The Idiocy of Bioterror 'Protection'
Category: Biodefense
With any kind of security paranoia, people start behaving more cautiously than is needed.
Posted by Mike at 10:25 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Biodefense:
I am not palling around with terrorists
Category: Biodefense
Next week the FBI will provide my fingerprints to the Department of Justice and begin a background check to review my life activities. All my laboratory personnel will also be checked out. We do not work with anthrax, small pox, botulism or ricin. We are not palling around with terrorists....
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 5:00 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How to Prepare for a Bioterrorist Attack
Category: Biodefense
If the bioterrorism alarm sounded, would you be ready? Me neither.
Posted by Hsien-Hsien Lei at 5:53 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Countdown to 2013?
Category: Biodefense
According to a report released two weeks ago by the U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is likely that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by end of 2013." Focusing primarily on areas in which the United States needs to develop biodefense plans and infrastructure, the authors assert that "the risk is growing, not because we're making no progress but because the enemy is adapting and we must constantly anticipate and adapt...
Posted by Alexandra Stern at 12:23 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Flu-Mania: More than you want to know?
Category: Biodefense
Ever since the first human deaths from avian influenza were reported in February 2003, in Hong Kong and mainland China, there has been enormous interest in tracking H5N1. Most of the public health efforts, increasing global in scale, have concentrated on epidemiological surveillance in poultry and humans, standardized and transparent case reporting, understanding the dynamics of bird-human and human-human transmission, and identifying the molecular structure of H5N1. Emerging during the same six month period as the SARS epidemic (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), H5N1 has inspired fear and fascination, as well as a steady stream of studies, papers, blogs, and commentaries....
Posted by Alexandra Stern at 4:00 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Attacking and defending.
Category: Biodefense
"Any tool can be a weapon if you hold it right." --Ani DiFranco The challenge of bioweapons and biodefense, it seems to me, is in aiming them. If you're trying to do some damage to your enemies with a biological agent (by killing them or making them so ill as to be incapacitated), how do you ensure that you're not also harming civilians, or your own people?...
Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:51 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Biological Weapons: Terror Weapons, If They Work
Category: Biodefense
Biological warfare is mostly a way to terrorize civilians, not engage military combatants.
Posted by Mike at 10:18 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Avoiding the unthinkable?
Category: Biodefense
All the previous posts on our current topic are fascinating, and all treat important matters. But I notice that none of them directly address the central questions that were posed, which focus on bioweapons and biodefense. I've also noticed my own reluctance to take on these issues. And when I checked the website of the Sunshine Project, a public interest organization that has done really solid work on biological weapons issues, I found that it had suspended its operations in February 2008. I suppose avoidance of the unthinkable isn't surprising, but it may not be the best approach. And with...
Posted by Marcy Darnovsky at 1:43 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Escaping the Flu? Experiences from 1918
Category: Biodefense
A few years ago the Center where I work at the University of Michigan undertook a study of a small number of communities in the United States that "escaped" the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. After eliminating a few communities that some scholars claimed had escaped 1918 (such as Darien, Connecticut) and unearthing a few new ones (Fletcher, Vertmont), we wrote a report and created a digital archive with primary source materials. These seven communities had death rates in the range of 0 to 3, although varying infection rates. What allowed them to "escape" the 1918-1919 pandemic, which took approximately 650,000 lives...
Posted by Alexandra Stern at 11:58 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Biodefense and common sense.
Category: Biodefense
Are we smarter than viruses?
Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:33 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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