Smallpox
as a Weapon
Smallpox
Bioweapon Realities
In the United
States, several tabletop exercises have begun to explore the realities
of dealing with bioweapons in today’s society. (22:V12:44-46)
The multi-faceted
TOPOFF exercise, involved the simulation of 3 different types of
events, a chemical, radiological and bioweapon attack in three
cities. The exercise was specifically done to engage top US officials
and agencies in the process of emergency response and decision-making
at a local, state, and national functional level.
Another exercise
called Dark Winter involved high-level state and federal officials
and simulated a smallpox attack over a 13 day period. This exercise
was meant to address higher level policy decision making and control
measure implementation on a national scale.
Valuable lessons
were learned in these exercises. It was determined that quarantine
implementation and enforcement must happen locally. Each local
government must be prepared to institute this measure and must
understand its own powers to enforce quarantine. It’s the
local area that knows its citizens and structure better than any
other entity. Despite the local nature of this measure, other levels
of government must also be involved. To avoid confusion, these
various levels of government need to understand their authorities,
powers, and responsibilities, and need to be able to coordinate
rapidly in the event the quarantine needs to be implemented or
expanded. Some communication materials and strategies must be developed
before an event takes place. Having all levels of government agree
on the intervention strategy, messages, and speaking with the same
authority on the powers involved is key to maintaining trust in
the quarantine and maintaining compliance.
In 1993, the
former deputy director of the Soviet Union’s civilian bioweapons
program, Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov (now Ken Alibek), reported that
his government had produced large quantities of variola virus for
use as a biologic weapon. (19:14) This work
was done secretly for a number of years and went against the WHO’s
edict that neither of the two Collaborating Centres (CDC in Atlanta
and Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow) were officially
allowed to do experiments with smallpox DNA.
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