NYC-WTC_000152373

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

For more than three decades, public Ronald Atlas, president-elect of the health at all levels has suffered budget American Society of Microbiology, con- cuts, lost valuable persoimel, and seen curs. “All you have to do is infect some its legal and political clout diminished, of your people with smallpox, send Why? “As Americans we haven’t had them out and you’ve got an epidemic,” an epidemic to point to and say, ‘See he argues that? That’s what were facing, “jf you’ve got 40 or 50 people who Wolinslsy e^l^ed. , , , are out there, committing suicide. One key to the public debate wiU be epidemic,” Atlas told an honest assessment of just how r^ Newsday. “I don’t have to get anthrax the threat of bioterronsm is experte l^boratoiy, I can just go to lAfri- suggest. ^e international terrorists ^o an elephSt outbreak and get it capable of usmg diseases as weapons? ® Is it partoftheir schemes? What sorts from the carcasses. of microbes might they use, and how can mcrease security, he said, would they use them? all^sorts of things are out there m Those questions now fonn the basis nature.” ofvigorous argument among the rough- As for more exotic agents, germs ly two hundred bona fide bioterrqrism that have been genetic^y modified experts in the world today. ' into superbugsT Davis says terrorists Henderson, who led the successful need not know anything, even the dif- fight to eradicate naturally arising ference between a bacteria and a smallpox, argues, “We know Iraq has a virus. They just need enough cash to terribly sophisticated operation — buy killer microbes from unscrupulous there’s no question about that. We’ve scientists who until recently worked got the Russians out there. After Sept, for the massive Soviet biological weap- 11, I’ve had some very serious addition- program al concerns. 11^ wimt changes the January 1991, Davis was part of equation IS you ve got educated people, British-American ins^ction long-tenn pl™g ^g, coordma- tion — all of these things suggest that _ . .. . you’ve got potential at a level not seen scientists allowed ^ide the Bio- before ” preparat laboratories. What he saw — But’Jessica Stem, a terrorism ex- about 52 death laboratories ^d test pert at Harvard, says Sept. 11 demon- sites employing about 60,000 saen- strates more than anything else, “the ^ists and technicians — left Britain’s lethal capacity of low-tech weapons. If Davis a changed man. “The world is I were in government I would be think- frtU of hazards,” he says. ing of low-tech bioweapons and The. Associated Press contributed to low-tech chemicals.” this^storyS

NYC-WTC_000152419