food bioterrorism essay

Proliferation of Weapons- and Dual-Use Technologies pp 279–300 Cite as

Analyzing the Threat, Vulnerability, and Consequences of Agroterrorism

Olufunke Adebola 11
First Online: 27 July 2021

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Part of the book series: Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications ((ASTSA))

Agroterrorism is a type of low-tech, high-impact biological, radiological, chemical, and, more recently, cyber terrorism targeted at the agriculture industry. With the abundance of information on developing biological weapons and the relative ease of accessing chemical agents, agroterrorism could be an attractive form of terrorism for separatist, religious, right-wing, and left-wing groups. The U.S. agricultural sector is a viable target for a terrorist attack because of the high economic, political, and social impact an attack can pose. This chapter finds that changes in human migration patterns could increase the risk of an agroterrorism attack in the United States. It also finds that the attention devoted to biological agroterrorism exposes the vulnerabilities of a potential radiological, chemical, and cyber agroterrorism attack.

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Adebola, O. (2021). Analyzing the Threat, Vulnerability, and Consequences of Agroterrorism. In: Kosal, M.E. (eds) Proliferation of Weapons- and Dual-Use Technologies. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73655-2_14

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Food and Nutrition at Risk in America: Food Insecurity, Biotechnology, Food Safety, and Bioterrorism

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Protecting the Nation’s Food Supply from Bioterrorism

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on our country in 2001, and the resulting increased focus on national security, food security has become a top priority for the food industry. Food companies have placed a strong emphasis on reviewing security programs and procedures, in order to continually improve and enhance the strength and effectiveness of our nation’s food security systems. The food industry has a long history of dealing with threats to food safety, from foodborne disease outbreaks and inadvertent contaminations to isolated incidents of product tampering and extortion. But, now, we are dealing with what heretofore was unthinkable: the intentional, widespread contamination of the food supply. The potential for the food supply being a target or tool of terrorism can no longer be viewed in hypothetical terms. Hoping and complacency are not an option. In decades past, the food industry has faced various security challenges. For example, maintaining a drug-free workplace was an emerging security challenge in the 1980s. In the 1990s, there was a growing emphasis on preventing workplace violence. The 1990s also was the decade when the threat of biological and chemical weapons came into focus. Then—with the events of 2001—terrorism and bioterrorism became a key security issue. The issue of terrorism against the food supply is one that the food industry takes very seriously. Assessing the Risk of Foodborne Terrorism In assessing the risk of intentional contamination of the food supply in the United States, the food industry has focused on three areas—what we like to refer to as the “3 P’s of Protection”: • Personnel: Companies have increased both employee screening and supervision. • Product: Companies have established more controls on ingredients and products during receiving, production, and distribution, to ensure the highest level of food safety. • Property: Companies have ensured that they have the strongest barriers in place to guard against possible intruders. The criteria for accurate risk assessment is to look at company assets, then determine both the type of potential threat that exists and the company’s vulnerabilities. It is where a company’s assets and vulnerabilities overlap with potential threats that the risk of bioterrorism lies. Can risk be eliminated? No, because 100% security doesn’t exist. So, we must manage risk. In managing risk, deterrence and prevention are the key. The philosophy must be: “Prevent to Protect.” In a perfect world, food companies would be able to deter or prevent bioterrorism before it occurs. However, this is not a perfect world, so food companies also must have the knowledge and tools to detect and mitigate any possible food security breaches. Certainly, the goal is to detect problems, before we have to mitigate their potential impact. Protecting the Nation’s Food Security: The Food Industry’s Activities Since the day following the terrorist attacks of 2001, the food industry has been extraordinarily active in reviewing existing food security programs and implementing, as appropriate, new preventive practices and effective controls. Food companies across the country have redoubled their commitment and increased their vigilance to ensure that systems are in place to minimize and, to the extent possible, eliminate the threat of intentional contamination of the food supply. In order to be successful in enhancing their security efforts, food companies must establish a “security philosophy,” by understanding how security works, determining what their needs are, and then establishing priorities. They must review their current security practices and procedures; review their crisis management and security plans; and determine what changes or additions are needed. It is important to note that “food security” and “food safety” are not the same thing. The basic distinction is that food safety deals with accidents, such as cross-contamination and process failure during production. Food security, on the other hand, is a broader issue dealing with intentional threats. It is the intentional versus the accidental; the diabolical intent versus the chance occurrence; the deliberate versus the unplanned. These are immensely important distinctions to the food processing industry, particularly as they relate to our management and prevention practices. However, both food safety and food security activities have a common goal, which is to prevent problems that could undermine the safety of the end product to consumers. It is vital that one underlying principle be kept in sight: Although security is critical to our business, ensuring security cannot be allowed to result in business paralysis. So, any changes to either industry security activities—or to the regulations governing food security—must be both realistic and workable. When all is said and done: Reason must rule!

Read the sidebar "Where to Secure Information" Rhona S. Applebaum, Ph.D., is Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer for the National Food Processors Association (NFPA). NFPA is the largest U.S. food trade association, representing the $500 billion food processing industry on scientific and public policy issues involving food safety, food security, nutrition, technical and regulatory matters and consumer affairs. NFPA’s three scientific centers, its scientists, government affairs experts and professional staff represent food industry interests on government and regulatory affairs and provide research, technical services, education, communications and crisis management support for the association’s U.S. and international members. Visit www.nfpa-food.org for information on food safety and security issues.

