Biological Terrorism: Bioterrorism In The United States

The first major bioterror event in the United States--the anthrax attacks in October 2001--was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense.

“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

In 1983, a disease known as CNSB-1 was spotted in South America. By 1985 the disease has traveled to north america by airplane. When 1990 came around, every major city has been affected. Quarantine zones were established in the poorest parts or town. The disease was cured in 1995 but it still claimed the lives of 49,920,000 people in america. Progress had slowed down to a crawl and the economy was left in shambles after the U.S government put all of it’s resources in destroying CNSB-1 before it destroyed their nation. 1998 comes along and the quarantine zones are still around, only now filled with a new type or sickness.Terrorist gangs inhabit them and live by randomly raiding surrounding communities. For those who live in such areas, the only

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

In the article Brill does an exceptional job of starting off analyzing the then and now of security of the country. Highlighting the extensive efforts of the country to effectively respond to the attack of 9/11. Emphasizing the billions of dollars that the government has poured into new technology and agencies that can better prepare for biological terrorist attacks. Brill captured the attention of many readers when expressing that terrorism cannot be stopped because it's constantly evolving. He feels that the government should come up with rational ideas that can deal with the ever changing terrorism threat instead of creating policies off of current headlines that dominates the day.

Agroterrorism is a direct attack against livestock or crops in an effort to damage a food supply. An attack against our food supply is an attack on one of the many critical infrastructures that our country has. A successful terrorist attack against this sector would be staggering to the country. In 2001 the food distribution industry registered 9.7 percent of the Nation’s Gross Domestic Product and generated cash receipts that exceeded 991 billion dollars (Chalk, 2003, pg. 3). The food distribution industry also makes up for a significant part of the work force in the United States. This is all effected if we were attacked biologically. The problem with a bio attack on our food supplies is lag time. Lag time is the time it would take for the federal government and general population to realize there is a problem with our food. It would then take a long period of time for the government to trace back the source of the large scale disease outbreak and determine whether it was a naturally occurring event, an accidental exposure, or a malicious attack. During this time food production would have to cease to stop the spread of the illnesses. The country’s finances would then be affected. Not to mention the amount of money it would take to trace the spread back to the source and destroy the livestock or crops responsible to stop the continued spread of disease. Even when food production began again the general population of the country would be leery about buying certain food products at first. This is what happened to the Blue Bell ice cream company after their listeria outbreak. Staggering our food supply and affecting America’s financial stability is exactly what terrorist organizations would love to achieve. In fact in 2002 American and allied troop raided a cave in Eastern Afghanistan and discovered thousands of documents outlining the U.S. agriculture system (Olson, 2012, pg. 1).

One of the world’s most dreaded plagues for centuries, smallpox is now eradicated. Vaccination programs were pushed worldwide by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the disease was eliminated from the world. This push resulted in the last naturally occurring case in the world being almost 40 years ago. Once eradicated the once routine or mandatory vaccinations were stopped for the general public and it was deemed no longer necessary to prevent the disease. Although currently eradicated worldwide, two medical laboratory stockpiles still remain in Russia and the United States. With these stockpiles in existence the possibility of bio terrorism emerges and fear of these stockpiles getting into the wrong hands and being weaponized for

The smallpox bioterrorism attack was made more successful when the FBI did not inform the local authorities and health agencies of the potential for an attack. This lack of information caused a delay in the medical community being able to respond quickly and effectively by isolating those exposed and assessing an immediate vaccination plan. People who were infected at the venue went about their lives and would later expose many others to smallpox. Since hospitals were not informed about a potential large-scale smallpox exposure they were not aware to be cautious for any symptoms associated with smallpox. This caused the first few smallpox patients to be misdiagnosed patients with things such as the flu and dengue fever instead. This time lapse

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.

Everyday, people all over the world are suffering from life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and chicken pox. Diseases may not seem like that big of a problem to us, but that is only because we rarely have to deal with such problems due to our blessing of herd immunity inside American borders. If you are a citizen of the United States, you probably know about the safety and protection we are provided by living here. Consequently, you may attribute our security to government and troops, the protection of our health provided to United States’ citizens is the backbone of what continues to grow our population, better our country, and prevent epidemic outbreaks. Scientists and doctors play a

The US right now is taking military and counterterrorism actions, but it is not enough to stop them. Bioterrorism is harder to stop because you won't know whether it is a deliberate outbreak by terrorist group or a natural outbreak of disease (Okoth 2). Bio Attacks are not only deadly to people but also the environment according to Naftali Okoth “dual threats of emerging infections and bioterrorism would pose a major conceptual and technical challenges for a regions intelligence

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

With international turmoil reaching an all-time high this day-and-age, we, as a nation, must have a well thought out plan on what to do in case we were to be attacked via deadly viruses. What precautions are ethical to be taken when a disease is spread through bioterrorism? Bioterrorism, in a sense, is just as devastating as a direct terrorist attack that causes violent casualties; so what separates people from either having to get vaccinated or quarantined when they practice something against vaccinations? Should health care officials who treat these patients also be isolated? Should some freedoms be restricted in order to protect the rest of the healthy population? Will the vaccines be forced upon young children and old adults? It comes down to our safety as a country and

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

Of all the possible bioethical nightmares, imaginable ethical concerns within bioterror is the most frightening but the least talked about for the very same reason. Most complications aren't known by the public and we don’t often think about them because we aren’t the scientists required to handle those types of scenarios. All citizens want is proper guidance when something catastrophic happens. On the other hand, researchers, scientists, public officials in medicine, government and military get paid the big bucks to sit down and enforce strategy through a potential full-blown bioterroristic pandemic. Koehler (2004) states “by temporary panels leading to delayed discussions, restricted scope, and inconsistent policy positions between panels.