Posted on 02/24/2003 3:32:05 PM PST by JustPiper
The bioterror bible
Know what Army lab knows about deadly germ agents
WASHINGTON – Have you seen the government's new tips for protecting yourself from biological and chemical attack?
Some counterterrorism experts say they're so general they're virtually useless.
And you can put away the duct tape and plastic sheeting the Homeland Security Department initially recommended to shut out deadly agents.
They won't likely protect you from a biological attack – not unless you plan to seal your doors and windows right now and live like a hermit.
Symptoms from most agents take several days to show up, and even longer for officials to recognize a pattern and alert you to an attack. By then it would be too late to seal your doors and windows. You would already have been exposed.
What you need, experts say, is not duct tape or annoyingly obvious safety tips from Homeland Security Department officials, such as "practice good hygiene and cleanliness to avoid spreading germs, and seek medical advice" in the event of a bioterror attack. That illuminating tip is on the department's new website.
No, what you need is raw knowledge. Specific information about bioagents so you can make smart decisions in case your community is exposed to them in a terrorist attack. Answers to questions such as these: Which agents are easiest to weaponize and infect large populations – and therefore most likely to be used by terrorists? How large a dose does it take to infect you? How long before symptoms appear, and what do they look like? How fatal are they? What's the most effective medical treatment?
To that end, WorldNetDaily has decided to publish highlights of voluminous biodefense training materials it has obtained from the U.S. Army.
The training course, called "Biological Sampling and Detection," is being taught to National Guard units by scientists at the Dugway Proving Ground, a top Pentagon bioweapons research lab in Utah.
Instructors include Drs. Daniel Martin and Zara Llewellyn, as well as Jeff Montague, (none of whom provided WND with the materials) of the Lothar Salomon Life Sciences Test Facility, the only Defense Department lab certified to test developmental equipment with aerosolized Biosafety Level 3 agents such as anthrax. BL-3 is the term used to describe facilities in which work is performed using indigenous or exotic agents with a potential for respiratory transmission, and which may cause serious and potentially lethal infection, but for which a vaccine or treatment exists (unlike BL-4 agents such as the hanta virus).
What follows is a condensed version of Llewellyn's overview of Category A bioagents in one of her recent presentations to civil support teams rotating through Dugway since the Sept. 11 attacks. Category A agents pose a national security risk because they can be easily disseminated or transmitted from person to person, and can result in high mortality rates and have the potential for major public health impact. Also, they might cause public panic and social disruption, and require special action for public health preparedness.
Anthrax: Bacillus anthracis, a rod-shaped spore-forming bacterium.
Biological warfare applications:
Easy to cultivate, large quantities
Common laboratory equipment
Highly stable in environment for storage
Concentrated spores in wet or dry forms
Delivered by explosives, aerosol sprayers, aircraft, cruise missile (and, of course, even mailed envelopes)
Spores hardy and virulent (antiphagocytic capsule protects it from body's germ-eating phagocytes)
1. Cutaneous anthrax:
Infection of skin through open wound, abrasion
95 percent of anthrax cases worldwide
Symptoms: black necrotic lesions (eschar)
No person-to-person transmission
Cutaneous anthrax
Case fatality rate:
No antibiotics (septicemia): 20 percent
Antibiotics: 1 percent
2. Intestinal anthrax:
Ingestion of infected food or water
Symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
Case fatality: 25 percent-60 percent
Antibiotic treatment is undefined
3. Inhalation anthrax
Also known as Wool-sorter's disease
Inhalation of spores
Incubation period: 1 to 6 days (dose dependent)
ID50 (the dose which will cause infection in 50 percent of people): 8 to 10,000 spores inhaled per person
Flu-like symptoms: fever, malaise, fatigue, cough, chest pain (mediastinal widening and pleural effusion)
Shock and death within 24 to 36 hours
Antibiotic treatment before symptoms appear:
Ciprofloxin
Doxycycline
Tetracycline
Erythromycin
Case fatality rate:
No antibiotics: 97 percent
Antibiotics: 75 percent
Identifying anthrax under microscope:
Gram stain: segmented rods (pure culture)
Agar media (in petri dish): "comet tail" growth pattern
Plague: Yersinia pestis, a rod-shaped bacterium.
Biowarfare applications:
Easy to cultivate
Common laboratory equipment
Environmentally stable
Concentration of live cells
Wet or dry forms
Delivered by explosives, aerosol sprayer, aircraft or cruise missile
Bubonic plague
1. Bubonic plague
"Black death" has killed millions through flea bites
Incubation period: 2 to 6 days.
