You might think about smallpox. I had lunch today with a county coroner, and they are on the alert for any kind of smallpox outbreak.
Evidently we here in the US stopped vaccinating for pox back in 1972, so there is a big (80%) population segment that is at severe risk if these terrs have some of this stuff, and they just might have it, ala the break-up of the old Soviet Union.
This stuff is contagious, unlike anthrax,
So it comes with it's own built in distribution sequence.
Some backround, it is not pretty>
jama.ama-assn.org
An excerpt>
"Recent allegations from Ken Alibek, a former deputy director of the
Soviet Union's civilian bioweapons program, have heightened concern
that smallpox might be used as a bioweapon. Alibek reported that
beginning in 1980, the Soviet government embarked on a successful
program to produce the smallpox virus in large quantities and adapt it
for use in bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles; the program
had an industrial capacity capable of producing many tons of
smallpox virus annually. Furthermore, Alibek reports that Russia even
now has a research program that seeks to produce more virulent and
contagious recombinant strains. Because financial support for
laboratories in Russia has sharply declined in recent years, there are
increasing concerns that existing expertise and equipment might fall
into non-Russian hands.
The deliberate reintroduction of smallpox as an epidemic disease
would be an international crime of unprecedented proportions, but it is
now regarded as a possibility. An aerosol release of variola virus
would disseminate widely, given the considerable stability of the
orthopoxviruses in aerosol form9 and the likelihood that the infectious
dose is very small. Moreover, during the 1960s and 1970s in
Europe, when smallpox was imported during the December to April
period of high transmission, as many as 10 to 20 second-generation
cases were often infected from a single case. Widespread concern
and, sometimes, panic occurred, even with outbreaks of fewer than
100 cases, resulting in extensive emergency control measures."
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And who used it first???
"Smallpox probably was first used as a biological weapon during the
French and Indian Wars (1754-1767) by British forces in North
America. Soldiers distributed blankets that had been used by
smallpox patients with the intent of initiating outbreaks among
American Indians. Epidemics occurred, killing more than 50% of
many affected tribes. With Edward Jenner's demonstration in 1796
that an infection caused by cowpox protected against smallpox and
the rapid diffusion worldwide of the practice of cowpox inoculation (ie,
vaccination), the potential threat of smallpox as a bioweapon was
greatly diminished."
We have here in the US a 30 day supply of vaccine, so who makes the vaccine, and can they gear up quick????????? |
