Germs! germs! and Germs! What can we do if Bioterrorists attack us? please read.

Experts Doubt US Is Ready for Biowarfare Attack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America is unprepared to handle an attack involving biological or chemical weapons, experts said again on Monday.

The people who may be the first to respond to a biological weapon attack — the primary-care physicians — have not been included in any meaningful way in planning efforts, said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

"At this point, we're woefully short in vaccines and antibiotics. The public health infrastructure is but a shell of what it needs to be able to respond. And public health has continued to be overlooked in most of the kinds of funding that have occurred to date in terms of trying to prepare us for terrorism," Osterholm said.

"A well-placed and effective chemical agent could clearly [cause] thousands of deaths," Osterholm said. "A well-placed and effective biological agent could [cause] hundreds of thousands of deaths."

As Reuters Health has reported over the last few years, various government reports have documented failings in official preparations for domestic attacks with biological or chemical weapons. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that would be in charge of nailing down the nature of a germ outbreak in the hours and days after an attack, concedes that the public health system right now is unable to detect and respond to a biological attack.

Congressional investigators have reported in the past two years that "the US ability to effectively respond to chemical or biological terrorist incidents is compromised by poor management controls and the lack of required items," such as good vaccines and medical supplies. One report found that government stockpiles included expired medicines. Another found that supplies were being stored at too high a temperature.

Frank Cilluffo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies called biological weapons "silent killers" because it could take days or weeks for symptoms to manifest themselves. An attack could remain unknown for some time unless the perpetrators announced it.

"We're unprepared. I'm not going to lie and say that we would handle it well," Cilluffo said>>.