Where to Secure Information

All food processors and handlers should visit the FDA website for more complete information and to download Bioterrorism Act related publications, compliance guidance documents and notices of interim final rules and public comment periods (www.cfsan.fda.gov). Essentially, FDA is actively working on the regulatory implementation of the following four provisions in Title III, Subtitle A of the Bioterrorism Act: • Section 303: Administrative Detention. “Authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services, through FDA, to order the detention of food if an officer or qualified employee has credible evidence or information indicating an article of food presents a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. The Act requires the Secretary, through FDA, to issue final regulations to expedite enforcement actions on perishable foods.” A regulation regarding this provision, which will provide for the means and methods for the detaining of foods suspected of terrorist tampering, has been proposed by FDA and is expected to be implemented by June 2004. • Section 305: Registration of Food and Animal Feed Facilities. “Requires the owner, operator, or agent in charge of a domestic or foreign facility to register with FDA no later than Dec. 12, 2003. Facilities are defined as any factory, warehouse, or establishment, including importers, that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for human or animal consumption in the United States.” In October 2003, the agency published an interim final rule mandating every food facility, large and small, domestic and foreign, to register with the FDA by Dec. 12, 2003. Registration consists of providing information, such as the firm name, address, product brands and categories. Farms, restaurants, retail food establishments, nonprofit establishments that prepare or serve food, and fishing vessels not engaged in processing are exempt from this requirement. Also exempt are foreign facilities, if the food from the facility is to undergo further processing or packaging by another facility before it is exported to the U.S., or if the facility performs a minimal activity such as putting on a label. Other than these exemptions, states FDA, “the registration requirements apply to all facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food regulated by FDA, including animal feed, dietary supplements, infant formula, beverages (including alcoholic beverages) and food additives.” FDA, which anticipates approximately 420,000 food facilities to register under this mandate, expects that such a roster will enable the agency to quickly identify and locate affected food processors and other establishments in the event of deliberate or accidental contamination of food. • Section 306: Establishment and Maintenance of Records. “Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish requirements by Dec. 12, 2003 for the creation and maintenance of records needed to determine the immediate previous sources and the immediate subsequent recipients of food, (i.e., one up, one down). Such records are to allow FDA to address credible threats of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. Entities subject to these provisions are those that manufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute, receive, hold or import food. Farms and restaurants are exempt from these requirements.” A regulation regarding the provision pertaining to record keeping has been proposed by FDA and is expected to be implemented by June 2004. The record keeping requirements will be phased in over an 18-month period from the promulgation of the regulation. This regulation will require the traceability of all foods, “one up, one down,” much as we have been doing in the organic industry for decades. However, the regulations require significantly more information and facilities will be required to respond with the records within four hours of requests made Monday through Friday, and within eight hours at all other times. • Section 307: Prior Notice of Imported Food Shipments. “Requires that prior notice of imported food shipments be given to FDA. The notice must include a description of the article, the manufacturer and shipper, the grower (if known), the country of origin, the country from which the article is shipped, and the anticipated port of entry. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, through FDA, must issue final regulations by Dec. 12, 2003.” This regulation, which mandates that importers of food must give the FDA prior notice of every shipment of food before it can enter into the U.S, was published as an interim final rule in the Oct. 10, 2003 issue of the Federal Register. Issued jointly with the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the advance notification of what shipments contain and when they will arrive at our nation’s ports of entry is designed to help these federal agencies better target and conduct inspections of imported foods. The agency has estimated that it expects to receive approximately 25,000 such notifications per day. Currently, FDA requires that companies must provide prior notice and receive FDA confirmation no more than five days before its arrival at a U.S. port of entry and no fewer than two hours before arrival by land via road; four hours before arrival by air or by land via rail; or eight hours before arrival by water. The agency indicates that this rule will have a phase-in compliance period through Aug. 12, 2004.

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Bioterrorism: The Next Food Safety Threat

Protecting Your Food Supply: A Practical Approach

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Bioterrorism: Contemporary Issues In Food Safety

Category Politics
Subcategory Terrorism
Topic Bioterrorism

In a world of food lovers, who is watching out for their safety? From topics ranging from tampering and bioterrorism to different food safety barriers that are globally interconnected to the environment, consuming food is more dangerous than ever. Consumers must be extra cautious and really take into context where and how their food was made and packaged.

When intentional contamination of food occurs, this is called food tampering. Food tampering is done to cause intentional harm to a person or people. Although not prevalent in the United States, other countries fall victim to this often. As a result, the FDA has bulked up their security measures on their inspections of international food-processing plants (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2018). However, consumers also have the ability to illness caused from food tampering. A few tips for consumers include, not purchasing any items that are open or torn, looks unusual, past sell-by dates, and ensuring that plastic seals are present on appropriate foods. By following those tips, illness from food tampering can be significantly minimized.

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Bioterrorism sounds like a terrifying word, doesn’t it? It is defined as “an act or threat of deliberate contamination of food for human consumption with chemical, biological or radio-nuclear agents for the purpose of causing injury or death to civilian populations and/or disrupting social, economic or political stability” (JH Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2010). Agriculture bioterrorism is one of the most common forms of this issue. Directed primarily at livestock and crops, a biological weapon is used to harm the annual revenues of $150 billion. The huge amount of money that the U.S. livestock industry produces, makes it a prime candidate for such bioterrorism.

Amongst these major issues, one issue that is looked upon as being major is differing food safety regulations. While most people may not even take a second glance at the food safety regulations of other countries across the globe, they really should. Differing food safety regulations cause major issues even for the people in the United States because the food Americans consume does not always come from here in the U.S. “Food represents one of the largest globally traded commodities and can pose a major safety risk if not controlled” (GFSR, 2019). In today’s times, most countries have a food safety regulating authority so that food-related illness is reduced greatly.

Globally, food safety can be a huge risk. When food standards differ, food tampering occurs, and bioterrorism is a threat, the global food supply is at risk. Without the proper channels, such as the CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration), MAPA (Ministry of Agriculture, livestock, and Food Supply), SENASA (The National Food Safety and Quality Service), and FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act), (just to name a few) the health and safety of all people consuming any amount of food would be in danger. Consumers can thank these agencies for the continued safety of the products they are consuming on a daily basis (NCBI, 1998).

With a number of agencies controlling our food supply, tampering, bioterrorism, and differing food safety regulations are under control. With that said, they are not completely muted. These contemporary issues are still creating risks today, more so in countries outside of the United States, so Americans still need to be educated and made aware of the risks to their food supply. The more one is educated, the safer they are in terms of their food supply.

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. (2018, September 18). Consumers – Food Tampering, An Extra Ounce of Caution. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079137.htm
Ensuring safe food: From production to consumption. (1998). Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209121/
GFSR. (2019). Food Safety Regulations. Retrieved from https://globalfoodsafetyresource.com/food-safety-regulations/
JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. (2010, January 27). Topic Center – Bioterrorism and Food Security. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-public-health-preparedness/tips/topics/food_security.html

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Addressing Foodborne Threats to Health: Policies, Practices, and Global Coordination: Workshop Summary (2006)

Chapter: 4 bioterrorism and the food supply, 4 bioterrorism and the food supply.

Each of the three papers collected in this chapter address a different aspect of a single, highly publicized scenario for foodborne terrorism: the intentional contamination of the U.S. milk supply with botulinum toxin, as described in a May 2005 New York Times op-ed essay by Lawrence Wein (Wein, 2005). The article sparked an intense debate about the possible security risk it posed, a controversy that was fueled in subsequent weeks by the delayed publication of a peerreviewed paper by Wein and a coauthor (Wein and Liu, 2005) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Alberts, 2005).

These concerns are expressed in the first part of this chapter by Clay Detlefsen of the International Dairy Foods Association. “Disclosure of information that can be used to harm people needs to be limited except when necessary,” he argues, extending the definition of “harm” to include the needless scaring of consumers who might stop buying milk. Indeed, Detlefsen asserts, the dairy industry has been aware for years of the threats described by Wein and has been working with the U.S. government to safeguard its operations and products from bioterrorism. To prevent such efforts from being undermined by the release of sensitive information to potential terrorists and other malefactors, Detlefsen supports the creation of a vetting system as a means to fairly assess and, when appropriate, prohibit the publication of scientific findings that could be used to develop and launch an attack.

