[jaime1959]

This was posted to a list serve I belong to (College and University Hazardous Waste).

[HENRYADAMS]

Also in WWI less than a fraction of 1 % of the casualties were from poison gas. Remember this effort was by organized governments with lots of resources. Indeed when the Brits tried to hit the Germans back the gas blew back into the Brits face.

Second a word about smallpox. The early statistics-before 1946- are not strictly comparable. Prior to the advent of antibiotics many smallpox deaths resulted from secondary infections. The skin is ruptured by the pox and other germs take over against an already compromised individual. Also pneumonia hits. Many of these secondary infections can be controlled today. The death rate would not be anywhere near the 30 % touted in the media. Remember many people survived the smallpox, including our own George Washington.

[G.Mason]

Thanks.....Bookmarked.

[The Enlightener]

I was thinking along the same lines as this guy that the theoretical deaths touted by the military and the media are under ideal conditions, and that terrorist or even military actions are almost never under ideal conditions(hey, can you get your army to stand over there--no, a little to the right, that's good. Now, just wait there while we blow this gas into that box canyon you are standing in, okay? No fair trying to leave.)

I also thought about the sarin gas attack in Japan, and how so few people died because subways have a large air flow that quickly vented the gas and only those closest to the release were killed.

Further, anthrax spores are killed by sunlight and ultraviolet light. This means that any crop disting during the day would be pointless, and any done at night would kill few people(and the pilot would probably crash--how many terrorists are intrument rated night flyers? How many crop dusters even have the required instruments for flying under non-visual conditions? ) And the anthrax spores would probably be on the ground by morning and killed when the sun rose.

Small pox used to be a disease that ravaged the world and we wiped it out in the 50's and 60's. If it were to appear again, we'd probably wipe it out even faster today, since our medical technology is so much better now, and we have antiviral drugs that did not exist when we fought it before. Also, since we lived with the disease for centuries, some people will have natural immunity, and some will recover from it, just like before, even without treatment. With treatment, the survival rates are going to be much higher, of course. Keep in mind that a terrorist who releases small pox in the US is much more likely to kill off the people in his home country than those here, since we have lots of medical facilities and doctors and drugs that other countries of the world do not have--in fact, a release of small pox is more likey to wipe out the entire third world than the civilized one, since they have no medical infrastructure to deal with the epidemic, but we do.

[EllaMinnow]

A veryvery grateful bump and bookmark. This one deserves to stay at the top!

[rellimpank]

--thanks to an expert for putting it in perspective. My granddad was slightly gassed in WW1 due to being in a valley while his brother, in the same AEF company all through the war, was on a hilltop and missed it. My dad had smallpox when I was six weeks old and didn't get even so much as a scar--

[rogercolleridge]

Thanks so much for the info....this is what we need right now!!!

[Think free or die]

Thank you for the good advice.

[WyldKard]

A thousand blessings upon your head! I'm sure you will not hear the end of it from the Tinfoil Hat Brigade, however.

We need to remain eternally vigilant, but we don't have to be paranoid and fearful either. It took STATE-milled Anthrax, one of the higest grades, combined with some really foolish decisions, to cause even the handful of deaths we've recently seen. The Aum cult in Japan switched to Sarin out of sheer desperation. Their multiple Anthrax efforts failed, and this was a group with MILLIONS of dollars, factories, and a lot of quiet time on its hands, before 1995.

The terrorists are well aware that most people in America are sheep. They know that just APPEARING to be trying to pull something is pretty much as effective as actually doing the thing.

Lets not get cocky though...

[jaime1959]

morning bump

[backhoe]

Thank you- this is a valuable article, & I'll cross-link it with this:

Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II

NBC weapons are terror weapons, and the first answer to that is knowledge.

[WhirlwindAttack]

Common sense bump.

BTTT.

[jaime1959]

morning bump.

[jaime1959]

p.m. bump