Bioterrorism

Why now?
After September 11, 2001 a lot of people have worried about bioterrorism. What are the big concerns?

Why is smallpox a worry?
In the Twentieth Century, smallpox epidemics killed hundreds of millions of people and left survivors scarred for life. Smallpox spreads from one person to the next. If a terrorist infects you with smallpox, you'll probably spread it to a dozen people before you even realize that you have smallpox. We haven't routinely used smallpox vaccine for about 30 years. So young people have no protection against smallpox, and the rest probably don't have much protection left from a vaccine that has had a lot of time to wear off. The U.S. only has 15 million doses of vaccine, kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for use in an emergency. We don't have any drugs we can rely on to treat it. In theory, the only smallpox virus is kept in guarded laboratories in the U.S. and Russia. But experts have warned that some virus may have slipped out of control. Terrorists might use it. Smallpox kills 30 percent of the people who get it.

Why is anthrax a worry?
The U.S. Army's biowarfare defense group published a handbook reporting 66 deaths when a Russian laboratory accidentally released anthrax spores in 1979. So the danger from anthrax spores in the wind is not a theory. Suppose you breathed in anthrax spores. You wouldn't smell anything or notice anything odd about the air. By the time you developed a serious chest infection and saw a doctor, you'd be very, very sick. Even with treatment, you would only have a 20% chance of surviving. The good news is that you wouldn't spread anthrax to your family and friends.

What should you do about an anthrax threat letter?
Don't show it to your friends. Don't sniff it. Don't bring it up to your face for a close look. Instead, put it down on a flat surface. Leave the room. Call the police. Follow the advice of the Douglas County Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control's advice.

What other diseases could be spread by bioterrorists?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists over a dozen. The others at the top of their list are botulinum toxin, plague, tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers.

What can you do about it?
We can fight bioterrorists with our diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and intelligence efforts. Write your representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Ask them to support the fight. Ask them to speed up the Acambis company's project to produce more smallpox vaccine. Ask them to support research to see if we can stretch our vaccine supply by diluting it or use a vaccine developed for camelpox.

What can you do in the Omaha area?
Support the Omaha Metropolitan Medical Response System. This is a group that is planning a community response to any sort of medical emergency in the community. This is very important. Even if a bioterrorist infects only a few people, an unprepared community might panic. But you can help Omaha organize. If we have an orderly plan, we can keep the bioterrorists from terrorizing us.

Will gas masks help you?
No. Gas masks protect you from some chemical attacks for a few hours. You wouldn't know when a bioterrorist attack started, so you wouldn't know when to put on your gas mask. You'd need to keep your gas mask on for weeks. That's not practical.

What about Cipro for anthrax?
The FDA approved Cipro (ciprofloxacin) to take if you are exposed to anthrax in the air that you inhale. But, for now, there's not enough drug to go around. You need to take 1 pill twice a day for 60 days. Most people do well with ciprofloxacin, but some people have serious side effects.

For more information, visit the links in this article:

www.bt.cdc.gov

www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages/agents/agentsmallpox.html

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9709051&dopt=Abstract