As workshop contributor Milton Leitenberg notes in the second contribution to this chapter, considerably less attention has been paid to the questionable va-

lidity of Wein’s conclusion that milk represents “a uniquely valuable medium for a terrorist” than to its status as a threat to national security. Leitenberg, a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland’s Center for International Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), offers detailed evidence that contradicts key assumptions upon which Wein based his model, most notably the ease by which terrorists could obtain botulinum toxin and use it to launch an attack. More generally, Leitenberg notes that several existing historical reviews of agricultural terrorism contain inaccuracies that serve to inflate the number of instances of actual attacks. As a result, he concludes, U.S. policy has been influenced by “gross exaggeration surrounding the potential for bioterrorism.”

Using the controversy over the Wein model as a jumping-off point, Dr. David Acheson, Director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Food Safety, Defense, and Outreach within the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, outlines the FDA’s multifaceted approach to protecting the U.S. food supply from attack in this chapter’s final paper. Acheson explains how the agency uses risk management and vulnerability assessment tools to determine which food/ agent combinations present the greatest threats to U.S. biosecurity, and in particular how these analyses have raised concerns about the potential consequences of the deliberate contamination of milk with botulinum toxin. He then describes how the FDA addresses such findings through the development of guidance documents and training programs to prevent and mitigate the effects of specific bioterrorism threats.

THE THREAT AGAINST MILK: JUST ONE OF MANY, WITH MORE TO COME

Clay Detlefsen, M.B.A., Esq. 1

International Dairy Foods Association

After September 11, 2001, leaders in this country vowed that we would never be caught off guard again and began an extensive process by which every imaginable terrorist threat scenario is analyzed. The laudatory goal is to identify reasonable mitigation strategies for any threats within the realm of possibility of being perpetrated. More than four years later, that effort is continuing and expanding. Today, virtually every industry is working with the government to harden itself against a potential terrorist attack. The food industries are no exception, and the dairy industry, in particular, has been quite active and proactive.

I have worked with the government and various industries on food-specific scenarios involving terrorism, and I have participated in government and industry

exercises to plan for chemical and biological terrorist attacks that had little to do with the food supply. Further, I have brainstormed with government officials as to the private-sector response to a nuclear attack on U.S. soil. Due to the sensitive nature of the exercises and discussions, most of these activities take place with little fanfare or public acknowledgment. In some cases, participants such as myself are required to sign nondisclosure agreements. The bottom line is that the federal, state, and local government agencies and the private sector are working closely together to enhance the public’s safety. Being discrete about it is par for the course when dealing with a public safety or national security issue.

Secrecy or discretion is called for in these matters for fundamental reasons. For instance, the general public can scare easily and may then needlessly avoid the subject matter of the concern. This was exemplified by the dramatic downturn in commercial airline travel after 9-11, which lasted, as indicated in Figure 4-1 below, until nearly January 2004.

With respect to food, the 1980s, Alar/apple scare clearly establishes how consumers react when confronted with any implication that a food might present a risk or contain a deleterious substance. This is so even when the risk is only theoretical or otherwise unproven. As author Michael Fumento noted:

FIGURE 4-1 U.S. domestic airline passengers. These graphs present both actual data, and data that have been seasonally adjusted in order to clarify the trends over time. The data cited in the text represent actual (unadjusted) values.

SOURCE: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2005).

Nothing makes Greens—radical environmentalists—turn an angry red faster than invoking the word Alar to epitomize bogus environmental scares and imply that a current one is equally phony.

Manufactured by Uniroyal Chemical Co., Alar was commonly sprayed on apples to keep them on trees longer so that fewer would fall and rot before being harvested. The attack on it began in February 1989 when 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley called it “the most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply.”

Bradley’s main source was the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which had decided to scapegoat a single substance to illustrate the horrors of all manmade chemicals. The NRDC had retained a radical environmentalist public relations firm, Fenton Communications, to create a front group called Mothers and Others for Pesticide Limits and place horrifying articles in newspapers and women’s magazines.

The result: Terrified mothers threw out their applesauce, poured out their apple juice, and swore off apples entirely for “healthier foods” such as Twinkies. Apple farmers across the nation suffered, and some went bankrupt. Subsequently, articles, monographs, and books peeled the wraps off one of the slickest, most cynical fear campaigns in recent American history (Fumento, 1999).

Although the harm in the above case is significant, it is largely one of economics and is overshadowed by a more significant type of harm—harm that results from a deliberate attack on people and loss of human lives. Disclosure of information that can be used to harm people needs to be limited except where necessary. Too often, the wrong people get their bad ideas from disclosures. The National Academies and many others in the scientific community are aware of the “dual use” problem of attempting to advance science while at the same time running the risk of assisting and aiding terrorists. Unfortunately, the debate seems to end with a statement along the lines “there is nothing new here that terrorists don’t already know, so there is no harm in publishing this article.” But, a “terrorist” needs to be thought of in a broader way—not just what would traditionally be thought of as a terrorist; but potentially our own misguided or mentally ill citizens, as well. Virtually every law enforcement agency in the nation is aware of, or concerned about, copycat criminal activity. The issue has been debated and discussed on a regular basis for decades. In recent years, a protracted period of carjacking was theorized to have escalated because of media attention:

Carjacking has always been around, especially in large metropolitan cities, we just rarely read about it. The crime of carjacking “took off” in the 1980s after the media published stories of bizarre situations and the violence associated with the crime. The media coined the phrase “carjacking,” and the crime of auto theft took on a new identity. After a rush of publicity, other criminals “copied” the crime of carjacking. These copycat criminals must have said, “Hey, I can steal any vehicle I want without damaging it, I get the car keys, and I can rob the owner too. What a concept!” (McGoey, 2006).

In more recent times, carjacking has largely disappeared and the occurrence of a multitude of Columbine-like school shootings have been theorized to have stemmed from the media attention given to that unfortunate event. A Google internet search of the words copycat and Columbine yields 44,000 hits, which is a fairly clear indication that some association exists. Further, the mimicking of notorious events is by no means limited to our own domestic criminals. As Florida State University professor Cecil Greek noted in his paper on censorship, the issue is complex and may potentially link to terrorism:

Ray Surette has done extensive research on copycat crimes since the mid-1980s. He argues that copycat crime is a persistent social phenomenon, common enough to influence the total crime picture, but mainly by influencing crime techniques rather than the motivation to commit a crime or the development of criminal tendencies. A copycat criminal is likely to be a career criminal involved in property offenses rather than a first-time violent offender. The specific relationship between media coverage and the commission of copycat crime is currently unknown, and the social context factors influencing copycat crimes have not been identified….

Surette also noted that copycat crimes … seemed to fall into at least four groupings with some overlap. “Mode” copiers were those who already intended to commit a crime and who received a method from the media event. For example, a potential car thief copies the techniques seen on a television police drama for breaking into and hot-wiring a car. “Group” copiers were those who copied acts in groups. In 1995, a group of Tampa, Florida, teens bragged to police they stole cars and shot at robbery victims because earlier in the same week a 12-year-old repeat robber had been granted probation rather than prison. The case had been given major media attention. The other two categories were mentally ill or mentally deficient copiers, and terrorists. Since terrorism is partially driven by media attention, it is not surprising that terrorists choose to repeat methods that have produced high media ratings in the past. This has led concerned media executives to consider carefully how much attention they focus on terrorist acts (Greek, 1997).

