Information Sources on the Internet for Medical Preparedness to Counter Bioterrorism

As of November 8, 2001, the number of Americans known to have contracted anthrax = 19; while the subset of patients who have died = 5 (FL + NY + NJx2 + CT), all from the inhaled pulmonary form. All 19 persons were employed either in the media or by the US Postal Service, except for two women (one of whom worked at a hospital in New York and the other of whom was an independent 94 yo woman who lived alone and for whom the association is still unresolved) and a laboratory worker in Texas [ Ref. "CDC Studies Anthrax Case At Testing Lab in Texas," The Wall Street Journal, p. B6 (March 14, 2002).]

GRG Editorial: Plutonium and the End of Civilization

February 7, 2002; Although nothing much has happened in identifying the perpetrator(s) of these anthrax attacks in the interval from November to February, despite our best efforts at DNA sequencing to pinpoint the exact lab that originated this particular Ames strain, there was one ominous, almost unnoticed, announcement in the last day that merits speculation. "The U.S. Government has decided to purchase six million doses of a drug to prevent thyroid cancer in the event of a radiation release" [1]. Could this be evidence for a reality counterpart to the "plutonium-contaminated, attache-case/soda-can-sized, dirty-conventional-bomb scenario" that our Intelligence Community Staff and Hollywood movie scripts have warned us about for years finally being taken seriously by the Congress? Consider that a mere hand-full of fanatical terrorists could render uninhabitable for centuries into the future the down-town sections of a dozen major cities in the world, nearly simultaneously, assuming the proper degree of careful logistical planning carried out in absolute secrecy with less than one-hundred million US dollars in up-font financing required, and furthermore without anyone having to commit suicide in the process (a seemingly insignificant technicality for the ostensible mission planners who would, of course, be well trained in plastic explosives and high-tech electronic remote-controlled timing devices, the training for which has been largely available on the same Internet which you, dear reader, are using right now to view this website.) We imagine that it will take more than assembling a stockpile of thyroid pills to cope with the outcome of this worst-case nightmare scenario for the destruction of Western Civilization. Our US Homeland Security Office, FEMA, the FBI, and the CIA have a major challenge waiting in the wings, given the flourishing black market for relatively small amounts of foreign plutonium from other countries around the world.

Radioactive plutonium is gram-for-gram (or ounce-for-ounce) the most pathologically dangerous substance known to man, as Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) has been warning us since they were created in the 1950's. Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 are close cousins [2]. Properly assembled in Earth orbit in an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) Propulsion System, plutonium could reduce the time for a NASA-planned spacecraft-mission to Mars from two years to one year (each way) and help us explore the solar system in a manner that would make prior efforts seem positively juvenile by comparison. Yet, employed by terrorists in a Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD) -- otherwise known as a "dirty bomb" -- a combination of plutonium, strontium, cesium, and cobalt could deliver devastation significantly worse than anything seen on September 11th.

There are no guarantees for the continued survival of Western Civilization, as we know it. The New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, the Greek, and the Roman empires all fell in time to "barbarians at the gates." Today, we live in particularly dangerous times. US, NATO, and UN Leadership is urgently needed to quell existing conflicts in the rest of the world so that we can get on with the systematic police actions that will be needed to rid us of the terrorist cells operating in our midst, even it means some temporary loss of gratuitous freedom-of-movement that we cherish so much in our free society. Then, we will have the confidence to refocus our efforts on the biological imperative of unlocking the secrets of the aging process, which ultimately is the only enterprise worthy of our efforts.
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Refs.:
1. Marilyn Chase, "Study Suggests Smallpox-Vaccine Supplies Could be Stretched Safely with Dilution," The Wall Street Journal, pp. A1, B4 (February 6, 2002)
2. The Los Angeles Times, pp. A1, 23 (March 3, 2002).

Click for some of the Letters to the Editor that we have received since the publication of this Editorial.

The CDC Unveils a New Website for Bioterrorism Information

January 22, 2002 (AP) The public's demand is growing for information about everything from Anthrax to possible epidemics of Smallpox or other contagious diseases. So the CDC has designed and established a new Website to give the latest information it can offer. It's not fancy, but here's where you can find what you need from the CDC's office of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response. The new site covers the gamut, from instructions to postal workers who may have been exposed to anthrax to a listing of the deadliest bacteria and viruses and how to avoid them. There are even instructions on how to report a "bio-emergency," if you suspect one.

1. CDC Bioterrorism in Atlanta, GA;
2. CDC Anthrax in Atlanta, GA;
3. Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, MD;
4. Harvard University Medical School ;
5. State of Maryland Bioterrorism Center;
6. Los Angeles County Department of Health Services .

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has just announced the funding of the private, not- for-profit Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, MD with a $200,000 Emergency Grant to map the compete sequence of the Ames strain of anthrax that has been implicated in the recent attacks in Florida, New York, and Washington, D.C. The sequence is expected to be completed in a few weeks. The Department of Energy has recently proposed a program to sequence pathogens "in as little as three days from getting a sample," according to Dr. Trevor Hawkins, Director of the DOE Joint Genome Institute.

Refs.

1. Antonio Regalado and Scott Hensley, "DNA of Anthrax in Terror Attacks Will be Mapped," The Wall Street Journal, pp. B1, B9 (October 29, 2001).
2, Mark Schoops and Antonio Regalado, "Differences in Anthrax Strain Are Found," The Wall Street Journal, p. B5 (February 19, 2002).
Clair Fraser, President of TIGR of Rockville, MD, reported last week that "PolyA" and/or {ATT}x n differences may allow us "to distinguish the fingerprints of the particular laboratory from which the lethal Ames strain of Anthrax originated."
3. John A. T. Young and R. John Collier, "Attacking Anthrax: Recent Discoveries Are Suggesting Much-Needed Strategies for Improving Prevention and Treatment by Neutralizing Its Deadly Toxin," Scientific American, Vol. 286, No. 3, pp. 48 - 59 (March 2002).
4. Martin Enserink and Eliot Marshall, "New Anthrax Vaccine Gets a Green Light", Science, Vol. 296, No. 5568, pp. 639-40 (April 26, 2002).
5. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "For Anthrax Survivors, A Halting, Painful Recovery," The New York Times, pp. D1, 6 (May 7, 2002).
6. William J. Broad and David Johnston, "Anthrax Sent Through Mail Gained Potency by the Letter," The New York Times, pp. A1, 16 (May 7, 2002).

Book References:

1. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William J. Broad, GERMS: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War (Simon & Schuster, New York; 2001; $27.00)
2. Leonard A. Cole, The 11th Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare (W. H. Freeman & Co., New York; 1998; $14.95).
3. Jonathan B. Tucker, Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox (Atlantic Monthly Press; New York; 2001; $26.00).
4. Jonathan B. Tucker, Ed., Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Bcsia Studies in International Security)(MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; 2000; $20.00).
5. Michael T. Osterholm and John Schwartz, Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe (Dell Publications Co., New York; 2000; $24.95).

November 15, 2001 (AP) According to Dr. Stephen E. Straus, Director of the NIH National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, "There is no evidence that alternative medicines, including some promoted on the Internet, are effective in treating anthrax or other biological agents. Certain natural treatments could interfere with proven antibiotics, and there is little reason to believe that they hold promise in responding to bioterrorist attacks." He furthermore warned against the use of 'unproven remedies' of any sort in his testimony to the House Government Reform Committee.