Of the 130 requests, 54 (41.5%) were laboratory related; 51 (39.2%) were general requests for bioterrorism information; 14 (10.8%) were for environmental or occupational health guidelines; and 11 (8.5%) concerned developing bioterrorism-preparedness plans.
There is the general vulnerability to bioterrorism, but there is also the vulnerability of specific potential targets like nuclear plants and oil refineries, which remain in considerable jeopardy, many state officials say.
Most calls were inquiries from the public about anthrax vaccines (58.4%), requests for general information on bioterrorism prevention (14.8%), and use of personal protective equipment (12.0%); 882 telephone calls (8.0%) were referred to the state liaison team for follow-up investigation.
"We can't allow anyone to violate our laws and threaten people's health in order to profit from the fear of bioterrorism," Attorney General Gregoire said.
"The anthrax scare and the scare of bioterrorism in general makes people afraid of the most normal and necessary parts of their lives -- it makes people afraid to eat, or go to a salad bar or breathe on a subway," said Wendy Kaminer, the author and social critic.
While it is too early to glean a set of precise lessons for a future bioterror attack -- particularly since no suspect has yet been charged in this one -- the officials acknowledge that the handling of the outbreak was marked by a catalog of miscalculations, missteps and misunderstandings about bioterrorism in general and anthrax in particular.
The results of this study predict that, in cases of bioterrorism, the general public would form their perceptions based on weak evidence, and the effect on mental health would also be evident.
Last, our evaluation may have been affected by the general media coverage of the bioterrorism events.
The makers of diagnostic kits and antibiotics are flourishing too, as governments rush to boost their civil defences.Britain's biotechnology industry in general, not just the anti-bioterrorism brigade, is doing well in today's straitened circumstances.
For the literature review data published up to June, 2011, were obtained by searches of PubMed and Medline, and from review of the references listed in retrieved articles, using as search term "Emergency Services, hospital" as MeSH, coupled with general terms such as "Civil Defense", "Bioterrorism" and "Hospital Preparedness" and with the name of each HID included as MeSH term.
