Bioterrorism threat may be real, but experts say fear is unnecessary

What once only seemed like fodder for urban legends -- mysterious envelopes contaminated with potentially deadly bacteria -- has now become a reality as several cases of anthrax have been confirmed across the nation.

But observers at Penn insist there is no need to stop opening mail or to stock up on antibiotics just yet.

"Panic won't do any good," said Penn Political Science Professor Stephen Gale, a terrorism expert. However, he advised people to "start learning about vigilance, security, attentiveness.... Better to be safe than sorry."

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at Penn, who worked on biochemical warfare issues as part of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, said terrorists with anthrax do not pose a widespread threat.

"Biological weapons are difficult to manipulate for mass attacks," Caplan said. "They're hard to get into form to spread."

"I don't think it's a huge threat on a large scale," he added. "It's certainly something individuals can do on a small scale, but as long as medicine can look for symptoms, anthrax is treatable."

Letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and a Microsoft office in Nevada have tested positive for anthrax. At least 12 people nationwide have tested positive for the presence of the bacteria in their system, including the photo editor at a Florida tabloid who died Oct. 5.

Anthrax symptoms can appear like those of the common cold, including muscle aches, fever and vomiting. The disease is a caused by a spore-forming bacterium and occurs most often in livestock. It is not contagious.

While untreated cases can be fatal, early treatment with antibiotics is often effective.

But unlike Caplan, Gale said he believes biological weapons could pose an immediate threat.

"It's obvious some people are thinking that bioweapons aren't as crazy as the rest of us thought they were," Gale said. "What's the prospect for it? It's a lot higher than it was before Sept. 11, at least in my mind. There are a lot of people willing to do pretty nasty attacks."

Penn Political Science Professor Alvin Rubenstein said that if terrorists have access to biological weapons, bioterrorism will continue to pose a threat to the United States.

"If you were going to play the odds, since it's available, people know how to use it, it's likely that it will be used," he said. "The question is how effective is it, other than just sowing fear in the community."

Rubenstein said potential weapons such as anthrax are not likely to be effective unless used with missiles, aircraft or some way other way of spreading on a mass basis.

"I don't think a small group would be able to use it as an instrument of terror on a mass scale," he said.

Some experts were dubious as to whether or not Osama bin Laden was behind the recent reports of anthrax in the United States.

"The targets are too weird," Caplan said. "I don't think bin Laden has it in for the Boca Raton [tabloid]. Usually terrorists don't attack journalists. They want their stories reported."

Gale said a handful of letters laced with anthrax seemed inconsistent with bin Laden's usual approach.

"Judging from September 11, if Mr. bin Laden wishes to attack the [United States], it will be a very clear attack," he said.

However, he added that cases like the one in Florida "may have been the result of some experimentation that some of [bin Laden's] operatives in Florida did to see how the stuff would work.... There may be any number of individual groups associated with him that have operations in the [United States] and elsewhere where they may be attempting to do things on their own."

Access to potential weapons such as anthrax has not always been kept under tight security, and some say it is reasonable to think that terrorist groups such as bin Laden's al-Qaeda network might have access. In fact, until 1994, researchers could obtain samples of potential weapons through mail order -- which would not have been difficult to fake, according to Caplan.

However, he said that because biological weapons are so difficult to handle and require such mass organization, they were more likely to be used as psychological weapons than as weapons of mass destruction.

"If you told me we were going to war with an unscrupulous nation like Iraq, I'd be more worried," Caplan said, adding that even then, distance would make it difficult to effectively strike the United States.

"I wouldn't go buy a gas mask, I wouldn't stockpile antibiotics, I wouldn't pester my doctor about a vaccine," Caplan said. "I would keep an eye out for kind of odd-ball packages [and] watch for symptoms."

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