Last summer, the dairy industry found itself in the middle of a media flurry over a paper that paints a terrorist scenario about botulinum toxin in milk. The paper, by Dr. Lawrence Wein of Stanford University, described a scenario by which terrorists could poison thousands of people through the U.S. milk supply (Wein and Liu, 2005). Wein’s paper was initially withheld at the government’s request over fears that it could aid attackers; later, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published the paper, insisting that it did not put any new information before terrorists.

Coverage of this issue was widespread, including features in the New York Times , USA Today , the Washington Post , and on major television networks. The story ultimately appeared around the globe in more than 500 newspapers. Today,

a Google search of the Internet using the search of the combined words Wein and milk yields 282,000 hits.

Unbeknownst to most though, the scenario was neither novel nor new. In fact, the industry had been working with the FDA for several years after the FDA brought the matter to industry’s attention in 2002. Long before that, the government had theorized about this particular scenario being perpetrated by communists. As early as the mid 1950s government scientists studied the possibility that a variety of beverages, including milk, could be contaminated with botulinum toxin. The report’s conclusion was that the threat to the milk supply was negligible because of the nullifying effects of pasteurization on the toxin. In fact, the report concluded that 99 percent of any toxin would be inactivated by pasteurization. This inactivation finding is not consistent with information obtained by Wein that indicated the temperature and time required for inactivation would be much greater. However, the research cited by Wein explored inactivation of toxin in creamed corn, tomato soup, tomato juice, string beans, and canned corn (Woodburn et al., 1979). The research did not include research using milk. The research of the 1950s and more recently conducted research did utilize milk, and those studies are consistent with each other. In fairness to Wein, neither of those studies are publicly available. Curiously, one of the researchers in the 1950s project is one of the researchers of a study cited by Wein.

In addition, what you did not see in the newspaper or on TV were the efforts the dairy industry made behind the scenes to correct the misperceptions we feared the Wein paper might raise, and—more broadly—the extensive work that has already been done to address security issues.

We knew that the Wein paper was flawed in the assumptions it made about the milk supply and about milk processing—I and others pointed those flaws out to Wein himself, who has admitted to shortcomings in his own research. Close scrutiny by a seasoned biosecurity expert—Milton Leitenberg—found that there is “an extraordinary degree of uncertainty associated with Wein’s estimates,” finding flaws with everything from his mathematical methodology to his assumptions on the production of the necessary toxin.

Moreover, pasteurization steps have been taken within processing plants that substantially eliminate the threat Wein presents. Although Wein was successful in publishing his paper, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and others have been successful in delivering the facts to government officials—many of whom we have built relationships with since the events of 9-11.

To be clear, the dairy industry welcomes scientific research that is aimed at helping our nation secure its vital systems, including the food supply. But the Wein paper does not fall into that category—and it remains a lesson on how important it is for researchers and security experts to work together with industry in assessing possible terrorist threats.

One area where cooperation is working well is in communication between industry and government. An impressive amount of work has been done coopera-

tively on security since 9-11. I work closely with officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other federal and state government agencies on a daily basis to help evaluate situations and further safeguard the dairy industry. Other individuals in other sectors and industries fill similar roles.

A thorough government analysis of possible threats to the food and dairy supply was completed fairly soon after 9-11. Based on that analysis, the dairy industry has worked diligently, without fanfare, to implement a wide range of measures to secure facilities and the milk supply. For example, based on guidelines prepared by the National Milk Producers Federation and the IDFA, dairy farmers and processors have implemented new standards for sealing milk tankers. Using these new protocols, any unauthorized opening of a tanker before its delivery to a processing plant is immediately evident.

In addition, producers and processors have taken many proactive steps to increase awareness among employees about security measures at the farm and in processing facilities, including increased security of milk storage areas. Dairy plants have secured entry systems and employee screening programs, and have restricted access on the plant floor. And, of course, most packaging operations are already automated, enclosed, and secure.

There is always more we can do as an industry to be vigilant—and we encourage dairy facilities to make every reasonable effort along these lines. But it is also important to realize we have done quite a lot. I expect new challenges to continually emerge between government and industry on security issues. We will never be “done” when it comes to protecting our most valuable attribute—the safety of our products. The good news is that we have good working relationships and valuable new protocols in place.

Our efforts, though, should not be undermined by inappropriate publication of sensitive material that has a potential to be used by foreign or domestic terrorists or criminals. Instead, the scientific community needs to work collaboratively with industry and the government, and this may at times require self-censorship or restraint. The downside of not being cognizant or otherwise ignoring the possibility of harm being perpetrated on the U.S. citizenry can be the loss of human lives, which is clearly unacceptable. We are aware of the scientific community’s interest in addressing this important concern, as was recently described by Dr. Brian Gorman in his Yale journal article:

The open science dilemma has been recognized as a top priority in the scientific and national security communities since the terrorist attacks of 2001. It is undisputed that the fruits of scientific advancements may also be subject to harmful “dual use” by enemy combatants, terrorists, and any number of other malefactors with the necessary skills and resources. The dilemma over open science arises from the incompatibility of restricting access to scientific findings in the interests of public welfare with a notion of public welfare that is itself reliant upon the open exchange of findings and scientific data. Therefore, great care is

needed to avoid remedies that unnecessarily impede the exchange of information between researchers and deter important lines of inquiry. Thus, a carefully crafted remedy is needed to cease “free ride” opportunities available to malefactors interested in misusing scientific advancements without impeding much needed advancements in science interests.

Surprisingly, the most draconian and potentially deleterious remedies to the open science dilemma, to date, come from the scientific community. As of January 2003, over 20 scientific journals adopted a policy calling for the censorship of articles that present unjustifiable risks (Journal Editors and Authors Group, 2003). 2 However, many recognize that censorship is not a guarantee of protection. In October 2002, the former president of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) warned that, “censorship of scientific communication would provide a false sense of protection” (Greenberg, 2002). Severe measures are of concern because, if carried out, they may discourage research in areas critical to biodefense efforts. Moreover, even if applied sparingly, censorship policies are destined to undermine academic freedom and compromise national security interests.

Unfortunately, there has been little discourse in the literature on specific methods to effectively remedy the problem. While the dilemma clearly calls for “an articulated and uniform practice” to identify and assess sensitive research, efforts to create formal procedures have been abandoned (Cozzarelli, 2003). For example, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , which published a sensitive article on the variola virus (Rosengard et al., 2002), abandoned its pursuit for uniform procedures after a self-congratulatory assessment of its ad hoc handling of the article (Cozzarelli, 2003). Despite satisfaction with the “natural” manner in which the article was vetted, flaws remain in the allegedly successful approach. For instance, the national security community was not consulted during a review of the article (Gorman, 2005).

