Bioterrorism: What? Why? and Who?

Extract

The world was definitely and dramatically changed on September 11, 2001. Terrorist acts became the dominate news in the press, TV, and Web sites. Since then we have faced the threat of anthrax with spores delivered using the United States postal system. We have been inundated with information on bioterrorism. For some individuals the idea of bioterrorism is a new and frightening concept.

Bioterrorism, however, is not unique to our century. Each millennium has had its share of events. In the 14th century during a siege of Kaffa, which is now the Ukraine, the Tartars catapulted bodies infected with the plague over the town walls. An outbreak of plague resulted soon after and was spread throughout the Mediterranean area by the escaping citizens. In the 1700s, the British and French gave blankets contaminated with smallpox as trade to the Native Americans who were unsympathetic or hostile to the government's plans to extend the western frontier.^{1- 4} Bioterrorist incidents have occurred in almost every century including the late 20th century. The Rajneeshee cult in 1984 contaminated a salad bar with Salmonella in order to win a local election in The Dalles, Oregon. The Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult in 1995 tried on ten different occasions to deliver biological agents by aerosol. It was more successful, however, in its chemical attack in the Tokyo subway. In 1998, Larry Wayne Harris was arrested in Las Vegas after obtaining anthrax and plague vaccine strains and making threatening comments about their delivery by cropduster airplanes. Now…