Promoting Personal Safety
& National Security
HIGHLIGHTS
eptember 11, 2001. The day the world as we knew it changed. An undertone of
fear swept America in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon and the downing of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field.
The nation went on high alert. U.S. Air Force jets patrolled the skies over our nation’s cities. Shopping malls were deserted. Parents kept their children out of school. Everyone, it
seemed, was waiting for the next attack.
Then, a week later, the proverbial other shoe dropped. Anthrax attack! Network news
offices and newspapers in New York and Florida started receiving letters packed with a
coarse brown granular material resembling dry dog food. Then, three weeks later, letters
filled with a fine white powder arrived at the offices of U.S. Senators Tom Daschle of South
Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Both sets of envelopes contained spores of the bacterium Bacillus anthracis — the cause of anthrax disease — and the letters that implied they
were a followup to the September 11 attacks. Twenty-two people became ill. Five of them
died of anthrax.
Today, law enforcement officials say that the Amerithrax incident, as the FBI named it,
was actually perpetrated by a misguided government research scientist. He may have been
trying to call attention to our vulnerability to such attacks. Whether that was really his
intention will never be known. The suspect committed suicide on the eve of his arrest.
But in the aftermath of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, the federal government has poured
millions of dollars into research with one purpose in mind: developing technologies that
can detect potential threats from both biological and chemical weapons before they endanger the public’s health or the safety of our first responders. They are the soldiers, firefighters,
police officers, and health-care workers who put their lives on the line to protect the public.
◆ Researchers are
developing a “
chemical radar” that could
provide early warning
of nerve gas attacks,
just as regular radar
detects incoming
aircraft.
◆ One new technology
promises to provide
“optical fingerprints”
that alert officials to
the presence of smallpox and other bioterrorism agents.
◆ USDA researchers
have found a way
to detect ricin, a
potential bioterrorism agent that may
be concealed in processed foods.
A Host of Threats
Inhalation anthrax starts off with symptoms resembling a bad cold or the flu, and then rapidly progresses to severe and often fatal respiratory collapse. Not a pleasant way to die. But
anthrax is one of the least dangerous of the biological threats that the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) calls Category A agents.
These are the real nasties, the bacteria, bacterial toxins, and viruses that are not only
incredibly potent, but also have the potential to be spread among large numbers of people in
a bioterrorism attack. Joining anthrax on the Category A list are smallpox; botulism toxin;
plague; viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola and Marburg; and tularemia, or rabbit fever.
Analytical chemist Dr. Troy A. Alexander, of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, is one
of the many scientists who are developing a rapid, high-tech approach to detecting the first
signs of a Category A bioterrorism attack.
◆ Nanotubes that are
1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair
coated with a natural microbe-fighting
enzyme could help
prevent the spread
of germs on kitchen
countertops, doorknobs, and other
surfaces.
DiD YOU KNOW?
Anthrax infection can occur in three forms: Cutaneous (skin), inhalation, and
gastrointestinal. About 95 percent of infections involve the skin and are rarely fatal.
The last naturally occurring case of smallpox in the world was in Somalia in 1977.
The last case in the United States was in 1949.
A 2002 study found that the average o ce desk harbors more bacteria than a
toilet seat. Toilet seats had 49 germs per square inch, but desktops had 21,000 and
phones 25,000.