Ultimately, Gorman describes a proposal to pursue a strategy for the creation of a due process vetting system (DPVS). Gorman has clearly given considerable thought to the problem and has proposed a complex, though fair and workable process:

The DPVS is a comprehensive system that enables immediate and informed communication between the scientific and national security communities on new research in line for publication and public release. The rapid communication on potentially sensitive research enables immediate cooperative vetting of flagged articles between the scientific community and the relevant government authority. The DPVS also provides temporary safe harbor for sensitive research by consensus rather than unilateral classification imposed by the government. In the rare occasion when the government needs to classify a research article absent consensus, the government will have notice of the article before it reaches the presses and the scientific community will have ample opportunity to be heard through a fair hearing on the matter if desired. As previously stated, for the purposes of this discussion, the administrative board charged with federal authority will be deemed a new federal agency called the Biologic Regulatory Commission (BRC)….

The stakes in this debate could not be higher. The potential showdown between the scientific community and the government on open science, absent goodwill and cooperation, would certainly yield a duel of mutual destruction.

If scientific journals can cooperate by accommodating the parameters of articles in LRC [Least Restrictive Classification] status, and if professional stakeholders agree on fair scaling procedures and joint vetting, the entire field of science can move forward in a safe and efficient manner. The DPVS could provide a superior alternative to the ASM model and ad hoc approaches undertaken by the majority of U.S. bioscience journals. But, the DPVS is just a proposal, and is by no means seen as a comprehensive solution to the debate on open science. It is hoped that the flaws and virtues of this proposal will help inspire a fair and comprehensive approach to sensitive and dual use science that will accommodate the needs of all of the stakeholders in this debate (Gorman, 2005).

Industry and government will continue to work together and we will, as we have in the past, involve the scientific community. It would be foolhardy to think we could cover our security bases without the scientific community. For the sake of the public’s safety, we will conduct our activities discretely and cautiously. We have already achieved considerable success with our endeavors and will undoubtedly achieve much more. It is hoped issues involving freedom of the press and censorship will not undermine the efforts that are so vital to the nation’s security and the public’s safety. I encourage readers in the scientific community not to overlook the dangers associated with our own domestic malefactors, and to, at the very least, read Gorman’s paper and consider that as a starting point. No one should ever be put in a position to regret their decision to publish after human lives were lost as a result of such a publication. A robust and systematic approach as outlined by Gorman could obviate such an occurrence.

BOTULINUM TOXIN: THE LINKAGE WITH BIOTERRORISM

Milton Leitenberg, M.S. 3

University of Maryland

My task was to prepare a paper that brought three subjects together: the traditional biological weapons agent, botulinum toxin; its possible use by bioterrorists; and its dispersion by application to food as the mechanism of such use.

The very opening lines of the guidance document for this conference read as follows:

In December 2004, at a press conference called to announce his departure as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson raised both concern and controversy when he remarked that he could not understand why terrorists had not yet attacked our food supply “because it is so easy to do” (Branigin et al., 2004). 4

Secretary Thompson’s comment is a useful introduction to this paper. In contrast to the expectation that it suggests, one realizes immediately that in the entire period since 1945 there have been only two instances in which any individual or group deliberately added a pathogen or a toxin to the U.S. food supply. The more significant of these was the event in 1984 in The Dalles, Oregon, in which a prepared culture of Salmonella was placed on food in a salad bar, resulting in 751 recorded cases of illness (Carus, 2000). 5 Many more people were probably affected, although there was no record of mortality.

In November 2000, Dr. William Fry, a plant pathologist at Cornell University, and an expert on potato late blight in particular ( Phytophthora infestans ), the fungus that caused the historic potato famine in Ireland in 1845–1848, gave an excellent presentation at a conference titled “Agro-Terrorism: What Is the Threat.” His assignment for the conference was “Think Like a Terrorist,” and he enjoined the conference attendees to do so. Yet his own detailed and thorough presentation repeatedly emphasized the difficulties in producing an artificially caused outbreak of potato blight, to the point of often frustrating the efforts of

academic researchers when they sought to do so for purposes of their research. He concluded that:

Devastating crop loss caused by anticrop terrorism is certainly within the realm of possibility, but there are many obstacles to successful implementation. While there are many examples of terrible crop destructions by plant pests, the manipulation of these agents as biological warfare agents to destroy crops on a wide scale by terrorist states or groups faces severe technical challenges. Even if an aggressive plant pathogen can be developed or found, its potential is severely limited by meteorological conditions. Thus, it is difficult to conceive that a biological warfare agent could be used “at will” by a terrorist group or even by a state (Fry, 2003). 6

But perhaps even more to the point was that while he urged his audience to “think like a terrorist,” and many members of the academic and contract analytical community quickly identified ways they thought terrorists could make use of plants or animal pathogens, no real-world terrorist organization had ever done so.

Another guide, in a similar vein to Secretary Thompson’s remark, was to be found in the opening line of a report by the Congressional Research Service in August 2004, stating that “The potential of terrorist attacks against agricultural targets (agroterrorism) is increasingly recognized as a national security threat, especially after the events of September 11, 2001” (Congressional Research Service, 2004). 7 At first thought, the statement seems logical: after 9-11, civil authorities looked at every sector of the nation’s infrastructure to identify vulnerabilities and points of access by which terrorists could wreck havoc or destruction or injure the public. Nevertheless, the statement is a non sequitur: nothing in the events of 9-11 suggested that any terrorist group intended to attack U.S. agricultural targets or had even considered doing so. The purpose of this study, however, is not to suggest another particular vulnerability. It is rather to attempt a classical threat assessment: an identification and evaluation of real-world entities, their parameters, performance, experiences, and capabilities as regards the potential for terrorist use of botulinum toxin.

Before doing that it would be useful to examine the more general subject of agroterrorism because it serves as an example of what quickly became evident as a major problem in the course of this work. Two tables dealing with historical

aspects of agroterrorism prepared by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies are posted on their Web site. Both the center and the institute are well known, and their work would ordinarily be considered authoritative and of the highest quality. The first table is titled “Chronology of CBW Attacks Targeting Crops and Livestock 1915–2000” (CNS, 2001). It lists 18 events for the 85-year period. As the title of the table states, all 18 are characterized as “attacks.” However, an examination of the 18 entries demonstrates the following:

Three were false allegations;

Three others were “threats,” and as best as is known, more accurately described, they were bluffs;

One was an incident in which one man killed his neighbor’s animals;

One was unsubstantiated (Alabama);

One was a very low-scale “economic” event (Wisconsin);

Two, both in Israel, were low-scale economic sabotage that could perhaps qualify as “attacks”; and

One, the U.S. use of a herbicide in the DMZ (demilitarized zone) separating North and South Korea, was done for the purpose of impeding infiltration of North Korean military and security personnel into South Korea. It did not target “crops and livestock” at all.

In sum, 11 or 12 of the 18 events in the table—two-thirds of the entries—are not what they claim to be. They are not “attacks.” At a minimum, the title for the table should have read “Attacks, Incidents, False Allegations, and Bluffs.”

