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U.S. Is Found Poorly Prepared to
Confront Bioterrorism Attacks
Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times
Service
Monday, October 1, 2001
WASHINGTON The United States is
inadequately prepared to confront
bioterrorist attacks,
according to
a broad range of health experts and
officials.
.
The country must develop vaccines
and
treatments, they say, but it
must also fortify its fragile
public health infrastructure, the
first line of
defense in detecting
and containing biological threats.
.
Bioterrorism - the intentional
release of
potentially lethal
viruses or bacteria into the air,
food or water supply - poses
daunting technical challenges,
and many experts say it would
be difficult to carry out a
successful attack. But many others call it inevitable
that someone will eventually attempt it in the United States.
.
In the weeks since the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, much of the discussion about bioterrorism has centered on a shortage of antibiotics and
vaccines. But the bigger problem, officials agree, is a lack of the basic public health infrastructure and preparedness that
could thwart a terror attack or limit its effects.
.
Doctors are poorly trained to recognize symptoms of infection
with possible biological weapons such as plague and anthrax, which can resemble the flu. Many U.S. hospitals lack the equipment
- in some cases even simple tools such as fax machines - to receive or report information in an emergency. Though a number
of federal agencies have established bioterrorism response teams and procedures, and there has been steady improvement in
laboratory facilities around the country to test and identify biological agents, the result is a patchwork, set against a
larger patchwork of cities, counties and states with their own reporting requirements and plans.
.
"For bioterrorism,
the No. 1 inadequacy, if you had to rank them, is the inadequacy of our public health infrastructure," said Senator Bill
Frist, Republican of Tennessee. "That is a product of about 15 years of neglect."
.
In a report issued
last week, the General Accounting Office said the government's bioterrorism planning was so disjointed that the agencies involved
could not even agree on which biological agents posed the biggest threat. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, for instance, consider smallpox a major risk. But the FBI does not even put smallpox on its list.
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