BioWarfare and Cyber Warfare a new Kind Of War: Biowarfare And Info warfare
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3.4Smallpox – Eradicated but Not Gone for GoodSmallpox is a highly contagious, deadly, and disfiguring illness that spreads through populations rapidly and for which there is no treatment. It is not easy to use as a weapon, but it is not impossible. Indeed, the U.S., the Former Soviet Union, and other nations have experimented with smallpox as a bioweapon, until these programs came to a halt in 1972. Officially, the U.S. and Russia still have stockpiles of smallpox virus hidden in vaults in the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Iraq, North Korea and possibly other nations and terrorist groups may have the virus as well. The contagious nature of the virus makes it hard for any terrorist to stay safe while creating an aerosol form. Even when vaccine is available, to vaccinate or not to vaccinate is a complicated issue. Fatal complications with smallpox vaccine is 1 in 500,000 cases. Now we are also concerned about people who are immune deficient such as people with HIV, or transplant, or older people. The vaccine might produce an illness called progressive vaccinia. Progressive vaccinia is difficult to treat and can be fatal. D.A. Anderson, a key Health and Human Services advisor on bioterrorism and the doctor who led the World Health Organization’s global fight to eradicate smallpox, advises that it does not make sense to vaccinate everyone when the risk is low. But the balance could change as soon as the first case of smallpox appears.
3.5Deadly Past in History - SmallpoxHistorically, smallpox had proven a particularly vicious killer. It did not, as was typical of most infectious diseases, preferentially attack the most impoverished member of the society.7 In 45 A.D., it appeared in Asia. A hundred years afterwards in 165 A.D., the Roman Empire was devastated by an epidemic believed to have been smallpox. The pestilence raged for about 15 years, claiming victims in all social strata in such high numbers that some parts of the Roman Empire lost 25% to 35% of their people.8 Over subsequent centuries equally devastating pandemics of the viral disease claimed millions of lives in China, Japan, the Roman Empire, Europe, and the Americas. According to an account, Cortez’s capture of Mexico City with just a small army of exhausted Spanish irregulars under his command was possible only because the Europeans had unknowingly spread smallpox throughout the land. When Cortez launched his final assault on the capital, few Aztec soldiers were alive and well. Smallpox, together with measles, tuberculosis, and influenza, claimed an estimated 56 millions Amerindian lives during the initial years of the Spanish conquest.9,10 Table 5. Smallpox is a relatively recent human disease, seeming to have arisen in India less than 2,000 years ago. In ancient times, medical observers could not clearly discriminate between smallpox and other human-to-human epidemic diseases such as measles, bubonic plague, and typhus. As a result, controversy reigns over modern interpretations of ancient medical records. Nevertheless, according to historians familiar with medical records, several major epidemics that claimed a quarter to a third of the affected populations were likely to have been smallpox. (Table Adapted from A. Patrick)11.
Among the first to deliberately inflict smallpox on an enemy were the British soldiers during the French and Indian Wars of the mid 1700s. They handed out blankets used by smallpox patients to North American Indians to cause epidemics. And it worked. More than 50% of the affected population succumbed. It is conceivable that in future bioterror attacks, agents other than non-contagious anthrax, may be used.
3.6Countermeasures to Combat BioterrorismApart from acting on intelligence, another defense would be to restrict access to the tools of bioterrorism, including starter cultures. In March 1995, Larry Harris, a microbiologist and a member of the Aryan Nations white supremacist group, used a forged letterhead and his professional credentials to order samples of Yersinia pestis, the organism that causes bubonic plague, from the American Type Culture Collection, a clearing house for microbiological samples in Rockville, Maryland. The ATCC dutifully mailed the samples, but in the nick of time the staff became suspicious that Harris did not have the expertise to handle plague and the vials were recovered unopened. Harris is being prosecuted for mail fraud-owning plague, it transpires, is not illegal in the U.S. In the U.S., people may keep lethal pathogens at home. But threats to do harm with those pathogens, transporting or storing them improperly, or obtaining them by fraud or theft, are illegal. In Britain, any company that wants to keep lethal pathogens must prove to the government’s Health and Safety Executive that it has adequate containment facilities. But the HSE has no jurisdiction over private citizens. Not that would-be terrorists need obtain their pathogens through official channels. If they know where to look, many can be isolated from the wild. But perhaps the most neglected area of planning is the medical response to an attack. The scenario is different with the agent used. Philip Russell, former commander of the US Army Medical Research and Development Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland, believes plague is different from smallpox, which is different from anthrax. Russell is now president of the Sabin Foundation, an organization based in New Canaan, Connecticut, which promotes vaccine use against natural diseases. He proposes the need for a group of folks to go through different scenarios and think about what should be in each scenario. For example, plans are needed to ensure that large amounts of antibiotics, and properly trained and equipped people can be rushed to the scene. In the U.S., these responsibilities fall on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Office of Emergency Preparedness of the Department of Health and Human Services, both in Washington, DC. At the moment, although these agencies have adequate plans to cope with floods, earthquakes, and occasional car bombs, OEP head Frank Young told a Senate hearing on 1 November 1995 that there was no coordinated public health infrastructure to deal with the medical consequences of terrorism. This is not to say there are no plans at all. In June 1997, President Clinton told government agencies - including the military - to improve their planning for a massive terrorist strike. But at the Senate terrorism hearing, on 27 March 1998, several key witnesses, among them P. Lamont Ewell, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, questioned whether the new plans were adequate and whether they had been sufficiently well rehearsed to cope with a real attack. In Britain, the Home Office takes ultimate responsibility for preventing bioterrorism and for preparing to deal with its aftermath. In the aftermath of the postal anthrax incidents, the Bush administration set up a Home Office in the U.S. |