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A few days before the anthrax attacks, I wrote a very controversial piece about the next terror attacks. In “It´s Time To Panic: The Kitchen Bioterrorist,” written on 9/20/01, I outlined how easy it would be for a terrorist working alone to create havoc and death. I also predicted that such an attack was likely in the very near future. The anthrax attacks a few days later proved me right in all my predictions except for the disease used. (I said botulism.) Now I have another prediction - far, far worse. And I sincerely hope I´m wrong. As with ...

A REPORTER AT LARGE THE DEMON IN THE FREEZER How smallpox, a disease of officially eradicated twenty years ago, became the biggest bioterrorist threat we now face. _______________ BY RICHARD PRESTON THE smallpox virus first became entangled with the human species somewhere between three thousand and twelve thousand years ago -- possibly in Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs. Somewhere on earth at roughly that time, the virus jumped out of an unknown animal into its first human victim, and began to spread. Viruses are parasites that multiply inside the cells of their hosts, and they are the ...

Follow the link due to posting restrictions... I posted this under Breaking News just incase. I appologize if it's jumping the gun.

Everyone is announcing the ordering of "enough vaccine to innoculate every CITIZEN". In this day of "political correctness" and bleeding heart liberal media. I, as a citizen of this country, what to know what Guarantee do citizens have that they would be the first innoculated. Citizens take second tier to noncitizens in many items these days. Many liberals feel that non-citizens have all the constitutional rights of citizens. What will happen during an epidemic when they are innoculating citizens and surrounding countries, that may not be prepared, start flooding our country demanding "fair treatment". Bottom line, there is only so ...

Concern is growing privately within the government and among health officials that Osama bin Laden or the terrorist states that support him may have obtained a weaponized version of the smallpox virus. Bin Laden has made no secret of his intention to acquire such a biological weapon for use in his jihad against Christians, Jews and others he regards as infidels. If he has obtained it, the nightmare of terrorism may just be beginning.Consider this: According to public-health professionals, an outbreak of smallpox in the United States would kill about 1 million people in three months. How big an outbreak? ...

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Spurred by heightened concerns of bioterrorist attacks on the United States, federal health experts on Monday recommended that a campaign of targeted vaccinations and selected quarantine be used as the first line of defense in the event of an outbreak of the highly contagious and lethal smallpox virus. In an interim report outlining its strategy to cope with a possible future smallpox emergency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was essential that anyone infected or suspected to be infected with the virus be isolated during an outbreak. Rings of personal contacts, such as family ...

The government's limited and aging supply of smallpox vaccine--about 15.4 million doses--is still potent and effective, a federal bioterrorism preparedness expert said Monday as officials released an interim smallpox response plan. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the increased fear of bioterrorism, the government ordered 250 million doses of vaccine for smallpox, considered one of the most potent potential germ weapons. But it will take at least a year to produce that much smallpox vaccine. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is expected to announce this week which companies will produce the additional doses that would be ...

WASHINGTON, Nov 28, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The Bush administration signed a contract Wednesday to buy 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine from a British firm in case terrorists try to spread the deadly virus. The contract with Acambis Inc. will bring the nation's stockpile to 286 million doses of the vaccine by the end of next year, promising protection for every American should bioterrorists ever attack with the all-but-extinct virus. The vaccine can be administered four days after exposure to smallpox and still offer protection. For that reason - and because the vaccine can cause some rare ...

U.S. Orders Vast Supply of Vaccine for Smallpox By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG with MELODY PETERSEN ASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — The Bush administration said today that it had awarded a $428 million contract for 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine. That amount, when coupled with supplies that already exist or have been ordered, should be enough to protect every American against the deadly virus. The vaccine, which will be manufactured by a joint venture of Acambis, a small Massachusetts biotechnology company, and Baxter International, a large medical products company, will be delivered to the government next fall, said Tommy G. ...

US Department of State International Information Programs Washington File _________________________________ 27 November 2001 CDC Releases Smallpox Response Plan (Report responds to bioterrorism threat) (840) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) November 26 released "Interim Smallpox Response Plan and Guidelines," a document that outlines how health officials all over the country should react in the event of a smallpox outbreak. Considered globally eradicated in 1980, smallpox has reemerged as a health threat because it is highly contagious and could serve as a lethal bioweapon. "Today, we find ourselves preparing for a difficult-to-imagine event, an intentional release of smallpox," ...

No story for the evening update yet, just the headline..but I did find an interesting Agence France Presse wire article that says that the contract according to USA Today (now on Durdge) has an 'option' clause for an extra order of 250 million.This is in addition to the first order for every man woman and child in the United States.

A pro-life group is warning that thousands of Americans might refuse a smallpox vaccine created from a stem cell line derived from an aborted fetus.A British company -- the Cambridge, England-based Acambis Plc.-- is one of three companies bidding to produce 250 million doses of smallpox vaccine, enough for every American, after Health Secretary Tommy Thompson announced the vaccine stockpile plan. Also in the running are Merck & Co. of Whitehouse Station, N.J., and the London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc.A spokeswoman for the British company told CNSNews.com Tuesday that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked the company to ...

In the days following the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and demolished part of the Pentagon, I received a series of e-mails from my sister asking what I thought she could do to protect herself and her family. Should she stock up on water? On food? What about buying a gas mask? I told her I doubted that any of those things would really help. At first blush the notion of suburban moms buying gas masks seemed a little silly. But a lot of people were buying gas masks at that point, and mostly they were ...

December 1, 2001 Behind In The Biowar By Katherine McIntire Peters kpeters@govexec.com History’s deadliest weapons are making a comeback, and the public health system is far from ready to deal with them. hen a group of Mongol invaders besieged a Genoese trading colony on the Black Sea in 1346, they devised an ingenious way to clear the city. They lobbed the corpses of plague victims over the city walls, unleashing destruction far beyond the range of their catapults. The Genoese lucky enough to escape by sea to Sicily brought the deadly plague bacteria with them. Before the decade ended, the ...