Symptoms: infected, swollen lymph nodes (buboes) and necrosis of surrounding tissue
No human-to-human transmission
Antibiotic treatment: Tetracyclines and sulfonamides
Vaccines limited to persons at high risk of exposure
2. Septicemic plague
Bubonic form can become septicemic (bacterial growth in blood)
Symptoms: blood-clotting, organ failure, shock, gangrene and internal bleeding which may blacken the skin
Antibiotic treatment
Highly fatal
Ulcerated flea bite caused by plague bacteria
3. Pneumonic plague
Person-to-person transmission
ID50 (dose which will cause infection in at least half of people): 100 bacteria per person
Symptoms: fever, chills, headache, cough with bloody sputum; respiratory failure, circulatory collapse and death within 48 hours of symptoms
Antibiotic treatment (within 24 hours of symptoms):
Streptomycin
Tetracycline
Gentamicin
Fatality: 100 percent (if not treated)
Plague bacteria under microscope: "safety pin" appearance
Tularemia: Francisella tularensis, a rod-shaped bacterium.
Biowarfare applications:
Difficult to cultivate
Stable in environment (remains in soil and water for weeks)
Concentrated live cells
Wet or dry forms
Delivered by explosives, aerosol sprayer, aircraft or cruise missile
ID50: 10 to 50 bacteria per person
Incubation period: 2 to 10 days
No person-to-person transmission
Difficult to diagnose
Symptoms:
Ulceroglandular: fever, chills, itching of skin, skin ulcer, enlargement of lymph nodes
Oculoglandular: infection of eyes
Pulmonary: nonproductive cough, dyspnea, chest pain, pulmonary infiltrates, fever, chills
Typhoidal: fever, chills, diarrhea, fatigue, splenomegaly, bacterial growth in blood
Antibiotic treatment: streptomycin, gentamicin
No vaccine
Fatality: rare except in typhoidal cases
Tularemia bacteria under microscope: mixed culture
Botulism: Clostridium botulinum, a spore-forming bacterium that produces powerful toxin.
Biowarfare applications:
Up to 100,000 times more toxic than nerve agents VX and Sarin.
Up to 1,000 times more toxic than ricin and saxitoxin LD50 (lethal dose): 0.001 mg/kg
(Allegedly one of the staples of Iraq's arsenal, as of at least October 1990)
Delivered by aerosol
Incubation period: hours to days
Symptoms: vision and speech difficulties, generalized weakness, descending paralysis, respiratory failure and death
Treatment: antitoxin before symptoms manifest (even then, recovery is long)
Fatality: high
No human-to-human transmission
Small pox: Variola major, a virus of the poxviridae family.
Biowarfare aspects:
Infectious dose is low
Grows well in tissue culture
Concentration of viral particles
Wet or dry form
Delivered by aerosol
Infection by inhalation or direct contact
Human-to-human transmission (highly contagious;
infection can come from lesions of patient, clothing of patient and even air surrounding patient)
Face lesions on boy with smallpox
ID50: 10 to 100 viral particles per person
Incubation period: 7 to 10 days
Symptoms: fever, malaise, headache, vomiting, rash (within 2 to 3 days), pustular lesions that scab over
Treatment: quarantine, vaccine
Case fatality rate: 30 percent (hemorrhagic small pox – blood-filled pustules – is highly lethal)
Small pox virus image: roundish, life-raft appearance
Marburg, Junin, Lassa, Ebola: viruses that cause deadly hemorrhagic fevers.
Ebola virus
Biowarfare aspects:
Part of former Soviet arsenal
Very low infectious dose
Highly lethal
Dry viral particles
Delivered by aerosol
ID50: 1 to 10 viral particles per person
Incubation period: 4 to 21 days (dose and agent dependent)
Symptoms: high fever, malaise, headache, internal bleeding (intestinal tract), hemorrhaging from orifices (gums, eyes, nose, skin), death within 7 to 14 days
Treatment: Ribavirin for Lassa, quarantine
Case fatality: 30 percent to 95 percent
Ebola, Marburg virus image: worm-like
Marburg virus
Category B agents, which have both lower morbidity and mortality rates than Category A agents and are less likely to be weaponized, include:
Cholera
Ricin
Q fever
Brucellosis
Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis
Histoplasmosis
Valley fever
Staph enterotoxin B
Lassa virus
Other potential bioterror agents identified in the Dugway training seminar include:
Salmonella
Ecoli 0157:H7
Shigella
Glanders
Melioidosis
Psittacosis
Typhus fever
Nipah virus
Hanta virus
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