Bioterrorism In The 20th Century

TITLE Terrorism is nothing new to this world, but in the twentieth century, a new and more potentially dangerous form of terrorism was introduced, bioterrorism. This is the act of terrorism by biologically altering and releasing a disease into the world, causing mass panic and possibly death among people. Not many people in this world know how easily a biological disease can be released into a population of people. Informing the public but mainly public officials could help prevent a bioterrorist attack from occurring. In the event that an attack happens, public officials should know how to contain and treat the patients that are infected in an attack There are many different ways and types of disease to cause to biological weapon. Researching
George Washington heard that the British were spreading smallpox among the colonies. In order to save his men, Washington order a vaccination of all his troops. In the end of the whole event, very few men were lost. (Davis, Johnson-Winegar) Bioterrorism was also useful during the first World War, ”They achieved their most notable success when they infected forty-five hundred mules and horses belonging to the Allies...An extensive network of German agents in the United States injected horses, mules, and cattle with glanders and anthrax at the stockyards just before the animals' departure to the European theater.” (Davis, Johnson-Winegar) This is probably the most notable example of a bioweapon not being used on humans. The most recent example was the anthrax attacks of 2001. Letters were sent to various locations around the country. All the known letters that were found came Trenton, New Jersey. Once the letters were opened, the spores were released then came in contact with the victim through inhalation or cutaneous by whomever opened the letter. In all there was twenty-two people that were infected from the attack. Half of the infected received it through inhaling it; the other half received it through and open wound or cut. Five of the eleven who inhaled, died. The rest survived the infection.
Anthrax is a bacterial spore that can lay dormant in the soil for years.“Anthrax is an attractive weapon because nearly 3 billion lethal doses are contained in just one ounce of anthrax material. It is also cheap and easy to produce, store, and make into weapons.”(David Baker) There are three different ways that this disease can be transmitted. The most likely would be releasing the spores into the air, from there the victims would breathe in the spore without even noticing it. The reason why anthrax being inhaled is so scary because if “Left untreated, some 90 to 100 percent of people who contract inhalation anthrax may die.”(Croddy 68) There are some problems with inhalation of anthrax. The first is that the terrorist would have to design a new form of anthrax to overcome antibiotics. The spores found in nature will not be strong enough. They would also have to separate the spore into small fragments so they can infect the victims. If too small though the spores will go in and out of the respiratory system without infecting the person. During the separation process, “...they tend to become electrostatically charged, and thus form into large clumps of spores that would otherwise drop harmlessly to the ground.” (Croddy 69). Trying to spread this among a large group isn’t very practical because wind plays big factor to where it will spread. Indoor use of anthrax would probably be the most practical and