Biodefense Blues

The National Defense magazine has three good articles on CB defense issues this month. One is on the issue of Project BioShield, the second is more general but biodefense oriented and includes a discussion of DTRA's Transformational Medical Technology Initiative, and the third is on my favorite topic - the readiness of Chemical Corps units and National Guard's WMD Civil Support Teams. Batter up! In the first article, we see clear evidence why public health officials shouldn't be allowed to talk for bioterrorism issues:

Experts believe the government has sent vaccine biodefense work down the wrong path.

“We need a rational risk assessment of the likelihood of an attack with certain microbes,” said Barbara Billauer, president of the Foundation for Law and Science Centers and a public health expert.

Billauer doubts that terrorists are so predictable that they would target specific pathogens that are difficult and expensive to make.

“If I were a terrorist, why would I use a designer microbe if I could use something like salmonella?” she asked.

Osama Bin Laden’s deputy is a pediatrician, Billauer said, and he knows that salmonella can kill babies and elderly people.

Even if a terrorist wanted to spread diseases such as anthrax or smallpox, Billauer explained that anthrax for example, has to float between three and five feet off the ground to be ingested by humans, otherwise it falls to the ground and dies. “You add ‘clay’ to it [anthrax] to keep it airborne,” but it’s difficult to get the formula exactly right, she said. Microbes also need to live in specific habitats and must be the right size to infect humans. The Japanese terrorist group, Aum Shinrikyo, known for releasing sarin nerve gas in a Japanese subway, tried seven times to release anthrax from the top of a building and failed because the conditions were wrong, Billauer said.

There you are, folks - the U.S., Soviet, and other countries had been doing it all wrong for biological warfare. You don't go for the really dangerous bugs, go for the common ones that don't kill healthy people. Yeah, that's the ticket! I'm all for rational risk assessments, but Billauer is an idiot when it comes to ltalking about BW agent threats. Moving on to the second article, let's see what those clever lads in the Air Force have done:

The Defense Department is taking a different approach to biosecurity to protect military personnel.

The Air Force recently awarded a contract to Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, for a mobile biodefense lab, specifically for use by active duty medical workers, so they can identify potential infectious diseases at a safe distance from a busy hospital ward, said John Wade, vice president and manager of Battelle’s joint and interagency marketing group. The trailer allows medical officers to detect pathogens in water, air, food and clinical samples. The contract includes seven trailers, with each lab valued at approximately $80,000. The trailer will be parked behind military hospitals at different Air Force bases, starting with McConnell Air Force Base, Kan.

Where they will sit unattended for years... maybe they will take them overseas for expeditionary bases, get some use out of them looking at the local bugs. Wait! Dr. Billauer is going to speak again:

Individual respiration systems are a good idea, said Billauer. If there is one paradigm the United States should follow to protect its citizens, it’s that of the Israeli government, she said. Every Israeli citizen is provided with a respiratory apparatus, she explained.

Yes, the Israelis hand out free masks, but it's NOT for bioterrorism concerns (and not for samonella exposure, either). See, they have these Scud missiles pointed at them with chem-bio warheads... which is why it's remarkably stupid to suggest that the U.S. government follow that example. Unless Mexico and Canada are doing something with ballistic missiles tipped with chem-bio warheads also. Idiot. The last article, she doesn't get to talk, thank goodness.

Domestically, the National Guard has set up more than 50 Weapons of Mass Destruction Civilian Response Teams. The 22-member teams are strategically placed throughout the United States to advise and support state or local agencies responding to a catastrophe, but they don’t perform decontamination duties. Their members are on duty full time. Their training and equipment are up to date, and their readiness levels are high, the GAO said in a separate report.

Other Guard and Reserve units seem to be low on the list as far as receiving the latest equipment.

“For some reason, the National Guard and Reserves don’t seem to get the most updated equipment,” Elsinki said, echoing the GAO report. “They spend a lot of their time just on upkeep.”

I know how to solve this! Let's give all the WMD Civil Support Teams robots for assessing contaminated areas of domestic terrorist incidents, instead of replacing all the old CB defense equipment in the regular NG and Reserve units. Think I'm kidding? See here. Your tax dollars at work.

Comments

[Maxtrue]

You have been following the TB story with Mr. Speaker, yes? A suicide carrier sporting a nasty bug fits nicely into the idea of Weapons of Mass Disruption. We can't prove who used Polonium to murder, image tracking down the origin of a designer bug beyond the dead carrier. Is there an estimate of how many labs in the world can accomplish recombinant virus production? Isn't it relatively easy to create drug resistant bugs through artificial selection? I do understand the sentiments you express about our dollars at work. Perhaps we can start be detaining those on CDC no-fly lists.

[NVH]

Max, look up the CDC stuff on TB, the guy was advised not to travel, not prohibited. Now I'll give the guy is stupid, but don't throw the guard under the bus who let him thru at Customs, it's our rules not theirs, that are f'ed up all about it. the "let's take the media and run with it" mentality is turning slow news days into panic. Fact: yeah TB is infectious, though his version not so much, he's asymptomatic. Fact: Airliners have HEPA filters, anytime he breathes and it gets sucked into the recirc system it gets caught, therefore less exposure doses to other passengers, Fact: Yeah TB kills people but can be cured. Let's not blow it out of proportion. As for polonium murder it reaks of old Soviet tactics to get a guy they want, that's where I stand on it. Next in line is MI6, which is the two directions the news has carried it. Either way the guy is dead cause he wasn't careful enough, and well most reporters and journalists just can't help themselves with that in the end. Designer bugs, now you're talking, But no chance AQ does this. This is the lone gunman theory, I know people who can design these things, I know the equipment they need to do it, and I know it isn't easy, but given circumstances has a low probability of happening. That low prob is even lower given the fact that those labs you speak of are fairly few and access is tight tight tight. At least until those whitecoats develop a postal mentality. Every man for himself then. See why J's top movie list has 12 monkeys in it. So to answer the 2 questions, a few, not many, and not w/o someone noticing.
Agree on the need for oversight of the dollars J., but then when have the Democrats ever not spent a ton of wasteful money while calling for increased control, uhh, now? Anyway...

[J.]

"Agree on the need for oversight of the dollars J., but then when have the Democrats ever not spent a ton of wasteful money while calling for increased control, uhh, now? Anyway..."

Yeah, much better to spend a ton of wasteful money while not overseeing it - that's the Repub way, right?

[NVH]

ok, it's Friday, I might have deserved that, but that's not what I was implying. It's clear as day the lack of oversight the Republicans had, but I'd rather have less than so much that all my taxes have to go up b/c Hillary and her law school dykes have to be on EVERY committee investigatory panel for why the border fence they ordered isn't white pickets. They're just a little too Bitchy about it, Republicans are a little more lax, and less gov't any way you get it, is better than the other end.

[CBH]

NVH -
I like my pork where I can see it - not backroom and backpocket GOP style.

RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT!!!