for countering threats from bioterrorism and found the country remains vulnerable to multiple threats and "largely unprepared for a large-scale bioterrorist attack."”(UPI.com, 2011). There have been over a dozen leading U.S. bio-defense experts that have taken part in figuring out where we are exactly as a county and what the effects of a terroristic attack

“A disaster is an event that is a natural or man-made occurrence that can disrupt or destroy the lives of those it affects” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014). “Management of a disaster includes four phases; prevention, preparedness, response and recovery” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014). To date there have been 154 hospital-based shootings, which resulted in 235 dead or injured. (C.Catlett, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to identify emergency preparedness and response to hospital based shootings, and the role of the public health nurse in such a disaster.

Beginning in the early 1990’s, a series of governmental actions against biological warfare and bioterrorism were instituted, including the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control Act, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, and the Defense Authorization Act. These acts were meant to either dissuade bioterrorists or boost the government’s power in defensive biological warfare research (Lanthrop). In April of 2000, the CDC published a guide, Biological and Chemical Terrorism: Strategic Plan for Preparedness and Response, which covered “planning, detection and surveillance, laboratory analysis, emergency response, and communications” (“CDC”). The APIC and CDC have co-written a guide for hospitals who come into contact with biological agents to follow (“CDC”). To sum up these guidebooks, it is important to look out for the following incidences: an irregular rapid increase in disease occurrences, an epidemic curve, an unusual pattern or time for a disease to thrive, clusters of patients from the same area, large numbers of fatal cases, simultaneous reports of animal deaths (Lanthrop).

A governmental concern is that a bioterrorist attack will trigger panic amongst the population. Panic refers to a group response where intense fear causes people to be concerned with only their survival. While actual panic is rare, there are certain factors that could cause panic in the event of a bioterrorist attack, including limited medical resources where “first come, first serve” applies, a perception that there is poor

The fear of a Chemical or Biological attack has been a concern to many governments. These attacks, either by state agencies or individuals, have caused loss of life and the United States has not been spared in this forms of attacks.

The response to a terrorist attack is very different from that of a typical natural disaster. Unlike a natural disaster that just happens, a terrorist attack is caused by a person or particular group; therefore, the scene is viewed as a crime scene and treated as such. Medical responders must answer to police authorities and follow their protocols in assisting victims

Author Rebecca Katz, a Professor at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, focuses on protecting our health throughout the world when “targeting environmental disasters and preventing diseases.” She mentions the tragedy of 9/11. When 9/11 happened so many hearts were broken, so many lives were taken and the world was just at a complete scare. United States had to take action and protocol to protect the citizens. In order to keep our nation safe, Public Health Preparedness needs and should be followed as a process. I say that because just not the United States but the world needs to know what to do and follow when there are disasters, tragedies’ whether they are little or big. Katz mention, “Citizens will

The currently evolving H1N1 influenza and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emphasize the concerning threat of naturally occurring contagion. The recent experience from hurricanes and extreme weather along with the attacks of September 11th 2001 have confirmed that the United States faces a true threat of mass casualty incidents. These threats have brought to light that U.S. Healthcare organizations must be prepared, resourced and organized to respond to hazard impacts. Hospital administration must ensure that their facilities are prepared to handle hazard impacts, an examination of healthcare system response has shown that when there is a disaster the initial response to any medical need will always be based upon locally available health organizations and that effective healthcare response during a disaster is complex (Emergency Management Principles and Practices for Healthcare Systems, Second Edition, 2010).

Rising level of dissatisfaction amongst minority and youths has led to increasing use of chemical, biological and radiological agents in order to persuade government and public opinions. Response towards chemical, biological and radiological threats preparedness is very complex task, and it withholds certain challenges towards public health and other health care facility staff.

This research paper is broken into four sections. The first section, Bioterrorism Response in a Major Metropolitan Area, provides

Bioterrorism can easily target citizens by poisoning food and water supplies. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration a.k.a. OSHA stated that there’s over 250 different foodborne diseases and illnesses, and are often mislabeled as food poisoning. These diseases can be potentially fatal to those inflicted. In the article “A Discussion of Findings and Their Possible Implications from a Workshop on Bioterrorism Threat Assessment and Risk Management”, Bruce Hope states that it’s possible to analyze the agricultural and food industries by making fake scenarios of potential threats. This analysis of America’s system can allow for professionals to better secure food supplies and ensure that bioterrorism is less likely of impacting the population. Defense measures can make these buildings invulnerable, or nearly so (Zilinskas, 906). Another method of defense against bioterrorism is vaccination. According to Rebecca Katz in “Public Health Preparedness: The Best Defense Against Biological Weapons” she argues that vaccination is a plausible method of defense against bioterrorism if necessary. She also states “[vaccines] are part of a preattack defense and a postattack containment” (Katz, 177). These vaccinations can aid people in case of smallpox and anthrax, both of which are viable threats to biosecurity. The article also states that while more research is necessary to improve the currently available vaccines, it’s a necessary component of preparing for bioterrorism. Katz states “In order to avoid chaos during an event, development and dissemination prior to an attack of vaccine priority and distribution plans is essential. These plans should incorporate the best methods for controlling the spread of disease, saving the most lives, and ensuring the utility of

Imagine this: you wake up hours before your alarm sounds to find your entire neighborhood in chaos; people running, robbing banks and stores, and bodies are littering the once calm streets. Over the night, a government-run biological experiment dealing with germ weapons had been released, infecting, destroying, and causing panic across the globe. As a single, globalized society, we need to heighten our security against biological weapons and biological terror to prevent the endangerment of mankind. It would be most beneficial to our species if we did not try to use or experiment with biological weapons, seeing as they are engineered specifically to create social, economic, governmental, military, and general fear and disruption. Bioterror

Bioterrorism is directly focused on the livestock and crops, which are valuable sources of food. The agroterrorism attack in the U.S. has started an economic warfare, which can turn fatal to most Americans. Economic warfare has calculated of being damaging to the

The Bioterrorisk simulation, which is developed by the Illinois Public Health Prepared-ness Center, is a case based mini course. The bioterrorism events of 9/11 and Anthrax epidemic in the United States have alarmed the nation’s capability to respond to the bioterrorism attacks. The Public Health role in bioterrorism preparedness and response is to plan and organize the medical and public health first response personnel to identify and investigate any disease outbreaks by using the surveillance systems, laboratory services and using the similar disease epidemic data available in