Biological Weapons How Real Is Term Paper

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Having known the mounting dangers, many public health and bio-terrorism experts, members of Congress and some well-positioned Bush administration officials convey increasing discomfort about what they think are flaws in the country's bio-defenses. Over the earlier years, awareness steps have been made, mainly in the large cities. But most of necessary equipments are not available.

The federal government's standard answer to the anthrax assaults of 2001 and the warning of upcoming bio-terror attacks has been to accumulate huge amounts of drugs and vaccines to take care of or vaccinate sufferers or possible sufferers. However, these medicines are ineffective if there is no dependable system in place to quickly distribute and give out them to the disturbed populations early enough for the drugs to be successful. Regrettably, as of now, we do not have this strong, competent system in position in the United States. At the close of 2003, only two states were described by Trust for America's Health as being at the maximum vigilance level. 9 Pathogen sensors are not in available to spot that a biological assault has taken place. Some more new medicines are required.

The national stock of vaccines is fully insufficient, as the Dark Winter and TOPOFF movements proved. The National Pharmaceutical Stockpile was unsuccessful in getting vaccines to be given to the public in time to avoid the spread of smallpox to 25 cities. Besides, ventilators and other necessary medical equipments were also significantly in short supply. To offset the attack that officials are almost sure will come some day; the nation wants long lists of new bio-warfare antidotes and vaccines. But in spite of strong attempt by health departments, the advent of usable drugs has been sluggish, experts and U.S. officials said.

In fighting terrorist assaults, treatment is a more realistic move than avoidance; however many biological agents are very difficult to cure with available medicines once the signs emerge. Also most of the vital prophylactic drugs have restricted shelf lives and cannot be stored. Furthermore, a refined attacker could negotiate their efficiency. Local emergency medical reaction abilities are restricted. Soon after the TOPOFF exercise, Dr. Stephen Cantrill, the head of Emergency Medicine in Denver, lecturing about vaccine scarcity in the U.S., said that due to many pressures our hospitals have no 'surge' capacity. A number of areas describe a bulk fatality occurrence as one with more than a dozen fatalities, far lesser than a deliberate biological release could make happen. Emergency room capability in major cities can be besieged all too swiftly by more common emergencies.

More emergency medical facility is also situated in downtown areas that may be aimed for assault. The National Disaster Medical System has intended access to roughly about 100,000 hospital beds across the country to manage an extensive medical emergency. But not all of those beds might have the particular means for patient respiration and supportive treatment that may be required at the time of calamity. Such apparatus is not available in large numbers, even from deployable field hospital Department of Defense war store. The present federal plans support not vacating hurt people from the disturbed area but may move patients who are previously in hospitals to free up local bed space. These points out those areas must increase their own http://www.politicsol.com/gifs/pixel.gif

Hospitals could not fine-tune to an abrupt increase in patient load without sinking into confusion. Cantrill after jotting down that an likely 42% of the U.S. population is vulnerable to smallpox and there is an estimated casualty rate of 30% from an outburst of the disease, said that the national shortage of sufficient smallpox vaccine and smallpox immune globulin would harshly curb our capacity to hold the spread of this dreaded disease by a germ warfare attack. Such an assault would make our 1918 influenza plague, with a case-fatality rate of 2% and more than 67,000 deaths really look like a walk in the park. In a city like Washington D.C with 500,000 residents and which has an average of 3,000 hospital beds and services would be inundated hours before the Centers for Disease Control could even authenticate that a biological emergency existed. Speaking of operation TOPOFF, Dr. Tara O'Toole, deputy director of Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Bio-defense Studies, said the trial was stopped after four days from utter tiredness of the partakers and because the outbreak was still spreading.

A terrorist germ assault on U.S. soil would ridicule all past defense plans, says former U.S. Sen.

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Sam Nunn, who was President in a recent bio-warfare simulation of a smallpox crisis that began in Oklahoma City. In actual fact there are only 12 million doses of smallpox vaccine in America to defend a population of 275 million that is not greatly vaccinated and is therefore greatly susceptible. The imitation began with 20 definite cases in Oklahoma City; 30 supposed cases spread out in Oklahoma, Georgia and Pennsylvania, and there were innumerable cases of individuals who were affected, but didn't know it. The results of a bomb are bordered in time and place. After the detonation, the nation's headship knows if you're wounded, and the level of the injury. But smallpox is a quiet, continuing, hidden attack. Smallpox, on the other hand, is a silent, ongoing, invisible attack. It is extremely infectious and spreads in a flash; each smallpox victim can contaminate 10-20 others. Because it develops for two weeks, it comes in waves.

The most dangerous effect of a biological weapons attack is that it could twist Americans against Americans. Once smallpox is on the loose, it is not the terrorists any longer who are the menace; your neighbors and your family members can become the menace, and can even become the opponents. For more than 2,000 years, the first law of war has been to identify your opponent. You can guess the number of tanks and planes and troops of the enemy, their cleverness abilities and other assets. But in this case, the organization of battle would be our own people, wandering, doing business, and diffusing the disease. You cannot make out who originally released the virus, how much more germ agent they have, or in which place they are. The normal reaction to assault is not possible: hold the enemy, open fire, prevents the advance, and fetch out the injured. You can barely recognize who is injured. As smallpox is not been found in U.S. since 1949, very few health care professionals make out the virus. Early cases could be sent back home contagious, even after showing at doctor's offices or emergency rooms. Laboratory amenities required to analyze the disease are insufficient and are outmoded.

Hospitals run at facility all the time; a rush in patients from smallpox, joined with the unavoidable diseases of hospital workers and the flight of some terrified health care professionals, would make a ruinous overwork. There are 12 million doses of vaccine, which is sufficient for one in every 23 Americans. Who must be inoculated? Should the hotels be changed into hospitals? Should the boundaries be closed and blocked for travel? What stage of power do you use to retain someone sick in separation? Do you keep people known, or thought to be revealed, quarantined in their homes? Do you assure 2.5-million dosage of vaccine to the military? How do you converse to the community in a way that is honest, but avert fear knowing that fear it can be a weapon of mass destruction? Of course, there are some cynics anytime when you explain an awful danger to the U.S.

Limped by budget compulsions and everyday predicaments, many health agencies say they cannot fulfill federal official's pressing loads that they get ready for bio-terrorism. Superimposing jurisdiction among federal agencies functioning on bio-defenses, including the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, results in perplexity inside and outside government about who is in charge of preparations for, and reaction to, bio-attacks. In tabletop exercises, mistakes by top administration officials disclose that more work is necessary to map how the government should correspond with the public after an assault and handle the possible flight of maybe millions of people from city centers. In spite of substantial development since the 2001 attacks, the National Institutes of Health, which has the top responsibility in researching biological warfare vaccines and antidotes, stays mostly linked to its conventional responsibility of conducting fundamental research and is not making sufficient new drugs. Big drug companies with track records of rising medications have small inclination in making bio-terrorism vaccines and treatments.

Due to the scientific difficulties, no technology is available to sense a biological attack as it happens. In the most sophisticated current program called Bio-watch, the filters in the air-sniffing units in 30 cities are detached once a day by the technicians and taken to the labs for automated investigation in search of about 10 biological agents. Administration executives say most breaches in U.S. biological.....

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