The aftermath of a bioterrorist attack can be catastrophic to the population in any affected country. The effects can be medical, economic, political, psychological, and social, depending on what agent is used, and the conditions of its release. If the agent is professional prepared and released then the effects could be more both significant and long lasting, and although an attack can affect a country in a disruptive manner, it could also affect it in a positive way. Among the positive results are the cooperation among countries, a country more unified, and the procurement of more facts about the attack by authorities, leading them to the improvement of bio-security protocols to prevent future attacks.
A pivotal factor to fight back bioterrorism is the international cooperation (Rofrey). Every time something awful happens and in this case if a bioterrorist attack were to happen, countries would support each other, whether economically or by providing assistance in any other way; including authorities from different countries working together to stop further attacks. For instance since the beginning of the 20th century there has been hundreds of conventions, where countries gather and discuss possible solutions to the problem. One of the first convections took place at Geneva, Switzerland in 1928 (Danzig). This protocol did not necessarily focus only on bioterrorism but terrorism, in general. It prohibited the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices and the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. There have been also some treaties signed resulting from some of the conventions an example is the BWC in 1972 (Fidler). Nations also support each other when it comes ...
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...importance of public health has increased, and the readiness planning and assessment has been enhanced. Of course do not forget cooperation between countries, the main result.
Works Cited
Danzig, Richard J. “After an Attack: Preparing Citizens for Bioterrorism” Center for a new American security, June 2007. Print.
Fidler, David P. “Bioterrorism, Public Health, and International Law”. Indiana University. Spring 2002.
Morse, Stephen A., et al. "Detecting biothreat agents: the laboratory response network." ASM News-American Society for Microbiology 69.9 (2003): 433-437.
Roffey, R., et al. "Biological weapons and bioterrorism preparedness: importance of public‐health awareness and international cooperation." Clinical microbiology and infection 8.8 (2002): 522-528.
Tucker, Jonathan B. “Strategies to prevent bioterrorism” April. 2007. Web. 27 Sept. 2013
Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From the invention of state-sponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism Columbia University Press.
In 2001 the United States suffered a major terrorist attack on 9/11. A week later a new attack started, the anthrax attacks. The attacks occurred over a span of weeks. Anthrax is a type of bacteria that produces spores, which can kill people very rapidly if infected. It is not always easy to diagnose due to its nonspecific symptoms. In this case it was used as biological weapon. The attacks were not known about for a period of time until multiple cases occurred. Many people and organizations would end up working on the anthrax attack investigation, which was codenamed Amerithrax by the FBI. During the investigation the FBI had to work with the science community to try and solve the case. The problem the FBI had though was these scientists could have also been responsible for the attacks they were trying to solve. These 2001 anthrax attacks would end up being one of the most expensive and hardest to solve cases for the FBI to date (Shachtman 2011). The FBI closed the Amerithrax case 8 years after the attacks occurred.
“Johns Hopkins Working Group on Civilian Biodefense Says Botulinum Toxin is a Major Biological Weapons Threat.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins University, 28 Feb. 2001. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Retrieved from http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/268/540 White, J. R. (2014). Terrorism and homeland security (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Biological warfare cannot be explained by SCOT theory because stabilization and closure which is the cornerstone of the SCOT theory are not clearly apparent in the dynamic of biological warfare. In biological warfare, rhetorical closure has not yet been achieved within the international community. For example, the morality of using biological weapons is still an ongoing debate among the countries of the world. In fact, not all countries have signed the Biological Weapo...
Ryan, Jeffrey R., and Jan F. Glarum. Biosecurity & Bioterrorism: Containing and Preventing Biological Threats. Oxford: Elsevier Inc., 2008.
Response to terrorism. FreeRepublic, LLC, 10 Febuary 2001. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/537799/posts.
Think of the bioterrorism attack using anthrax in 2001 and how it jeopardized the safety and security of the community. What would protect the community from this disastrous attack in the future?
Broyles, Janell. Chemical and Biological Weapons in a Post-9/11 World. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 2005. Print.
BENAC, N. (2011). National security: Ten years after september 11 attacks, u.s. is safe but not
One of the world’s most dreaded plagues for centuries, smallpox is now eradicated. Vaccination programs were pushed worldwide by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the disease was eliminated from the world. This push resulted in the last naturally occurring case in the world being almost 40 years ago. Once eradicated the once routine or mandatory vaccinations were stopped for the general public and it was deemed no longer necessary to prevent the disease. Although currently eradicated worldwide, two medical laboratory stockpiles still remain in Russia and the United States. With these stockpiles in existence the possibility of bio terrorism emerges and fear of these stockpiles getting into the wrong hands and being weaponized for use against the public is rising. The smallpox disease is highly contagious and easily communicable and currently there is no cure for this disease. If reintroduced, an epidemic would be devastating worldwide.
Beitsch et al. (2006) also conveys the main functions of state public health institutions, which include the assessment of diseases, policy development, and the commitment to health protection and promotion activities. While Brumback and Malecki (1996) reveal that the role of public health agencies is to assess and analyse public health problems, form policies, layout development, and implement
...cy on biological warfare. During his visit to Fort Detrick, he announced that the United States would terminate all research on biological weapons. By the year 1972 the United States had completely destroyed all biological weapon stockpile. In return of this act the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was held, As a result of 118 countries signed a agreeing not to develop, produce, or stockpile any form of biological weapon(Mayer p4). Unfortunately despite many laws passed over time, few countries have abided by them. Evidence of this came in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there were reports that the Soviet Union was using biological weapons in Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan (Mayer p 4).
...tly should attend to the most urgent and highest needful problems to reduce the risk of developing those issues. Health priorities include reduction of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), decrease the road traffic accidents rate, reduce the infectious disease and vaccine preventable diseases, prevent transmit of HIV infections and reduce the poverty by minimizing gap between rich and poor. In addition, this health problems should be addressed in accordance to WHO guidelines, Millenniums development goals and according to other international health reporting standards. Moreover understanding the burden of disease is important where it helps to measure weightage of disease in a specific nation with that of the global situation. So supportively this will help to prioritize the urgent health problems in the country which will support the prevention of those health issues.
To reiterate these six components, which are innovation, technical package, communication, management, and political commitment – the community is hand in hand associated with core functions of Public Health. In Public Health the three main core functions are assessment, policy development, and assurance. Assessment is a tool that helps monitors different health and environmental statutes to create, deploy, and identify solutions. It also used a diagnostic tool to investigate health-related problems and different health hazards. Policy development is an act of informing and educating those developed ideas and topics that help the communities and different organizations in their health care efforts. Lastly, assurance utilizes different laws and regulations to help in the aid of protecting the public or environment at risk. It also re-evaluates the laws and regulations to see its effectiveness and its quality (Schneider,