"arizona gearing up to fight terror in biological weapons"
the article quotes health experts as saying most often the threat of bioterrorism is overhyped.
all of the people making cliams that they were going to kill people with lethal biological agents such as anthrax, the plague, small pox, tularemia, also know as rabbit fever have been just threats with no lethal biological agents ever being used.
experts are not suprised that all the cases have been hoaxes because these toxins are very difficult for the average citizen to make into a weapon that can effectively kill people.
but still the arizona department of health is pissing away $800,000 in federal grants to hire epidemiologists and microbiologists to help detect these lethal biological agents.
the article did say the only real biological terror act in the united states occured in 1984 when members of the Rajneesh cult in Oregon tainted salad bars with samonella in hopes of sickening voters to defeat local canidates they considered hostile to their sect. but it took 10 years for the case to be classified as bioterrorism because authorities were so unfamiliar with the concept.
while it is very easy for untrained people to make a samonella toxin that can easily harm people the Rajneesh cult did not brew the samonella correctly and as a result didnt make many people sick.
however deparment officals said had the cult brewed the samonella longer their bioterrorist attack could have sickened and killed many people.
turns out samonella is a cheap, easily made poor man's bioterrorist weapon.
if your going to use biological weapons to attack people the samonella bacteria is the way to go. its cheep, easily made, easy to deliver (put it in food and water ) and makes people very sick.
also the lab is a joke. its only use will be after the newspapers report many dead people from a bioterrorist attack to confirm that indeed it was a bioterrorist attack and confirm the agent used. it wont save anyone.
again government isnt protecting anyone here. government is just giving you the illusion that your being protected from bioterrorist attacks.
the only thing this agency will do is after the attack say "as the newspapers reported 100 people died from a suspected samonella attack and we have confirmed the agent was samonella"