Posted on 04/26/2005 9:19:00 AM PDT by aculeus
WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- Terrorists could spread smallpox via infected letters, similar to the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks, bioweapon experts told United Press International.
The experts' comments were spurred by an article in the May issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, which describes twin outbreaks of smallpox in 1901 that were traced to infected letters.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta doubted that smallpox could be spread through infected letters, but several bioweapons experts thought otherwise.
D.A. Henderson, of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said it was possible to spread smallpox via the mail if terrorists could aerosolize the virus, similar to what was done with the anthrax spores in the 2001 attacks.
Experts said the real barrier would be not the mail system, but rather obtaining smallpox in the first place. The only known stocks of the virus in the world reside at CDC headquarters in Atlanta and a bioweapons lab in Russia.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs. If we had eggs.
Wow. I'm surprised any journal wasted the ink to even print this dog-bites-man research..
And of course if this happened the government-media complex would immediately say that a conservative American defense contractor did it.
>>>bioweapons lab in Russia.
Need anything need be said?
Yah thats how I got mine. But what I can't figure out yet is how to fax the stuff ;-)
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