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Title: Bioterrorism's Threat Persists As Top Security Risk
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Article
URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121781124869708811.html
Published: Aug 5, 2008
Author: By SIOBHAN GORMAN
Post Date: 2008-08-05 01:33:39 by TwentyTwelve
Keywords: Bioterrorism
Views: 61
Comments: 2
Wall Street Journal Article Bioterrorism's Threat Persists As Top Security Risk Efforts in Response, Prevention Have Made Little Progress By SIOBHAN GORMAN August 4, 2008; Page A10 WASHINGTON -- So what has the U.S. learned since anthrax was sent through the mail in 2001? It is cheap to do. It is easy to pull off. It is tough to respond to. And for all of those reasons, it remains one of the top concerns of security officials across the country, and one of their greatest frustrations. New York City is at the forefront of confronting the bioterror threat, with one of the most advanced detection and response systems in the country. But the problem "is not fixed in New York or anywhere else," says Richard Falkenrath, the city's counterterror chief and a former senior White House security aide. The federal government has spent nearly $50 billion on programs to fight bioterrorism since 2001. Still, experience in New York City and elsewhere underscores the enduring difficulty of contending with this type of terror attack. Experts in the field say that the nation's ability to detect biological weapons is still inadequate in most locales, as is its ability to distribute drugs to the population once the lethal agent is identified. Hospitals warn that the volume of casualties from an effective attack could simply overwhelm facilities. "We've made very little progress in [any] of those very big areas," says Dr. Tara O'Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is constructing a center that will merge biothreat information from federal agencies and eventually connect it with localities. The department has also been building its BioWatch system, which deploys equipment to sniff out key deadly pathogens from the air. William O. Jenkins Jr. of the Government Accountability office said in congressional testimony that it isn't clear that the new center will be able to perform as expected when it is launched next month. He also found that the BioWatch system requires up to 34 hours to detect and confirm a pathogen. While the department is trying to develop an interim solution to expedite detection, a faster system isn't scheduled for completion until 2010, he said. Bioterror experts warn that an attack is only going to become easier to launch as the same work that has spawned countless new biotech medical treatments continues to advance. "Unfortunately, there's going to be a dark side," says Randall Larsen, Director of the Institute for Homeland Security, a Virginia-based think tank. The biotech revolution, he said, is making it "easier for nonstate actors to develop sophisticated bioweapons." With easier access to fatal pathogens, it may be impossible to uncover preparations for an attack, leading government officials to focus more on lessening the impact of an attack than preventing one. New York is using the next generation of sensors that the federal BioWatch program hopes to distribute nationwide by 2010. The city has been asking the federal government for more sensors. Most of the devices require up to 34 hours to detect a lethal bug, but about a half dozen new machines can detect an agent more quickly. Yet New York remains at the leading edge. In most other cities, there was little federal guidance about which systems to buy, which led to a patchwork of often ineffective programs. The BioWatch system is active in more than 30 cities. In New York, if a lethal agent is detected, the city plans to immediately distribute drugs to counter the bug. The federal government has worked to develop a national stockpile of drugs to deploy anywhere in the country, and biosecurity experts give the program high marks, saying that it can get the drugs to an affected region quickly. The problem, they say, is getting the medication out of the airport, where the federal government leaves it, and into communities. If a biological attack were to happen tomorrow, said Lawrence O. Gostin, a bioterrorism expert at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities, the best advice the government could give would be for people to stay where they are. He adds: "I have no idea how they would get to my suburban Maryland neighborhood and get me an antiviral or antibiotic." And biosecurity specialists lament that little progress has been made even on the most public of possible biological threats: countering an anthrax attack. Seven years after the nation contended with just such an attack, an $877 million effort to develop a new anthrax vaccine has failed; there's no quick way to test patients for an anthrax infection; and efforts to develop a drug to counter anthrax's lethal chemicals haven't produced much. "We need to seriously reconsider the approach we've been taking," said Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He advocates a greater focus on prevention. Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
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#1. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
This is not good news.
Title: Forensics Gave Investigators Little to Work With (Anthrax)
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man (or woman) in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation." ~ Herbert Spencer
#2. To: wudidiz (#1)
This is not good news.
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