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Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases : Biological Warfare

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The smallpox virus first became entangled with the human species somewhere between three thousand and twelve thousand years ago -- possibly in Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs. Somewhere on earth at roughly that time, the virus jumped out of an unknown animal into its first human victim, and began to spread.

Viruses are parasites that multiply inside the cells of their hosts, and they are the smallest life forms. Smallpox developed a deep affinity for human beings. It is thought to have killed more people than any other infectious disease, including the Black Death of the Middle Ages. It was declared eradicated from the human species in 1979, after a twelve-year effort by a team of doctors and health workers from the World Health Organization. Smallpox now exists only in laboratories.

Smallpox is explosively contagious, and it travels through the air. Virus particles in the mouth become airborne when the host talks. If you inhale a single particle of smallpox, you can come down with the disease. After you've been infected, there is a typical incubation period of ten days. During that time, you feel normal. Then the illness hits with a spike of fever, a backache, and vomiting, and a bit later tiny red spots appear all over the body. The spots turn into blisters, called pustules, and the pustules enlarge, filling with pressurized opalescent pus. The eruption of pustules is sometimes called the splitting of the dermis. The skin doesn't break, but splits horizontally, tearing away from its underlayers. The pustules become hard, bloated sacs the size of peas, encasing the body with pus, and the skin resembles a cobbled stone street. The pain of the splitting is extraordinary. People lose the ability to speak, and their eyes can squeeze shut..

Comments: the referenced site is often rather slow or even impossible to reach. If this is the case, you can read an archive of this article here. Richard Preson has also published an excellent book on this topic, which you can reach here

Scientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 percent of the world's human population and killing unimaginable numbers. Recently, a new strain, H5N1 avian influenza, has shown all the earmarks of becoming that disease. Until now, it has largely been confined to certain bird species, but that may be changing.

The havoc such a disease could wreak is commonly compared to the devastation of the 1918-19 Spanish flu, which killed 50 million people in 18 months. But avian flu is far more dangerous. It kills 100 percent of the domesticated chickens it infects, and among humans the disease is also lethal: as of May 1, about 109 people were known to have contracted it, and it killed 54 percent (although this statistic does not include any milder cases that may have gone unreported). Since it first appeared in southern China in 1997, the virus has mutated, becoming heartier and deadlier and killing a wider range of species. According to the March 2005 National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine flu report, the "current ongoing epidemic of H5N1 avian influenza in Asia is unprecedented in its scale, in its spread, and in the economic losses it has caused."

In short, doom may loom. But note the "may." If the relentlessly evolving virus becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, develops a power of contagion typical of human influenzas, and maintains its extraordinary virulence, humanity could well face a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed. Or nothing at all could happen. Scientists cannot predict with certainty what this H5N1 influenza will do. Evolution does not function on a knowable timetable, and influenza is one of the sloppiest, most mutation-prone pathogens in nature's storehouse...

Such absolute uncertainty, coupled with the profound potential danger, is disturbing for those whose job it is to ensure the health of their community, their nation, and broader humanity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)...

Influenza (the "flu") is an ancient disease. It is likely that it has been with mankind since the dawn of civilization. Untold millions have died from this virus through the centuries. However, by the standards of other more virulent pathogens (such as smallpox, rabies and anthrax) influenza is usually not very lethal. Normally it kills less than 1% of its victims. This is sad comfort if you happen to be one of the unlucky 1%, of course, but as a statistical matter the disease is not particularly deadly.The influenza attack rate is high in children, ranging from 15% to...

As the twenty-first century begins, the following nations possess biological weapons: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, China, North Korea, Russia, Israel, Taiwan, and possibly Sudan, India, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan. The list cuts across lines of ideology, politics, and geography. In addition, according to intelligence sources in Europe and the United States, militant political groups across the globe are now developing or seeking to purchase biological weapons for terrorist use.

