ZKEA

Biological Warfare : Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases

Civil Defense

The United States has been particularly aggressive in its early-warning efforts; a system was trialed during the Salt Lake City winter games and is now being rolled out nationwide. It's hoped that this system will aid in the early detection and diagnosis of the inevitable biological attack. Even though quite basic, it is tremendous improvement to the current (non-existent) capabilities. Smallpox and anthrax are particular focuses of this system, but many other pathogens will be tracked as well.

In conjunction with this, the United States has also worked hard in getting a fast-response system in place. A core part of this system are 12 "push-packs" that are positioned in various parts of the country. Each push-pack is a self-contained and highly mobile inventory of equipment, drugs and vaccines designed specifically for use in a biological terrorist attack. These push-packs are sufficient to treat millions of people and are positioned in such a way that they can reach any part of the country within 12 hours. The U.S. has also aggressively inoculated its emergency medical staff workers against the most-likely pathogens (such as smallpox), and is also working to increase the surge capability of its medical facilities

Various other research and governmental bodies are researching and delivering novel counter-measures to bioterrorism. The United State's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is one of the leaders here. (DARPA is often tasked with such leading-edge innovations and has a fine track-record in this regard. For example, the internet began as a DARPA project). Among other things, DARPA is tackling the problem of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. MDR has arisen naturally in many organisms over the years as the result of natural evolution. However, it is expected that bioweapons will incorporate these MDR genes as well, thus rendering the weapons immune to current treatments and vaccines. Therefore DARPA is coordinating the development of new broad-based antibiotics that can handle a number of pathogens at once. It is also working on a new class of drugs that can block pathogenic enzymes, including those found in anthrax and tularemia. It's hoped these new drugs will also be broad-based and thus applicable to a number of pathogens. The idea here is to develop an array of new drugs that can be quickly deployed no matter what biological agent is used in the terrorist attack.

In addition much effort is going into automated biodetectors. These are devices that can quickly detect target pathogens in the general environment. Such devices could be critical in the successful early detection of an attack or natural epidemic. Unfortunately, this technology is very new. Basic military devices have been in service since the Gulf War, but widespread successful deployment of devices with the required spread and accuracy is some ways off.

Of course, other efforts have been less successful. For example, the infamous "Color Alerts" probably serve more of a political than civil-defense purpose. Also, the United States government has been less-than-effective educating the public on what it should do in the case of attack. (Beyond buyng duct tape, that is).

On this topic, how should you and your family effectively prepare? What is sensible preparedness and what is paranoia? Basically the answer is this: every family should be prepared to look after itself for at least a month. Yes, standard advice is for three days. However it is simple prudence to prepare for longer, given that a biological attack is likely to be extremely destructive and would probably disrupt services for quite some time. It's also important to keep in mind that a a variety of disasters (either natural or man-made) could similarly create situations that interrupt food, energy and water supplies by at least a few weeks. To this end, every family should have a 30 day's worth of food, cooking supplies and water storage/purifiers. It is also essential to have a first-aid kit and camping supplies (such as sleeping-bags and tent) given evacuation from your home is always a possibility. A number of sites provide detailed information on how to set up such preparations (See the ZKea Resources section).

Of course, a worst-case biological attack could easily swamp such preparations. In the end, there is little a family can do to defend themselves if an attack is particularly deadly or if they are particularly unlucky. Even so, it is definitely prudent and realistic to take basic precautions.

In a dark fashion, 9/11 was a blessing: despite years of warnings from many biologists and medical scientists, few policymakers took the threat of biological attacks seriously. After all, who would be crazy enough to want to kill millions of innocent civilians with weaponized viruses or bacteria? It seemed quite unlikely. But not nearly as unlikely as the notion that suicidal terrorists would crash multiple airliners into skyscrapers and the Pentagon.

Link: US BioTerror System Planned
Link: American Early Detection Network Activated
Link: Good summary of biodector technology and deployment
Link: Bioluminescence As Detection Signal
Link: White House Biological Terrorism Civil Defense Plans
Link: DARPA leads Push For Bioterror Counter-Measures
Link: Bioterror Defense Budget To Increase 400%
Link: New Scientist: Defenses Against Bioarmageddon (Detectors, RNA, Vaccines, Fast Diagnosis)