BIOTERRORISM

- the purposeful release of bacteria, viruses or germs to cause

injury illness or death
- the use of bacteria, viruses or toxins for mass hysteria
HISTORY OF BIOTERRORISM

600 bc
Solon uses the purgative herb hellebore during the siege of Krissa
1155 Emperor Barbarossa poisons water wells with human bodies in Tortona,
Italy
1346 Tartar forces catapult bodies of plague victims over the city walls of Caffa,
Crimean Peninsula (now Feodosia, Ukraine)
1495 Spanish mix wine with blood of leprosy patients to sell to their French foes
in Naples, Italy
1675 German and French forces agree to not use poisones bullets
1710 Russian troops catapult human bodies of plague victims into Swedish cities
1763 British distribute blankets from smallpox patients to Native Americans
1797 Napoleon floods the plains around Mantua, Italy, to enhance the spread of
malaria
1863 Confederates sell clothing from yellow fever and smallpox patients to
Union troops during the US Civil War
1914-1918 World War I
German and French agents use glanders and anthrax
1939-1945 World War II Japan uses plague, anthrax, and other diseases;
several other countries experiment with and develop biological weapons
programs
19801988 Iraq uses mustard gas, sarin, and tabun against Iran and ethnic
groups inside Iraq during the Persian Gulf War
1995 Aum Shinrikyo uses sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system

AGENTS OF DESTRUCTION

A. Category A - easily spread, high potential for mass casualties, panic and
disruption
1. Anthrax
o a serious infectious disease caused by Bacillus anthracis.
o can be found naturally in soil and commonly affects domestic and wild
animals
o can spread if they come in contact with infected animals or
contaminated animal products.
o After entering the body, it moves to the lymph nodes and Creates three
proteins
Protective antigen (PA)
Edema factor (EF)
Lethal factor (LF)
o Anthrax as a bioweapon
1916 - German army used anthrax to secretly infect livestock
and animal feed traded to the Allied Nations by neutral partners
1932 - Japan experiments on the use of Anthrax as weapon
1942 - US and Great Britain experiment with bioweapons

1972 - Treaty was signed to prohibit development of biological

weapons

2. Smallpox
o acute, contagious disease caused by the variola virus (Variola
major/Variola minor) and marked by fever and a distinctive progressive
skin rash
o It is speculated to have appeared among human population around
~1100 BC
o Variola usually enters through the respiratory tract, replicates in the
cytoplasm of the host cell
o The variola virus is able to survive mainly by evading the immune
response through several virulence factors
3. Plague
o a disease caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium found in rodents and
their fleas.
o Plague as bioweapon
When used in an aerosol attack could cause cases of the
pneumonic form of plague.
A bioweapon carrying Y. pestis is possible because the bacterium
occurs in nature and could be isolated and grown in quantity in a
laboratory.
4. Botulism
o a muscle-paralyzing disease caused by a toxin made by a bacterium
called Clostridium botulinum that is capable of existing both as rodshaped bacterial cells and as spores.
5. Viral Hemorrhagic fevers
o refer to a group of illnesses that are caused by several distinct families
of retroviruses (arenaviruses, filoviruses, bunyaviruses, and
flaviviruses)
o used to describe a severe multisystem syndrome characterized by
fever and bleeding disorders and all can progress to high fever, shock
and death in many cases
The family Arenaviridae include the viruses responsible for Lassa
fever.
The family Bunyaviridae include the members of the Hantavirus
genus.
The family Filoviridae include Ebola virus and Marburg virus.
The family Flaviviridae include dengue, yellow fever.
6. Tularemia
o caused by the intracellular bacterium Francisella tularensis found in
animals (especially rodents, rabbits, and hares).
o A small number (10-50 or so organisms) can cause disease.
o If used as a weapon, the bacteria would likely be made airborne for
exposure by inhalation.
B. Category B - more difficult to spread with moderate illness rates and low
death rates
1. Brucellosis (Brucella species)
2. Epsilon toxin of Clostridium perfringens
3. Food safety threats (e.g., Salmonella species, Escherichia coli
O157:H7,Shigella)
4. Glanders (Burkholderia mallei)

5. Melioidosis (Burkholderia pseudomallei)

6. Psittacosis (Chlamydia psittaci)
7. Q fever (Coxiella burnetii)
8. Ricin toxin from Ricinus communis (castor beans)
9. Staphylococcal enterotoxin B
10.Typhus fever (Rickettsia prowazekii)
11.Viral encephalitis (alphaviruses [e.g., Venezuelan equine encephalitis,
eastern equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis])
12.Water safety threats (e.g., Vibrio cholerae, Cryptosporidium parvum)
C. Category C - emerging pathogens that could potentially be easily spread and
deadly
1. Nipah virus
o a newly emerging zoonosis that causes severe disease in both animals
and humans.
o The natural host of the virus are fruit bats of the Pteropodidae Family,
Pteropus genus.
o Kampung Sungai Nipah, Malaysia in 1998
2. Hantavirus
o are single-stranded, enveloped, retroviruses in the Bunyaviridae family
o Can cause fatal diseases such as hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with
renal syndrome (HFRS) and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS)
o named for the Hantan River area in South Korea where an early outbreak
was observed (1950)

COUNTERMEASURES
a.
b.
c.

Evacuation
Decontamination
Sheltering in Place

A. Organizations/Agencies
a. Office of Crisis Management (OCM) - maintains vigilance 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, and coordinates the emergency response efforts for the other
FDA centers in the event of an attack
b. Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) - developed by FDA, Center for Disease
Control (CDC) and Department of Defense (DoD) and has a large cache of
antibiotics, antitoxins medical supplies, vaccines and surgical supplies
c. Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) - works with Iowa State University to
establish a database that incorporates all veterinary labs across the country
and countermeasure against animal or feed related terrorism (i.e. poisoning
livestock or animal feed)
d. Food Emergency Response Network - established by FDA and United States
Dairy Association (USDA) and has a web of laboratories capable of rapid
testing
e. American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) - worked with FDA to write and
distribute handbooks that covers everything related to blood (i.e. how to
handle an influx of donors in a disaster countermeasure against the use of
tainted blood to implement an attack
B. Bio-watch
an early warning system that detects airborne pathogens in select cities
across the United States
- monitors are placed on top of buildings to collect air samples, which are
brought to the lab on a daily basis

C. Project Bioshield
- a program that provides the government with the resources it needs to
develop, acquire and stockpile medical countermeasures against
bioterrorists
- makes sure that the vaccines and medicines are accessible when there is
an emergency