Posted on 04/26/2003 2:35:13 PM PDT by Jean S
A bio-terrorist attack might not be evident until a significant number of patients start displaying unusual symptoms, a leading health professional has warned.
Healthcare systems would also struggle to cope with the extra thousands of patients needing advanced life support in the event of a major attack.
The comments came from Dr Vivienne Nathanson, of the British Medical Association, who was attending a bio-terrorism conference in London.
Danger
There are no known vaccines or antibiotics that could deal with most potential biological weapons, said Dr Nathanson, the BMA's director of professional activities.
"One of the dangers which we have to recognise is that we might not recognise an attack has occurred until you have seen clusters of patients who have a disease you don't normally see," she said.
"We don't have agents and specifics to deal with most potential biological agents.
"We have vaccines for a few of them, we have antibiotics that will work on some but not all biological agents, but a lot of it is about life support."
She said "no healthcare system in the world" could cope with thousands of extra patients needing advanced life support in the event of a major bio-terrorist attack.
Terrorists
Consultant physician Dr Frank Boulton, of the National Blood Service, told the conference that the Sars virus had inevitably been compared with biological weapons.
If the pneumonia-like virus had in fact been a bio-weapon, it would have been successful beyond expectations in terms of the panic it has induced, Dr Boulton said.
"What it has done in many ways is gladdened the hearts of so many terrorist organisations, particularly because it has interfered enormously with the economies in the Far East," he added.
Dr Boulton also criticised the handling of the Sars outbreak by the Chinese authorities.
"I think we have got a lot to learn about Sars," he said.
"I would suspect that had Sars occurred in the US we would actually be much more ahead than we are, and the Chinese are highly embarrassed by the slowness of their response."
Stockpiles
Earlier the conference was told that there were "quite a large number of natural biological agents" which could be deliberately released by terrorists.
Dr Bruce Court, head of the emergency planning and co-ordination unit of the Department of Health, said anthrax, smallpox and the plague were among the deadly agents that could be used.
Dr Court also mentioned the possibility of so-called "kitchen table terrorism", for example, using ricin, a toxin which is extracted from castor beans and could be produced at home.
Stockpiles of emergency equipment, antibiotics, vaccines and essentials such as blankets are already in place across the country, he added.
I hope they aren't in the hand or forehead.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.