SWISS CHEESE DEFENSE FOR NUKE, BIO THREATS

It’s been three years since 9/​11 started mak­ing America twitch over a poten­tial nuclear or bio­log­i­cal ter­ror attack. And still, the U.S. isn’t any­thing close to ready for such an assault.
In 2001, “the fed­eral gov­ern­ment began pass­ing out pills that may pro­tect against some of the most dan­ger­ous effects of radi­a­tion. Fourteen states whose res­i­dents live near nuclear power plants haven’t both­ered to accept them,” Wired News reports. That’s despite the fact that “last year, a report com­mis­sioned by Congress rec­om­mended that every­one under 40 near a nuclear power plant should have the pills on hand.“
Despite the efforts of nuclear safety advo­cates and med­ical asso­ci­a­tions, the pills’ exis­tance remains fairly obscure. “You sit there scratch­ing your head and say, ‘Why aren’t they giv­ing it out?’” said Alan Morris, pres­i­dent of Anbex, the only potas­sium iodide pill man­u­fac­turer in the United States.
On the bio­log­i­cal front, things are a bit dif­fer­ent. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment has unleashed a tor­rent of cash for bioter­ror research — $7.6 bil­lion, just for next year. But on the nuts-​​and-​​bolts of basic defense, giant gaps remain, the Washington Post notes.

Hobbled by bud­get pres­sures and day-​​to-​​day crises, many health agen­cies say they can­not com­ply with fed­eral offi­cials’ urgent demands that they gear up for bioter­ror­ism.
Overlapping juris­dic­tion among fed­eral agen­cies work­ing on biode­fenses — includ­ing the depart­ments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services — leads to con­fu­sion inside and out­side gov­ern­ment about who is in charge of prepa­ra­tions for, and response to, bioat­tacks…
Large drug firms with track records of devel­op­ing med­ica­tions have lit­tle inter­est in mak­ing bioter­ror­ism vac­cines and treatments. 

The Post notes that “because of the sci­en­tific com­plex­i­ties, no tech­nol­ogy exists to detect a bio­log­i­cal attack as it occurs.” But the paper’s too nice to say that Biowatch, the sen­sor pro­gram the feds are push­ing, is basi­cally use­less.
Relying on air fil­ters in major cities, Biowatch only detects a large-​​scale, air­borne bio­log­i­cal strike — about the least likely kind. And it only gives infor­ma­tion way, way after the fact. “You’re get­ting very lit­tle spe­cific data. And it’s unclear what you could do with that infor­ma­tion that’s use­ful in the mid­dle of an emer­gency,” Peter LeJenue, a biode­fense spe­cial­ist with Potomac Institute for Policy Studies told Defense Tech last year.

November 8th, 2004 | Chem-Bio | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.