The second table is titled “Agricultural Bio-warfare: State Programs to Develop Offensive Capabilities” (CNS, 2000). It lists programs for 13 states. The entries for 8 of them need corrections of varying degree:

Egypt: The claim that Egypt has a dedicated antianimal biological weapons (BW) program is based on a paper that is unreliable and unsubstantiated. The Israeli author, Daniel Shoham, essentially listed any pathogen for which an Egyptian journal publication existed. If the same criterion were applied to Israel, the list of the pathogens would be five times longer than for Egypt. Nevertheless, Israel does not appear in the table at all, even though it maintains an extensive anthrax research program, for example.

Iraq: Anthrax in the Iraqi BW program was for antihuman purposes, not for use against animals. Studies on camel pox served as a research simulant for smallpox. Finally, contrary to the entry in the table, there was no evidence ever found by the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), or the U.S. postwar Iraq Survey Group to indicate that work on foot-and-mouth disease was ever part of the Iraqi BW program.

Rhodesia: Regarding the allegation of anthrax use in 1979 during the civil war, the outbreak was almost certainly of natural origin, not due to government action.

South Africa: The anthrax produced was added to food and cigarettes to produce intestinal or pulmonary anthrax in people; there is no evidence that it was ever intended for or used against animals.

USSR (Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan): The facilities and the activities in what became those countries belonged to the Soviet-era BW program. There is no presumption that BW-relevant work continued in them once the two new states became independent in 1992, although the facilities continued to exist. Neither Kazakhstan nor Uzbekistan was an independent entity at the time of the USSR, so there is no justification for listing them.

North Korea: If North Korea has an offensive BW program, and if that program includes anthrax, it would in all likelihood be intended for antihuman use.

Syria: The source given is one of the large survey studies by Cordesman; it would have to be checked to evaluate the validity of Cordesman’s source.

UK: The year in which the offensive BW program was terminated is known.

Of the entries for 13 countries, 3 are totally incorrect, 5 others include varying degrees of inaccuracy, and only 5 can stand as the original entries were written.

Literature References to the Production of Botulinum Toxin by Terrorist Groups

References exist for the production of botulinum toxin by two terrorist groups. The first of these was the Red Army Faction, another name of the West German Baader-Meinhof Group.

A laboratory in a safe house of the Red Army Faction in Paris, France, was found to have made quantities of botulinum toxin; it is believed that none was used (Caudle, 1997). 8

Allegedly, an Erlenmeyer flask containing the substance had been found in an apartment bathtub. The source for this claim, which allegedly had taken place in 1980, was given as Brad Roberts, Weapons of the Future? (Roberts, 1993). The German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had always—privately—said that the story was apocryphal, that is, it was untrue. Nevertheless, numerous U.S. analysts and some U.S. government officials persisted in claiming

for two decades that this “event” had occurred. The claim was finally laid to rest in the book edited by Jonathan Tucker in 2000 (Taylor and Trevan, 2000).

The extensive briefing materials prepared in advance of the workshop included two published papers that referred to the production of botulinum toxin by the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo organization or by other unidentified “terrorist” groups. The first was by Sobel, Khan, and Swerdlow, who wrote in The Lancet in 2002, “Aum Shinrikyo … reportedly had produced stocks of botulinum toxin and other biological agents” (Sobel et al., 2002). Their source for this statement was the chapter by Kadlec, Zelicoff, and Vrtis in Joshua Lederberg’s 1999 book, Biological Weapons, Limiting the Threat (Kadlec et al., 1999). The source for these authors was in turn Kaplan and Marshall’s 1996 book on the Aum, which is inaccurate in virtually all its discussion of the Aum’s work on biological agents, except that such work was carried out and that numerous attempts were made by the group to distribute whatever “products” they had made (Kaplan and Marshall, 1996).

The crucial point is that all the biological materials produced by the Aum Shinrikyo group were innocuous, nonpathogenic, and nontoxic. The Aum produced no “stocks” of botulinum toxin. At first it appeared that either they had obtained a strain that produced no toxin, or that they had not succeeded in producing the toxin due to incompetence. It now appears certain that they never obtained a strain of Clostridium botulinum at all. This will be discussed further below. The Aum produced no “other biological agents,” specifically anthrax, because they only had the Sterne vaccine strain of anthrax, and in addition they did not work with it properly. The Aum had no other biological agents of any kind. By the end of 1999—and therefore certainly by 2002—three publications were available that explained the above as well as additional inaccuracies that by then had appeared in print in every reference to the Aum and BW and which continue to appear in print to this day. 9

The second paper was by Arnon et al. in the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ) in 2001:

Terrorists have already attempted to use botulinum toxins as a bioweapon … by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo. These attacks failed, apparently because of faulty microbiological technique, deficient aerosol generating equipment, or internal sabotage. The perpetrators obtained their C. botulinum from soil that they collected in northern Japan….

Four of the countries listed by the U.S. government as “state sponsors of terrorism” (Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria) have developed, or are believed to be developing, botulinum toxin as a weapon (Arnon, 2001). 10

Here, there are several important points to be made. In the statement on the Aum group, both sources used by the authors are not reliable regarding the information that they contain about the Aum and BW. As will be explained below, it appears that the Aum did not succeed in isolating C. botulinum from soil or obtaining it in any other way. As regards the other countries, except for Iraq, the U.S. government does not claim to know which specific BW agents the identified countries produced in the past or may be developing (Leitenberg, 1996, 2004). The Russian intelligence agency Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti 1993 report, the only publicly available source that could be considered authoritative, does not list botulinum toxin among the four BW agents that it claimed North Korea was working with (Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, 1993). Finally, official U.S. government statements consider it highly unlikely that BW or chemical weapons (CW) would be included in state assistance to terrorist groups. It has never happened to date despite four decades of state assistance to terrorist groups by states which do, or may, possess both BW and CW capabilities and which have assisted terrorist groups in every other conceivable manner (Leitenberg, 2004). That includes funding, sanctuary, training, arms, explosives, embassy support, false documents, and other forms of assistance.

A third publication by Roger Shapiro of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also published in the JAMA in 1997, contained the following statements (Shapiro, 1997):

“Reports that national governments and terrorist groups have stockpiled botulism toxin.” However, no “terrorist group” is known to have “stockpiled botulism toxin” to date.

“As many as 17 countries are suspected of either including or developing biological agents in their offensive weapons program; botulism toxin is frequently

one of these agents.” According to official U.S. government tallies, the number has never been alleged to exceed 13. As of mid-2005, it had been reduced by 3 or 4, again according to U.S. government statements. Only Iraq is known to have produced and stockpiled botulinum toxin (Leitenberg 2004, 2005).

“The Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan also produced botulism toxin.” The Aum group produced no toxin, and they did not have the organism.

“Instructions for the production of botulism toxin have been broadcast on the Internet as well.” Virtually all the “instructions … on the Internet” are useless, excluding professional journal papers that may be available online. This will be discussed further below, and an example provided.

What then was the actual experience of the Aum Shinrikyo group and botulinum toxin, and why has misinformation been propagated for all these years? As early as May 24, 1996, the major Japanese daily newspaper, Asahi Shimbun , reporting on evidence presented by the Japanese prosecutor, wrote:

A group led by Seiichi Endo tried to culture botulinum, but failed in isolating the germ. Then … Hideo Murai installed a big tank in order to make a large-scale production of the germ. After all, the facility was not accomplished to produce germs.

