Word: smallpox
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...THREAT Any of the CDC's A-list of deadly agents could be delivered through the air. But of these, smallpox may be the most worrisome. Killing 30% of those infected and leaving the rest scarred for life, it spreads easily from person to person, especially in a population that has largely lost its immunity; mass outbreaks would swamp hospitals. While vaccination in the first days after infection offers the only cure, enough freeze-dried vaccine left over from the early 1980s remains on hand to inoculate, by some estimates, just 7.5 million people. In this state of unpreparedness, smallpox...
...chill of the cold war, the Soviet Union is said to have loaded enough germs and viruses, including smallpox, aboard intercontinental ballistic missiles targeted on the U.S. to infect an entire city, a tactic Saddam Hussein is thought to have tried to copy on a more modest scale with rocket-borne smallpox "bombs" that could hit targets up to 70 miles away. He never used them. Not that restraint has always been practiced. During World War II, Japanese planes dropped plague-infested fleas on Chinese and Soviet targets, while Britain plotted to kill German cattle with anthrax...
...even without high-tech delivery systems, a single suicidal terrorist spraying a few drops of smallpox virus--or a liquid solution of Ebola or even plague--in a crowded mall or into the ventilation system of a large building could cause untold harm...
...conspiring to make people wonder what we were getting into and whether we were up to the job, the timing of the House hiatus could not have been worse. The very idea of Congress adjourning at all was breathtaking, when everything from airline security to the stimulus package to smallpox vaccine demanded immediate attention, and the new Director of Homeland Security barely had a job description, much less a budget to fulfill...
Person of the Week MORE DRUGS, PLEASE To cure fears of bioterrorism, U.S. health czar Tommy Thompson prescribes stockpiling enough antibiotics to treat 12 million people for anthrax. He is also asking Congress?just in case?for 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, enough to treat every American...