According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
bioterrorism is the intentional dissemination of biological agents, such as
bacteria, viruses, and toxins, used to cause illness or death to humans,
animals, or plants. While many of the agents used in bioterrorism are naturally
occurring, many can be altered to increase their abilities to cause disease,
make them resistant to current medicines, and to increase their ability to
spread through the environment. Typical modes of dissemination in bioterrorism
are through the air, through water, or through food. Biological agents are
appealing to terrorists because they can be extremely difficult to detect,
while still spreading wide-spread hysteria, because many do not cause illness
for several hours to several days. Some bioterrorist agents, such as smallpox,
are contagious and can be spread from person to person, whereas others, such as
anthrax, cannot.
Some examples of bioterrorism are in World War I, where
anthrax and and a biological agent known as glanders were used to infect enemy
livestock.
Under the guidance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the
United States started to develop biological weapons in 1942. These programs
continued up to 1969, when President Richard Nixon issued an executive order to
shut down all programs related to American offensive use of biological weapons.
In 1984, radical followers of the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh
attempted to control an election in Oregon by incapacitating voters by
infecting food and public domains with the bacteria Salmonella typhimurium.
Many citizens were plagued with severe food poisoning, but no fatalities
occurred.
Major bioterrorism attacks have occurred most recently in
the United States in 2001. Known as Amerithrax by its FBI investigation case
name, an anthrax attack occurred in the United States in September of 2001,
just a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when letters containing anthrax
spores were mailed to several news media offices and the U.S. Congress,
infecting many and killing five.
To help prevent bioterrorism, please visit CDC Bioterrorism Preparation
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