Biohazard

I was told by American biowarfare experts that Iraq obtained some of its most lethal strains of anthrax from the American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, Maryland, one of the world's largest "libraries" of microorganisms. Iraqi scientists, like ours, discovered which strains to order by reviewing American scientific journals. For thirty-five dollars they also picked up strains of tularemia and Venezuelan equine encephalitis once targeted for weaponization at Fort Detrick.

Six weeks after the Aum Shinrikyo attack, Larry Harris, a member of a white supremacist group in Ohio, ordered three vials of plague from the American Type Culture Collection catalog. Requests must be made on the letterhead of a university or laboratory, so Harris designed his own stationery. The order was being processed when he phoned less than two weeks later to ask why it was taking so long. Company officials grew suspicious — legitimate medical researchers would have known it normally takes more than a month to fill an order — and eventually turned him in.

Partly as a result of this incident, Congress passed a law in April 1996 requiring germ banks and biotech firms in the United States to check the identity of all prospective buyers. This is a useful deterrent, but it has not closed off opportunities for trade. Whether cultured by state-run organizations, terrorist groups, or crazed individuals, biological weapons have moved from a closely held secret of the cold war to the international marketplace.

On December 27, 1998, in Pomona, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, 750 people were quarantined after police received a call claiming that anthrax had been released in the Glass House nightclub. It turned out to be a hoax, but the men and women in the club were quarantined for four hours. This was the last in a series of anthrax hoaxes — more than a dozen over the previous two weeks, the last two weeks of December 1998. How much worse will things be in December 1999?

Biodefense

BIOLOGICAL ATTACK INDICATORS:

The following section contains indicators to help identify whether a biological attack has occurred.

Indicators — Description

An unusual number of sick or dead people and animals within an area or location. Any number of symptoms can be present in a suspected biological attack. As a first responder you should consider assessing (polling) the local area hospitals to see if additional casualties with similar symptoms have been observed.

Casualties can present in minutes, hours, days, and even weeks after an incident has occurred.

The time required before symptoms are observed in a biological attack is dependent upon the actual agent used... When considering biological attacks from the perspective of a first responder it is important to note that, with the exception of some toxins, any manifestations of the attack are likely to be delayed.

— From First Responders Chem-Bio Handbook: A Practical Manual for First Responders, 1998

We may not realize until too late that we have become the victims of a biological attack. It is not until days or weeks after such an attack has taken place — after the first wave of deaths — that we will most likely recognize its occurrence. Few terrorists will choose to warn us of their activities. A small amount of Marburg or Ebola released in the subway system of Washington, D.C., Boston, or New York, or in an airport, shopping mall, or financial center, could produce hundreds of thousands of victims.