CAMPAIGN AGAINST BIOTERRORISM
Dangerous to your health
By Hillel
Cohen
Second in a series.
The campaign and initiatives currently underway against
"bioterrorism" may be more dangerous to the health of the
people of this country than the very unlikely threat of a
bioterrorist incident.
The bioterrorism program puts the Pentagon, the FBI and
other police agencies in a leadership role in the making of
major public health policy decisions. These agencies have a
long and bloody record of working against the interests of
the people. Putting them in charge of health planning will be
a disaster for public health.
Some in the public health field are of course hoping that
the bioterrorism campaigns will provide some trickle-down
money for desperately needed public health infrastructure.
But instead the distorted priorities may wipe out any gains
in that regard. Every dollar spent on bioterrorism
preparedness is a potential health dollar wasted.
Health providers also risk losing all credibility in the
oppressed and working class communities that need health
services the most.
There are other, very real dangers from bioterrorism
"defense" initiatives.
Unsafe vaccines
Right now, U.S. GIs are being forced to take anthrax
vaccines. Anthrax has been considered a potential biological
warfare agent for almost a hundred years. A U.S. biological
warfare program in the 1940s developed and manufactured tons
of anthrax spores. Other countries followed suit. Yet,
despite all the talk about anthrax, it has never been
used--either by terrorists or in warfare.
A vaccine for anthrax has been used by veterinarians and
animal hide workers for years to protect against contracting
the disease through the skin. However, the weaponized form of
anthrax is transmitted as spores through the air. No vaccine
has ever been shown to be effective in humans for this
variety.
Also, the side-effects of the vaccine are not known. Some
soldiers have reported getting ill soon after getting the
vaccination, and other soldiers have risked court-martial for
refusing to take it.
Anthrax vaccine was given to Gulf War troops along with
pyridostigmine bromide, an experimental antidote for a nerve
gas that has never been used in war. It is possible that
these agents, along with depleted uranium, may be among
several possible contributors to Gulf War Syndrome, the
general name for serious illnesses that have affected tens of
thousands of veterans.
Although the anthrax vaccination program may be stopped
soon due to protests, the Pentagon has announced it is
beginning a similar program with smallpox vaccine.
Accidents at research
and storage sites
Research and development of biological and chemical
weapons agents leave plenty of room for accidents at research
and storage centers. Anthrax was accidentally released at a
Russian facility during the Cold War, and nerve gas was
accidentally released at a U.S. facility.
Toxic residues from old facilities in the U.S. have been
found seeping from the land and into water supplies. Just
recently a Canadian facility announced that untreated waste
had been accidentally released. A technician at Fort Detrick,
Md., a U.S. Army biological and chemical warfare center, came
down with a case of glanders--a disease common in horses, not
people, that is considered a potential biological warfare
agent.
Accidents at nuclear plants like Three Mile Island and
Chernobyl and just recently in Japan also show that
supposedly "fail-safe" precautions can fail big-time.
A new arms race
Research on biological and chemical agents in the name of
defense against bioterrorism also sets the stage for a new
arms race in these agents. Like National Missile
Defense--formerly known as the Strategic Defense Initiative
or Star Wars--a defense program can be part of an offensive
strategy. Other countries may not accept the Pentagon
assurances that such programs are for defense only, and may
start work on their own programs as a deterrent.
The history of the nuclear arms race has shown that the
development of newer and bigger nuclear weapons didn't make
the world safer-it just made more possible the world-wide
destruction of a nuclear winter. A complete ban on storage,
production and research would make everyone safer.
One thing that makes the threat of bioterrorism seem so
real is the actual danger of natural outbreaks of infection
as well as accidental food and environmental poisoning. Tens
of thousands of cases of serious food poisoning happen every
year.
Outbreaks like the West Nile virus in New York can happen
suddenly. There has been speculation, but no evidence, that
the virus may have escaped from the nearby Plum Island Level
3 biological agent defense research center.
Toxic waste, corporate pollution and unsafe additives to
food and commercial products happen every day. The need for
more effective public health prevention, protection and
response capability is desperately needed. But instead, the
money is being wasted on chasing bioterrorism phantoms.
Hoaxes and false alarms
Before the bioterrorism scare campaign, there was no such
thing as an anthrax hoax. Since the bioterrorism campaign,
there have been hundreds of anthrax hoaxes, costing many
millions of dollars and creating lots of fear.
Right-wing, so-called "right-to-life" elements have used
anthrax hoaxes to disrupt family planning and abortion
clinics. A false fire-alarm or phony bomb threat might
disrupt a center for less than an hour. A phony anthrax
threat can cause a disruption for days, since the non-anthrax
is harder to detect than the non-bomb. The hype about
bioterrorism has made such hoaxes credible.
Excuse for witch hunts
and political repression
Fanatical anti-terrorism can create a climate of
witch-hunting against immigrants and political dissidents.
The anti-communism frenzy of the 1950s led to the McCarthy
witch-hunt which did terrible damage to civil liberties,
union organizing and political expression.
Already, in the name of anti-terrorism, immigrants have
been locked away in jail for years without charges or
evidence. The case of Wen Ho Lee, like the case of Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg 50 years ago, shows how easily the government
can manipulate the public's poor understanding of scientific
issues.
The Wen Ho Lee case fell apart only when an FBI agent
admitted lying on the stand. It's not hard to imagine the FBI
using a two-week-old, moldy turkey salad sandwich in the back
of someone's refrigerator as "evidence" to frame up a
political opponent as an alleged bioterrorist.
While medical treatment--drugs, operations and medical
services--are a huge part of the economy, very little money
is spent on preventive medicine and public health.
Some public health departments don't even have ordinary
desktop computers for their surveillance and monitoring
systems. The government employs far too few food and water
safety inspectors relative to the need.
The West Nile virus frenzy in New York is not an example,
as one senator claimed, of lack of preparedness for
bioterrorism. Rather it demonstrated the low level of
preparedness for ordinary natural disease outbreaks and for
emergencies that might be caused by corporate negligence in
the pursuit of profit.
In a children's fable, Chicken Little got hit on the head
with an acorn and thought "the sky is falling." In a panic,
she gathered her feathered friends to get help. Foxy Loxy
kindly invited the frightened fowl into his den for
protection, and they were never seen again.
When the Foxy Loxys at the Pentagon tell us of the
terrible dangers of bioterrorism, seeking their kind
protection may be very dangerous indeed.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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