Useful Fools

While the press tends to focus on the nuclear threat, it is clear that the administration is extremely worried about the biological weapons threat. This is made even more clear by the budget request for six billions dollars to fight bioterrorism. Six billion is a heck of a lot of money to earmark for a threat that nobody took seriously just two years ago!

The crux of the threat is contagious bological agents… bugs that grow and spread from person to person. The amount of damage a non-infectious agent (anthrax, botox, etc) is similar to that of chemical weapons - those who get exposed suffer, but nobody else (or very few) get sick.

An infectious agent, however, is the gift that keeps on giving. Smallpox, for example, typically infects from 4 to 20 people for each original case (the real value of that number is hard to determine, but absolutely crucial in determining whether an outbreak can be contained).

Genetically engineered agents can be even worse - it is probably easy to create an agent that nobody has immunity to and for which no vaccine exists. A recent experiment in Australia, since replicated in the US, demonstrated a simple modification to pox viruses which make them 100% lethal and extremely vaccine resistant!