The decision of the Public Security Commission of the Public Security Investigation Agency (Japan), January 31, 1997, stated that “The Aum had failed to isolate Clostridium botulinum .” 11 In February 1998, the Chief Toxicologist of Chiba Prefecture, adjacent to Tokyo, told this author that “The group had not been sufficiently competent to succeed [in their effort] to produce biological agents,” a statement that referred to their efforts regarding both botulinum toxin and anthrax (personal communication, Chiba Prefecture, February 1998). 12

In anticipation of this workshop, it nevertheless seemed desirable to revisit this question once again and to try to establish as definitive an answer as possible. I therefore sent a series of very explicit and specific questions to a Japanese academic, Masaaki Sugishima, who had examined the full Japanese prosecutorial record in the Aum Shinrikyo court trials. I asked if the Aum group had acquired a pathogenic strain of botulinum toxin by whatever means. All possible alternatives for acquisition of the organism were explicitly enumerated, and if it had been obtained, whether the group had been able to work with the organism to the point of obtaining the toxin. Box 4-1 , below, provides Masaaki Sugishima’s response.

In a chapter of his own in a book published early in 2006 Sugishima wrote:

Endo attempted to isolate C. botulinum from soil samples collected in Hokkaido, but there is no evidence that he was successful. Where the strain that was ultimately used came from is unknown, as are its identity and toxigenicity. The fact that multiple dissemination events led to no casualties suggests that the Aum was using an avirulent strain or was unable to cultivate C. botulinum properly. Nakagawa told another senior follower that the substance his team produced had proved ineffective in mice (Wheelis and Sugishima, 2006).

The third possibility was more definitively stated above in 1997 by the Japanese Public Security Commission, namely that the group had never isolated any C. botulinum at all. Sugishima adds:

Finally, about a week before the Tokyo sarin incident in 1995, the Aum tried to disseminate botulinum toxin from attaché cases with built-in spray devices. Three such cases were found abandoned at the Kasumigaseki subway station in Tokyo, but nothing harmful was found in them. Endo testified at Asahara’s trial

that he had been unable to produce botulinum toxin and had filled the devices with harmless liquid (Wheelis and Sugishima, 2006). 13

In contrast, the information in Kaplan and Marshall’s book on the Aum Shinrikyo and BW derives from three reports by the Japanese National Police Agency dating from 1995 and 1996. These would appear to be based on early statements made to the police by members of the Aum during interrogation rather than on forensic investigation. These were clearly not reliable. All subsequent references in the Western international media as well as in the scientific literature derive in one way or another from the original Kaplan and Marshall book. The information on the Aum and BW in a lengthy report by the two legal counsels to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in October 1995 is similarly totally incorrect for the same reason (U.S. Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 1995).

Botulinum Toxin: A Brief Description

Botulinum toxin is produced by a gram negative spore-forming anaerobe, Clostridium botulinum . There are seven distinct serotypes, A through H, and roughly 100 or more available isolates for each serotype. 14 Many of the isolates produce little or no toxin at all. Only serotypes A, B, E, and F are involved in human poisoning and of these, primarily A. The toxin is a single protein with a molecular weight of around 150,000 that acts presynaptically, blocking the release of acetyl choline, and possibly other neurotransmitters, producing a flaccid paralysis (Middlebrook and Franz, 1997).

During the years of the U.S. offensive biological weapons program stretching from 1943 to 1969, hundreds of isolates of C. botulinum were tested for toxin production. From these, about a dozen were selected for further research. Those

in turn were reduced to two, one of which was finally selected for production on the basis of its stability of toxin production, yield, and hardiness of the organism under the condition of large-scale culture (personal communication, Dr. William Patrick, 1988). It took many person-years of work to achieve that result. In 1997 at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop in Budapest, Hungary, Dr. Jerzy Mierzykowski, at that time director of the Polish biodefense laboratory at Pulawy, made an unusual appeal to the researchers present. He was about to retire after a lifetime’s work with C. botulinum . Nevertheless, he explained, he was unable to obtain repeatable levels of toxin production. He asked the American and the British scientists present to advise him on how one obtained reproducible toxin production. 15 In some months his cultures produced toxin, and in other months they did not. The reason for this is that the structural gene for the toxin appears to vary between chromosomal and extrachromosomal locations in the seven C. botulinum serotypes. Some are located in a plasmid, some in a bacteriophage, and some apparently are chromosomally located.

Botulinum toxin—or the group of botulinal toxins—are frequently referred to as the most toxic substances known, with an LD50 of 1 nanogram per kilo of body weight. Although unrelated to botulinum toxin poisoning via ingestion by food, two of the scientific publications referred to earlier, Arnon et al. (2001) and Shapiro (1997), state that one gram of botulinum toxin if distributed as an aerosol would result in the death of “more than one million people,” and “at least 1.5 million” people, respectively. All such estimates made on the basis of mathematical extrapolations from LD50 values assume perfect distribution. They are many orders of magnitude from possible realization in the real world. In fact both the United States and later the Soviet offensive BW programs discovered that botulinum toxin did not perform well under aerosol distribution, and both programs lost interest in weaponizing the agent. 16

Botulinum Toxin Poisoning and the U.S. Milk Supply

On May 25, 2005, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ) announced that it would publish a paper that presented a mathematical model of the possible consequences of deliberate botulinum toxin contamination of the U.S. milk supply. The paper was written by Dr. Lawrence Wein of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and Yifan Liu, a graduate stu-

dent. Stewart Simonson, Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services requested that the paper not be published on the grounds that it served as a “road map for terrorists,” supplied “very detailed information on vulnerability nodes in the cow-to-consumer chain,” and that “publication is not in the interests of the United States” (Carr, 2005a,b). 17 PNAS editors agreed to a delay in publication. However, a preprint of the paper had been released in advance to journalists, and it was possible to obtain a copy within a day or two.

On May 30, Wein (alone) published an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Got Toxic Milk.” It presented the conclusions of the unpublished manuscript. This short version included one crucial aspect not contained in the PNAS paper: It stated that “a terrorist, using a 28-page manual called Preparation of Botulinum Toxin that has been published on several jihadist Web sites and buying toxin from an overseas black market laboratory,” could produce “a few grams of botulin” (Wein, 2005). It took a few additional days to obtain a copy of the jihadi manual in question, and to query appropriately informed professional colleagues in Europe as to whether any “overseas black market laboratory”—or overseas black market—for botulinum toxin existed. With these, plus an extensive search of the professional literature dealing with the isolation and purification of botulinum toxin, one was able to try to make sense of the mathematical model in question. 18 PNAS duly published the original paper without modification at the end of June 2005 (Wein and Liu, 2005). Comment by the general media as well as editorials and news section reports in journals such as Nature and Science commented only on the fact that publication of the PNAS article had been delayed. None took issue with any aspect of the model itself (Editorial, 2005; Shane, 2005; Weiss, 2005).

