Word: smallpox
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...convention center along with several surrounding hotels (Microsoft, for example, took over twenty floors of the Marriot down the road). Attendance was down this year - from 200,000 to around 125,000. Perhaps it was fear of flying. Perhaps it was the rumor that terrorists were planning to release smallpox at the convention. Perhaps it was the metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs that patrolled every entrance and made getting inside just as much of a crowded nightmare as actually being inside. Or perhaps it was the growing realization that the whole event is as ridiculous an excuse...
...facility also tested smallpox, forms of plague and other, less commonly known, killer germs. "This is the best stuff the Soviets were able to come up with in 30 years of research," says a Western analyst in the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Before the scientists left Vozrozhdeniye, they tried to kill all the lethal spores they had cultured. With anthrax, they failed. "Anthrax is particularly persistent," says the analyst. "It's still there, but there's no telling where it is, no tubes labeled 'anthrax.'" Washington has had a cleanup of Vozrozhdeniye on its Central Asia to-do list for years...
...Preparing, but not panicking Americans are concerned about terrorism, and a slight majority (52 percent) believe there will be another terrorist attack in the U.S. over the next 12 months. Anthrax and smallpox both pose particular fears: 49 percent of those polled say they are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that they or their family members will be exposed to anthrax, and 46 percent are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about exposure to smallpox...
WHAT CAN BE DONE The government has ordered stepped-up smallpox-vaccine production, so that 300 million fresh doses should be ready in 12 months. There is no vaccine for plague--though the recent decoding of its genome could accelerate that quest...
...that slaughter that begets necessity. The anthrax attacks give but a hint of the kind of mass murder possible today. A smallpox epidemic could kill tens of millions and effectively destroy American society. As could loose nukes. According to Boris Yeltsin's former national security adviser, Russia cannot account for all its tactical nuclear weapons. Iraq and Iran are working on nuclear weapons of their own. On Sept. 11, it took just 19 conspirators to shock America. It would take just 19 more, each with a suitcase nuke, to destroy America...