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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epsteinbd who wrote (42125)	9/5/2002 12:50:31 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

This would, presumably, refer to a biological attack. Anthrax took out what, 6-10 people? A real attack would have a lot of people taking a lot of antibiotics quickly. Although the response last time didn't exactly inspire confidence, I'd hope contingency plans are better now. If they're not, all the Iraq war planning is quite misdirected. Smallpox could, conceivably, do worse, but a smallpox attack is much more complicated than anthrax, as the virus isn't viable for very long. Dispersal isn't that easy, either. An attack is possible, though I'd say that "probable" is quite a stretch. Plus, there's the issue that if the stuff was already in place, would a war on Iraq make such an attack more or less likely? A little bit on smallpox: Historically, the rapidity of smallpox transmission throughout the population was generally slower than for such diseases as measles or chickenpox. Patients spread smallpox primarily to household members and friends; large outbreaks in schools, for example, were uncommon. This finding was accounted for in part by the fact that transmission of smallpox virus did not occur until onset of rash. By then, many patients had been confined to bed because of the high fever and malaise of the prodromal illness. Secondary cases were thus usually restricted to those who came into contact with patients, usually in the household or hospital. jama.ama-assn.org That article gives a lot of background. It's not particularly pleasant, but without a very sophisticated dispersal system, which seems pretty improbable for a domestic attack, a million smallpox deaths in the US seems unlikely.