Bioterrorism

Bioterrorism is terrorism using germ warfare, an intentional human release of a naturally-occurring or human-modified toxin or biological agent.

Types of biological agents

Category A agents

These are biological agents with both a high potential for adverse public health impact and that also have a serious potential for large-scale dissemination. The Category A agents are anthrax, smallpox, plague, botulism, tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers.

Anthrax : Anthrax is a bacterium with a highly resistant spore form. It is highly infectious and lethal when inhaled. It is a non-contagious disease which does not spread from one person to another. An anthrax vaccine does exist but requires many injections and has enough side effects that it is considered unsuitable for general use.

Smallpox : Smallpox is a highly contagious virus. It transmits easily through the atmosphere and has a high mortality rate (up to 30%). Smallpox was eliminated in the world in the 1970s, thanks to a worldwide vaccination program. However, some virus samples are still available in Russian and American laboratories. It is also believed it could be available in other labs. Although people born pre-1970 will have been vaccinated for smallpox under the WHO program, the effectiveness of vaccination is limited since the vaccine provides high level of immunity for only 3 to 5 years. As a biological weapon smallpox is only transmitted to people that are in close proximity with someone who has been infected with smallpox. Smallpox only occurs in humans and transmitted between humans, there are not vectors or reservoir hosts.

Botulin : Botulin is one the deadliest toxins produced by a bacterium namely Clostridium botulinum. Botulism causes respiratory failure and paralysis.

Ebola : Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever. It is extremely lethal, with no cure. The symptoms are profuse bleeding from all orifices.

Plague : Plague is a disease caused by any one of several highly contagious bacteria. It can be a type of pneumonia and may be fatal.

Marburg : Marburg is a viral hemorrhagic fever. It is extremely lethal, with no cure.

Tularemia : Tularemia is a bacterium, responsible for non-lethal but extremely incapacitating diseases (weight loss, fever, headaches, and often pneumonia).

Category B agents

Category B agents are moderately easy to disseminate and have low mortality rates.

Brucellosis (Brucella species)
Epsilon toxin of Clostridium perfringens
Food safety threats (e.g., Salmonella species, H7, Shigella)
Glanders (Burkholderia mallei)
Melioidosis (Burkholderia pseudomallei)
Psittacosis (Chlamydia psittaci)
Q fever (Coxiella burnetii)
Ricin toxin from Ricinus communis (castor beans)
Staphylococcal enterotoxin B
Typhus (Rickettsia prowazekii)
Viral encephalitis (alphaviruses, e.g.: Venezuelan equine encephalitis, eastern equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis)
Water supply threats (e.g., Vibrio cholerae, Cryptosporidium parvum)

Category C agents

Category C agents are pathogens that might be engineered for mass dissemination because they are easy to produce and have potential for high morbidity or mortality (examples: Nipah virus, hantavirus and multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis (MTB)).

Modern bioterrorist incidents

1984 Rajneeshee salmonella attack

In 1984, followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh attempted to control a local election by infecting salad bars in 10 restaurants with Salmonella typhimurium in the small town of The Dalles, Oregon. The attack caused about 751 people to get sick (no fatalities). This incident was the first known bioterrorist attack in the United States in the 20th century.

2001 anthrax attack

In September and October of 2001, several cases of anthrax broke out in the United States in the 2001 anthrax attacks, caused deliberately. This was a well-publicized act of bioterrorism. It motivated efforts to define biodefense and biosecurity, where more limited definitions of biosafety had focused on unintentional or accidental impacts of agricultural and medical technologies.

2003 ricin incidents

2003 ricin incidents

Planning and reacting to a bioterrorist attack

Planning may involve the development of biological identification systems.

Until recently in the United States of America, most biological defense strategies have been geared to protecting soldiers on the battlefield rather than ordinary people in cities. Financial cutbacks have limited the tracking of disease outbreaks. Some, like food poisoning due to E. coli or Salmonella, could be natural or deliberate.

In Europe, disease surveillance is beginning to be organised on the continent-wide scale needed to track a biological emergency. In addition of monitoring sick people, it is thought interesting to track whether a disease is due to natural outbreaks or deliberate attack. For example, a natural variety of anthrax occurs in southern Africa.

Researchers are experimenting with devices to detect the existence of a threat:

tiny electronic chips that would contain living nerve cells to warn of the presence of bacterial toxins (identification of broad range toxins)
fibre-optic tube lined with antibodies coupled to light-emitting molecules (identification of specific pathogens, such as anthrax, botulinum, ricin)

Plants as sensors

Very recently, public research has been approved to set up some genetically modified plants that could, in an immediate future, being made profitable to alert the population and the authorities in the event of chemical or biological attack. These new plants specifically modified would change color in contact with certain chemical elements, or biological agents, likely to be used at the time of possible terrorist attacks. The plants — opportunely placed in public places — would lose their green color quickly, thus setting off the alarm.

Arguments given to justify this option is that people are used to plants much more than to chemical sensors and the use in public places would not worry the population. Another argument is that these GMO sentinels could be deployed on vast geographical areas and their system of detection could be introduced into the evergreen trees and the algae of the watery zones, making it possible for satellites to supervise and perceive any change of color due to a hostile agent.

Reaction involves

setting up local emergency rooms and offices to immediately deal with the outcome in case of an attack
instruction and training for local communities
protective clothing for military personnel
tracking down of people buying materials involved in biological warfare

Once the biological agent has been identified, it can be fought through vaccination of people before they are exposed. However, vaccines are not considered to be a perfect solution. A bioterrorist could develop novel, possibly artificial, pathogens against which conventional vaccines would be useless.

Consequently, some suggest that it would be interesting to look for ways of developing vaccines quickly enough for them to be created, mass-produced and distributed after an attack. This could involve progress in DNA sequencing so that an unknown pathogen's genes could be known very quickly. The resulting sequences could help in the development of an instant DNA vaccine.

Another major issue with vaccines is that they often have side-effects which are sometimes lethal, and hence a massive inoculation program may result in deaths and illness which would be unnecessary if no biological attack occurs. This issue has a particular with the smallpox and anthrax vaccines.

Making the vaccine is not the totality of the solution. It is rather easy to order soldiers to take the vaccine, but immunizing the population is not, in particular with a vaccine making people sick, with all the controversies already going around vaccination.

For these reasons, some feel that researchers should concentrate on ways to treat victims of biological weapons. For example, Ebola kills people by inducing a widespread inflammatory reaction (similar to toxic shock syndrome). This could be fought by a new and very powerful anti-inflammatory drug.

Limitations of bioterrorism

A bioterrorist campaign cannot be won as such, since the spread of the germ or virus is not controllable and therefore (unless a non-contagious agent is used) cannot be used to target a certain set of people. The idea would be for the agent and its spread to cause as much disruption as possible to the society in order to make another goal achievable.

Publications

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a peer-reviewed journal that provides an international forum for debate and exploration of the many key strategic, scientific, and operational issues posed by biological weapons and bioterrorism. The indended audience for Biosecurity and Bioterrorism includes individuals with strategic, management, scientific, or operational responsibilities in fields that have a bearing on bioterrorism issues. These include professional fields such as medicine, public health, law, national security, bioscientific research, agriculture and food safety, drug and vaccine development, the media, and local government.

External links

Terrorism | Biological warfare

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