analysis
Murder or terrorism with biological or
chemical agents is not far-fetched
the consequences of attacks with biological
and chemical agents. As an introduction to
his talk about preventive measures, Dennis
Reutter from the US Army Biological and
Chemical Command showed a slide of a
soldier in protective chemical garb, includ-
ing gas mask. When the USA entered
World War I, these preventative measures
were already available to the soldiers
because gas had been used previously and
scientists had had time to devise counter-
measures.
Preparations against a biological attack
are again being undertaken. In 1998,
President Clinton, probably influenced by
James Preston’s novel Cobra Event, which
described a bioterrorism attack on New
York City, requested US$ 94 million fund-
ing to build a civilian stockpile of medi-
cine that could be used to respond to a
large chemical or biological attack. The
funding is also being used to improve the
public health surveillance system in order
to rapidly detect disease outbreaks.
Furthermore, the National Institutes of
analyse biological agents that can be
deployed anywhere in the world.
a
scenario—it has been used before.
Criminal cases in the USA include various
uses of biological agents in the last
decades. The Rajneesh Foundation used
Salmonella bacteria in 1984 to poison ten
restaurant salad bars in the city of The
Dalles, OR, hoping it would influence an
election in its favour. A separatist group
calling itself ‘Republic of Texas’ used
Botulinum, HIV and rabies in 1998 and
Japan was the first country in the world
to experience a terrorist attack using
chemical weapons. On March 20, 1995,
Aum Shinrikyo, a religious doomsday
cult, released the nerve gas sarin in the
Tokyo subway. The diluted form of the
gas affected five subway cars during
morning rush hour, killing 13 people and
injuring a further 6000. More than 600
patients were admitted to St Luke’s Inter-
national Hospital near the affected sub-
way station. The hospital reported that,
after three years, many patients still com-
plained of neurological symptoms. The
attack on the Tokyo subway still has
repercussions for the media, the victims
and the perpetrators whose children have
been barred from local schools. The
mastermind behind this attack, Chizuo
Matsumoto, is still on trial. As for Aum as
an organisation, it still exists and is even
growing in spite of the fact that its leaders
and many of its members have been
In 1998 and 1999, a separatist
group from Texas used
Botulinum, HIV and rabies to
threaten judges
1999 to threaten judges. Three members
were later charged with conspiracy to use
weapons of mass destruction and the
eldest, Johnnie Wise, was sentenced to
24 years in prison. In 1977, Diane
Thompson, a nurse from Texas, was sen-
tenced to 20 years for intentionally contam-
inating doughnuts with Shigella dysenteriae
in order to achieve personal revenge.
Particularly at risk from bioweapons are medical personnel who treat
victims without knowing what kind of infection they are dealing with
The particular risk of biological agents,
when used as weapons, is their extreme
uncontrollableness. An infectious agent
can easily spread from the original victim
to relatives or colleagues. Particularly at
risk are the medical personnel who treat
victims without knowing what kind of
infection they are dealing with. More
unpredictable are the number of people
and the patterns in which they are
affected. The worst-case scenario is a
terrorist attack against a major city. One
assessment from the World Health
Organisation in 1970, asserted that a dis-
semination of 50 kg of Yersinia pestis over
a city of five million might result in
Health are spending an additional US$
10 million to expand research programs
on bioterrorism agents, as well as candi-
date vaccines and therapies against these
agents. In 1999, the CDC received its first
bioterrorism funds of US$ 121 million,
almost half of which was earmarked to
stockpile pharmaceuticals. Also, the US
Food and Drug Administration formally
approved ciprofloxacin as an antibiotic to
treat inhaled anthrax.
In 1996, the FBI—the leading US agency
to deal with crisis management—formed
the Hazardous Material Response Unit,
including biologists and chemists. The
bureau has developed field procedures for
screening suspected weapons of mass
destruction and has designed laboratory
protocols for the identification of biological
threats. ‘There is good chemical screening
in the field,’ said biologist Scott Decker of
the FBI, ‘but for biological first response we
don’t have the screening technology now.’
There are many tests, but few have been
validated. ‘The interpretation is difficult,’
explained Richard Spiegel, Doctor of Vet-
erinary Medicine and Master of Public
Health at the CDC. However, the FBI will
soon have a mobile laboratory ready to
arrested and sentenced. ‘Aum Shinrikyo is
regaining power and is now two thirds of
its former size,’ Japanese Chief Cabinet
Secretary Hiromu Nonaka told reporters
in a press conference in 1999.
Hiromichi Oiwa, professor at the
Department of Hygiene and Space Medi-
cine at Nihon University Medical School
in Tokyo, pointed out that many episodes
of nuclear, biological or chemical terror-
ism have happened in Japan. ‘Aum tried an
attack with a biological agent, anthrax,’ he
said. ‘Fortunately they failed in their attack
in the mid-city of Tokyo. They failed in the
manufacture of small vapour molecules.
Aum made only large molecules that fell to
the ground. Small molecules are necessary
to be inhaled by the human body.’
This February, Oiwa and Alfred Bove,
Professor of medicine and Associate Dean
of Temple University’s School of Medi-
cine, organised the workshop ‘Inter-
national Cooperation in Medical Disaster
Relief: Impact of Telecommunications and
Information Technology’. Among the top-
ics discussed were medical preparedness
for the threat of bioterrorism, chemical
hazards and information systems for the
detection and management of disaster.
1
3
50 000 cases of pneumonic plague and
6 000 deaths.
As a preventive measure, and to protect
medical personnel, federal institutions have
started to educate doctors and nurses about
the imminent dangers of an outbreak of an
unknown disease. At a recent meeting of
the American Association of Clinical
Chemists in July, doctors and security
experts discussed precautionary measures
that hospitals and laboratories could take.
Representatives from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) talked to
hundreds of laboratory technicians about
3
88 EMBO Reports vol. 1 | no. 5 | 2000
© 2000 European Molecular Biology Organization
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