Bioterrorism Essay

“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

The symptoms of gastrointestinal anthrax include bloody vomiting, bloody diarrhea, sore throat, and the swelling of the neck and abdomen. Concerning bioterrorism, anthrax is the most likely to be used as it is easily accessible, extremely deadly, and practically untraceable. In addition, plague is a commonly suspected tool in bioterrorism due to its high mortality rate and extremely contagious behavior. It is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and is very fatal if not treated quickly. During the Middle Ages, plague wiped out millions of Europeans, but in the modern day world with an effective treatment, plague is much less deadly assuming it is treated quickly.

These biological agents could be viruses, toxins, bacteria, etc. Agents could be used in war or terrorist attacks. Also, they could be modified to cause extreme diseases and disorders, according to The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It makes bioterrorism even more tempting to use as it is easy and inexpensive to produce, disseminate and can cause a more widespread panic than other acts of terrorism (1).

The black plague was one the most feared pandemics of the Middle ages. The plague was so prominent it has it’s own nursery rhyme, Ring around the rosy, that is still sung today.  Understanding this disease can only follow knowing it’s origin.

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

It spread from here to insects such as fleas and ticks which spread to what rats which many believe is the leading factor which brought upon the plague. The symptoms of the plague were many but most experienced a growth or boil somewhere upon there body, roughly the size of nut which gave the disease its name and was very painful to the inflicted. If procedures were taken to clean the boil quickly victims were said to have a better chance at survival. The second stage was that of black spots appearing on the skin and the final stage was the coughing of blood which usually was a clear cue that the person had days to live. The old rhyme "Ring around the Rosie" Is said to have come from the symptoms endured by the people during the plague but is not according to one of the readings historically correct. Many historians believe that rats are the reason the disease was able to spread so fast and far but that the disease began in the

The sailors on the ships were either dead or dying, the people on the port told the remaining sailors to stay on the ships so that the disease doesn’t spread on throughout the town. But no one noticed the real disease carrying host, in the night the black rats would go down the ropes from the ship onto the dock and went to the town. The black rats had fleas that carried the disease within them. The fleas made their natural move to survive which was to suck blood out of its host, but not only did it consume blood it also caused a breakthrough and let the disease spread like wildfire. The Black Death kept spreading until most of the western Europe was infected and heir population was rapidly decreasing in a negative way. The english nursery rhyme “Ring-a-ring o’ roses” came from the inspiration of what physicians told their patients to

These weapons and defences advance their war style by giving more options of how they are to

Many people oftenly know about the nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosie , but what most people don't know is that is directly related to the Bubonic Plague and the sudden death of around 43 thousand people. Each line of the famed nursery rhyme is referring to the transmission, living condition, and approximately how many died during the height of the infection (Berry). One can infer from the popular nursery rhyme that the Bubonic Plague is anything but Sunshine and Posies.

The plague didn’t only affect people directly by sickness. Around the world, word of the plague spread from culture to culture. The children’s poem Ring Around the Rosie, is said to be about the plague. It is thought to have originated in England during the plague of London. The line “Ring around the Rosie” is about the swelling on the infected people’s skin. The Rosie is supposed to have been the reddish color surrounding the swelling, or the rash. The second line “pocket full o’ posies”, correlates with the flowers which were often held to ward off the plague’s smell.

Attention Getter: We all know the common childhood rhyme “Ring Around the Rosy,” what many readers do not know is that symptoms of the Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague show up in the nursery rhyme. This correlation leaves many scholars believing that the two have a sickening connection. (History.com Staff)

The plague took the lives of millions of Europeans and there were very few places to bury the deceased. The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy explained the symptoms, the remedies, and the result of the plague. The nursery rhyme says, “Ring a-round the rosy. Pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes! We all fall down!”(Doc. 4). It refers to the amount of people who were affected and died from the plague. Agnolo Di Tura, a chronicler from Siena, Italy, penned his personal and historical accounts of the awful plague in Siena. Agnolo experienced the plague first-hand because he had to bury his children and knew the suffering the plague caused. In The Plague in Siena: An Italian Chronicle, Agnolo states, “And it is found that at this time there died in Siena 36,000 persons twenty years of age or less, and the aged and other people (died), to a total of 52,000 in all in Siena. And in the

The stockpiling medication, vaccines, and supplies are imperative this allows the organization to have all necessary items available for immediate use. Bioterrorism attacks are unpredictable and consequently are difficult to prepare for the Pharmacy departments ought to be involved in emergency planning efforts; during an invasion, the drugstore is responsible for obtaining, handling and the storage of medication.

Viruses and bacteria have always been a major problem in our world. From the flu, to the common cold eventually everyone has gotten sick at least once. Exactly how those viruses spread varies greatly due to multiple different factors. Viruses are non-living organisms which means that they do not reproduce independently but must replicate by invading other living cells. If a virus gets into a blood stream it can potentially kill someone within days. But because it can not reproduce off of its self it must have ways in order to get into the human body without actually getting up and walking into people. Some ways that a virus can spread can be through airborne substances, animals, or even by sharing needles. There is an estimate of about 2,178 different kinds of diseases said by the International Data Corporation (IDC). They were able to categorize the amounts of reported diseases within the last 5 years in an A-Z format. Viruses have the potential to kill and wipe out an entire species and impact the globe entirely. It is important to know how prominent these diseases are and what potential threat they have to our world.

As America rises shakily to its feet after September 11th, a man from American Media Inc. breathes in a funny powder from a letter in his office. Five days later he ís in the hospital, an apparent severe case of the flu. Two days later, he dies. This man was Bob Stevens, the first in America to die from a deliberate anthrax attack. Others letters such as this started popping up in major American media companies [Tom Brokaw at NBC], making the nation terrified to open mail. The man sending these letters, nicknamed Amerithrax by the FBI, was a bioterrorist- a person purposefully causing disease to create terror through bioagents. The infamous among the infamous is anthrax- a deadly, invisible bacteria that