Council News Vol. 7, no. 2

LI I

AT COUNCIL, NIAID SEEKS ADVICE ON BIOTERRORISM

In light of the recent move in Washington to better
shield the nation from bioterrorist threats, NIAID is
looking at its role of funding basic research of human
pathogens that could be wielded as agents of
bioterrorism.

NIAID faces such questions as,
do we have enough basic research on the organisms most
likely to be used?
To gain input on this topic,
Council heard a sobering presentation by Dr. Donald A.
Henderson, distinguished service professor, Johns Hopkins
University School of Hygiene
and Public Health.
Dr. Henderson is known for his
leadership of the World Health
Organization's global smallpox
eradication campaign.
Bioterrorism has been in the
news lately in response to a
growing belief by experts that it
is, as Dr. Henderson told Council, "more likely than ever and
far more fearsome than explosives or chemicals."
The Senate subcommittee for
NIH appropriations held a
hearing on June 2 on the
nation's capacity to deal with
bioterrorism, and the government is taking a close look at
how to meet potential threats.
Several new initiatives are already under way. One for the
Defense Department provides
$300 million to train national
guard units.
In addition, the FBI is adding
new agents, and the President
announced a move to stockpile

vaccines and antibiotics for
civilian use. As Dr. Henderson
told Council, our
society is illequipped to diagnose, characterize Major E
epidemiologically, Threat;
and respond to
biological weap- Anthrax
ons, whose reSmallpo'
search needs
converge with Plague
those of emerging Tularem
infectious diseases. Toxins

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Our nation needs
much better
surveillance, a
better network of laboratories,
diagnostic tools, and properly
trained health professionals.
Regarding the latter, smallpox,
anthrax, and plague, the organisms considered most likely to
be used, would not readily be
recognized by physicians or
diagnosed by laboratory tests
because these infections have
never been seen by practicing
health professionals in the U.S.
This leaves us vulnerable to a
threat Dr. Henderson described
as "every bit as grim and foreboding as the picture painted of
nuclear winter."
The delay to disease onset and
ability of infectious organisms to
spread raise enormous questions

about how to protect public
health, questions we are illprepared to answer.
For example, in a bioterrorist act
involving aerosolized anthrax,
people would start having symptoms three to four days after
exposure to the almost universally fatal,
but highly
stable,
ioterrorism spores.
By the time
symptoms
began to
occur, it
would be
too late for
a therapy,
and people
would die
within a
matter of
days.
Further, because spores can
survive at least 50 years in the
desiccated state, it is not known
when it would be safe to reenter
a contaminated area.
Anthrax cannot be spread from
person to person, so smallpox,
which can, presents a different
scenario.
Smallpox is less stable but highly
infectious. Exposed people who
become ill would readily infect
others while unsuspecting physicians would be slow to diagnose
the disease.
Even after an epidemic was
uncovered, halting further
spread would be hard because of
limited supplies of vaccine and a
lack of an effective therapy.