Meanwhile, the sophistication of biological weaponry has improved by leaps and bounds. Until 1985, all of the world's biological-weapons makers were stuck with the same list of pathogens and toxins that could kill thousands of enemies and be delivered with missiles or large-scale aerosol systems. Each nation knew the list and stocked antidotes and vaccines. It was a standoff.

But biology in the last decade has been what physics was in the 1940s and 1950s: a field of exponential discovery. What seemed impossible in 1980 was accomplished by 1990 and, by 2000, had become ho-hum fodder for high school biology classes. By the late 1990s, a massive pool of bioengineers, equipped with genetic blueprints to guide their efforts, had emerged. Determining the genetic sequence of a virus, such as Ebola, was no longer much of a feat. In 1998, scientists at the Frederick Cancer Research Center in Maryland determined, at the genetic level, exactly how anthrax kills human cells.

In response to such advances, Western militaries hardened their defenses against biological warfare as they vaccinated troops, stockpiled antitoxins, stored appropriate antibiotics, purchased protective suits and masks, practiced war-game drills involving biological weapons, and supported research on potential microbe-detecting devices. But no one had a master plan for dealing with the collateral impact of biological weapons on civilians located around the combat zone -- or the deliberate impact of bioterrorist damage inflicted on an unsuspecting community. Were a terrorist to disperse the smallpox virus, for example, populations that were once universally vaccinated would now be horribly vulnerable. Today the U.S. government stows only about 15.4 million doses of the smallpox vaccine -- enough for less than seven percent of the American population. The World Health Organization (WHO) keeps another 500,000 doses in the Netherlands, and other national stockpiles total about 60 million more doses of varying quality and potency. If the smallpox virus were released today, the majority of the world's population would be defenseless, and given the virus' 30 percent kill rate, nearly two billion people could die.

The picture worsened in 1999, when scientists discovered that the U.S. samples of the smallpox vaccine had severely deteriorated. Originally made in the 1970s by the Wyeth pharmaceutical company, the samples were stored at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta in the form of freeze-dried crystals parceled out in 100-dose quantities inside vacuum-sealed glass tubes. The tubes were further sealed with rubber stoppers secured by metal clamps. To their dismay, CDC investigators discovered condensation in many of the glass tubes, indicating that the rubber stoppers had decayed and vacuum pressure had been ...

Gwen Ifill asked a pressing question about AIDS during the vice-presidential debate, both candidates were utterly lost. "I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country, where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts," said Ifill. "What should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?" Cheney did not bother trying to hide his ignorance. "I have not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women. I was not aware that it wasâ”that they're in epidemic there [sic]," he said. Edwards resorted to dodge ball, spending his 90 seconds on AIDS in Africa, the genocide in Sudan, uninsured Americans, and John Kerry. "OK, we'll move on," said Ifill, who somehow restrained herself from rolling ...

.. advances in biotechnlogy, coupled with the difficulty in detecting nefarious biological activity, have the potential to create a much more dangerous biological warfare (BW) threat. The panel noted effects of some of engineered biological agents could be worse than any disease known to man ..

Comments: this report was recently declassified and made available through the Freedom of Information Act

Death is inevitable, but not disease. The difference may be as simple as washing our hands or keeping the wastes of industrialized farming out of the water supply, but it is often much more complicated. Bacteria and viruses are no mean adversaries, nor are they easily defeated. If we fail to be watchful or to protect those most at risk, a public-health catastrophe is inevitable, and yet somewhere within the span of the last thirty years the idea of the common good has disappeared from our national consciousness, giving way to the misconception that we no longer need concern ourselves with the welfare of our fellow citizens. It is a dangerous conceit, and it leads us toward a future infected with unprecedented and unnecessary...

The legend goes as follows: one evening long ago, a group of European explorers camped on a remote Tasmanian beach. The Eucalyptus forests here were extremely thick and tangled, running almost to the surf line. The beach, therefore, was cramped. However, no one was tempted to try camping in the dark forest. The vegetation was simply too thick and impenetrable. Further, this forest was different from anything the men had seen before. It was oddly dark and threatening. What might lurk within it? On this night, at least, no one really cared to find out...