Preparing for the worst. The USA and Japan's preparations for a terrorist attack with chemical or biological weapons.

Abstract

Biological weapons are not just topics for contemporary novelists but found their way into classical literature long ago. Shakespeare has Hamlet's father's ghost describe, ‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of cursed hebona in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leprous distillment.’ (Act 1, Scene 5) Indeed, neither the act nor the accusation is new. Jews in Europe were accused of poisoning wells to cause plague in the Middle Ages. Japanese planes in World War II dropped plague‐infested fleas over Chinese cities and villages. Murder or terrorism with biological or chemical agents is not a far‐fetched scenario—it has been used before. Criminal cases in the USA include various uses of biological agents in the last decades. The Rajneesh Foundation used Salmonella bacteria in 1984 to poison ten restaurant salad bars in the city of The Dalles, OR, hoping it would influence an election in its favour. A separatist group calling itself ‘Republic of Texas’ used Botulinum , HIV and rabies in 1998 and 1999 to threaten judges. Three members were later charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and the eldest, Johnnie Wise, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In 1977, Diane Thompson, a nurse from Texas, was sentenced to 20 years for intentionally contaminating doughnuts with Shigella dysenteriae in order to achieve personal revenge. > In 1998 and 1999, a separatist group from Texas used Botulinum, HIV and rabies to threaten judges The particular risk of biological agents, when used as weapons, is their extreme uncontrollableness. An infectious agent can easily spread from the original victim to relatives or colleagues. Particularly at risk are the medical personnel who treat victims without knowing what kind of infection they are dealing with. More unpredictable are the number of people and …