Former HHS Official Backs Home Kits for Biodefense

As the United States considers the best strategy for distributing medical countermeasures for use in the event of a bioterrorism incident, the government should look at providing citizens with their own “home medkits” of materials, a former Health and Human Services deputy secretary said in a report carried by the Washington Times.

“Medkits let individuals prepare themselves and their families for possible biological incidents — be they naturally occurring or man-made — and they reduce the burden on federal officials who have to distribute desperately needed medications to thousands if not millions of people in a very short time frame,” said Tevi Troy, who served at the health agency and other offices in the Bush administration.

The congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism in January gave the federal government a failing grade for its efforts to prepare the nation for a biological weapons attack.

“As the Obama administration looks at options for improving its recent failing grade on rapid response to biological attacks, they should make sure to consider home medkits as part of their countermeasure distribution took kit,” Troy said.

Read Full Article.

Biological Weapons Threat Strategy To Be Released Today

The Obama administration has decided not to support a global monitoring system for biological weapons, a move that affirms an earlier determination by the Bush administration but that will disappoint some nonproliferation experts.

The decision will be reflected in the administration’s new strategy for countering biological threats, which is due out Wednesday, officials said. Its release comes amid growing concern about the number of nations and potentially terrorists developing the scientific expertise to create biological weapons.

Souce

Preparing for The Bio-terrror Threat

The threat of a bio-terror attack on the U.S remains high and may be more likely than you think.

One could be forgiven a little nostalgia for the 1950s and ’60s, when elementary-school students solemnly crawled under their desks in preparation for the impending mutually assured destruction of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. For the journalists here attending a Heritage Foundation conference last week on weapons of mass destruction, they seemed like the good old days.

That’s because another al-Qaida attack on the U.S. could be much worse than 9/11. The CIA figures it will more likely involve a biological weapon than a nuke, and says it could happen in the next few years.

Nuclear proliferation remains a huge concern: Should Iran develop such a weapon, the U.S. geo-political situation could become unmanageable. A nuclear-bomb detonation or other radiological attack in an American city would have immense material and symbolic impact.

But CIA officials particularly fear bio-weapons because, despite the extensive homeland-security apparatus erected since 9/11, things like anthrax are very difficult to keep out of the hands of terrorists. There are hundreds of biological agents that can be weaponized, either from stuff that’s already in America or that is brought in from abroad much more easily than nuclear materials.

Take the microbe anthrax, which is about three microns (a single strand of hair has a thickness of about 100 microns) wide in its granular state, which is what a terrorist would want. Equipment for making such grains is available on eBay for less than $20,000. More exotic killers could include synthetic viruses and such hemorrhagic fever viruses as ebola. Preventing such an attack by an intelligent and focused foe is very challenging. We need to develop the kind of general situational awareness that Israelis exhibit daily — an awareness that has thwarted many Palestinian bombings.

via Read Full Article.

Al Qaeda Eyes Biological Terror Attack From Mexico

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group’s determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise.

[...]

Quote from the video – “Four pounds of anthrax — in a suitcase this big -= carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there,” the recruiter said.

Exclusive – Read Full Article At Washington Times

Bio-terrorism – Al-Qaida and the Plague

In the not too distant past, this story would have been front page news.

In the middle of the massive coverage of U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration, a rather troublesome news story emerged. Unfortunately, it failed to get the coverage it deserves. If confirmed, it deserves the full attention of the Obama administration: the story has to do with bio-terrorism. Read more

Terrorists Could Use Insect-based Biological Terror Weapon

Terrorists would find it “relatively easy” to launch a devastating attack using swarms of insects to spread a deadly disease, an academic has warned.

Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of entomology at Wyoming University and author of Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, said such Rift Valley Fever or other diseases could be transported into a country by a terrorist with a suitcase.

Lockwood said, “I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon.”

He said it would “probably be much easier” than developing a nuclear or chemical weapon, arguing: “The raw material is in the back yard.”

He continued: “It would be a relatively easy and simple process.

“A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it.”

Governments, he advised, needed to have robust “pest management infrastructure that’s able to absorb and respond to an introduction” of infected insects, he said.

Trying to stop everything coming in at the border would not work, he said.

Rift Valley Fever is an east African disease which “can cause severe disease in both animals and humans, leading to high rates of disease and death” according to the World Health Organisation.

However, WHO says that “the vast majority of human infections result from direct or indirect contact with the blood or organs of infected animals.”

Source – Telegraph.

UK – Terrorists Attempting To Infiltrate Top Bio Laboratories

The security services have intercepted up to 100 suspects posing as postgraduate students who aim to acquire weapons material and expertise.

Dozens of suspected terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Britain’s top laboratories in order to develop weapons of mass destruction, such as biological and nuclear devices, during the past year. Read more

Threat of Bio-Terror Attacks Heightened

A combination of advances in biotechnology and easy access to inputs has heightened the threat of bio-attacks, David Heyman, an international expert on bioterrorism, said here on Thursday. Read more