Wien’s model postulated that contamination of milk with less than one gram of botulinum toxin would cause 100,000 poisoned individuals, and that mortality could be in the range of 400,000 or 500,000 people—“the great majority of 568,000 consumers”—if 10 grams were used. In early seminar presentations of his model at Stanford University, Wien had even posited that the terrorists could have 1 kilogram or more of the toxin (personal communication). His New York Times article postulated that a single “terrorist” could achieve such levels of toxin production. Some 15 years ago scientists at the Center for Applied Microbiological Research in the United Kingdom had made a few grams of toxin, which served to supply the entire European and U.S. commercial market for a decade. Producing 10 grams—down two orders of magnitude from a kilo—would be a feat for professional scientists.

To begin with, the terrorist or terrorists would have to obtain a good producing strain of C. botulinum . The jihadi manual begins by extraction from soil. The deus ex machina that Wein invoked as an alternative, an “overseas black market lab,” apparently does not exist to anyone’s knowledge. The 25-page jihadi manual that Wein refers to is in fact a good one: it was composed by splicing together the “Methods” sections of several professional scientific papers. However, applying its directions requires a very long list of reagents and equipment, including a walk-in cold room, a refrigerated vacuum centrifuge, a substantial number of highly specialized reagents, a mouse colony (since the testing for various steps in the isolation of the toxin requires repeated in vivo assays), and, not least substantial, technical skill and experience. Without such knowledge, the manual is useless. None of these are likely to be available in any jihadi terrorist camp, and none of them have ever been found to date in any such location. Annex 4-1 contains excerpts from a far more typical jihadi manual concerning botulinum toxin. They provide an indication of what the knowledge base of such a group is more likely to be.

Alternatively, if the terrorist group obtained the services of a competent trained scientist, or if the terrorist himself had such qualifications as well as access to equipment and facilities (as was apparently the case for the individuals who produced the anthrax used in the United States in October and November 2001), then there is no need to invoke a “jihadi manual.” Such an individual would be likely to already have a culture of the organism or to know how to obtain it from nature, know how to produce and purify the toxin, and how to perform the in vivo mouse assays.

Fortuitously, we have the rudiments of a real-world example to measure against. In December 2001, the United States and allied forces overran an al-Qaeda facility in Afghanistan that contained documentary material relating to their program to attempt to produce biological agents. This author obtained the declassification of these materials. They demonstrated that botulinum toxin was one of the agents in which the group was interested (Leitenberg, 2005). A Ph.D.-level Pakistani scientist working in a Pakistani government facility had provided the group with photocopies of papers from the journal literature that Dr. Zawahiri, a senior al-Qaeda official, had requested. However he was not willing to do any laboratory work himself, and as best as is publicly known, he had not provided them with a culture of C. botulinum . In addition to journal papers on anthrax, plague, and hepatitis A, the following were the publications that the group possessed that dealt with botulinum toxin:

Roberts TA. 1965. Sporulation of Clostridium botulinum type E in different culture media. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 28(1):142–146.

Hobbs C, Roberts TA, Walker PD. 1965. Some observations on OS variants of Clostridium botulinum type E. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 28(1):147–152.

Roberts TA, Ingram M, Skulberg A. 1965. The resistance of Clostridium botulinum type E to heat and radiation. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 28(1): 125–141.

A one-page extract of a handbook of gram-positive bacteria, on Clostridium tetani .

A four-page extract of a medical or microbiological handbook on Clostridium tetani and Clostridium botulinum .

There was no indication that the group had obtained a culture of C. botulinum from any source, and there was no indication that it had initiated any laboratory work.

If we return to examining Wein’s model, it appears that it was constructed with little knowledge of the relevant literature concerning botulinum toxin. The few sources referenced are of poor quality, inappropriate, or inaccurate. As indicated, the mathematical model is built upon a thin supposition regarding what terrorists can do. Wein starts with the assumption that terrorists can make gram quantities of botulinum toxin. For the PNAS publication, the reasoning for this was delivered in a little over a paragraph and based on three citations. The first is an article published in the Journal of Bacteriology in 1971. Although it deals with the production of botulinum toxin, it more specifically concerns the preliminary characterization of another protein from the microbe that activates the toxin.

The second citation that Wein used to posit terrorist capability was not from another scientific journal at all but, surprisingly, from a short news piece published by the New York Times on April 27, 2003, written by Judith Miller, then embedded with the U.S. Army’s Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha in Iraq. It is a very brief interview with a scientist who worked in Iraq’s bioweapons program, and it delivers one brief and contextually meaningless claim about the degree of toxin concentration achieved in that country’s production of botulinum toxin. It was a simple task to determine that neither UNSCOM, UNMOVIC, nor the Iraq Survey Group inspectors were ever able to verify his statement or find documentary verification for it in any internal Iraqi government report. Even if accurate, the claim could not be expected to reflect an achievement level that a terrorist group might reach. The Iraqi biological weapons program was a national program with access to unlimited resources. Late in 1985, botulinum toxin and anthrax were one of the first two pathogens selected as candidate agents for the Iraqi BW program. Initial production began in 1988, and early in 1989 full-scale production began (United Nations Security Council, 2005). Approximately three full years were thus taken up by Iraqi scientists and technicians in preparatory work, and although UNSCOM inspectors never obtained any of the prepared material to evaluate, they assumed it to have been a relatively crude preparation. Given that this was a state program—in contrast to “a” single terrorist postulated by Wein’s model—it perhaps offers a more realistic estimate of what might be required.

The third citation was used by Wein to bolster an argument for possible

advanced production methods in the hands of terrorists. It too is not from a scientific publication, but is a reference to a “paper for discussion” attributed to Richard Danzig, a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, which includes the single sentence saying that there are such advanced methods. Of course there are advanced methods for botulinum toxin production; the question is whether they are within the capabilities of terrorists. Finally, the data point used in the model for toxin survival during thermal processing was out of date, and was for canned corn rather than for milk.

But the most critical assessment of the model results from several lines at the very end of Wein’s PNAS paper:

In closing, it is important to stress that several elements of the model contain enough irreducible uncertainty to preclude estimating the impact of the attack to within several orders of magnitude….

The dose-response curve, pasteurization inactivation rate, and terrorists’ release size capabilities each contain several orders of magnitude of uncertainty…. Taken together, we have reasonably accurate estimate of the number of people who could be poisoned, but a very poor estimate of how much toxin is required to cause a large outbreak (Wein and Liu, 2005).

As it turns out, there apparently is variability of three or more orders of magnitude in each of the three variables. Taken together, this could result in a possible difference of nine orders of magnitude from the numbers presented by Wein. The mortality result could be one billionth of Wein’s estimate. Instead of the predicted mortality of half a million people, there might not have been a single death. By definition, Wein could not have had “a reasonably accurate estimate” if the results could vary anywhere over a range of nine orders of magnitude. The first and last lines in the quotation above are contradictory, and the last lines appear to be internally contradictory. The model builder apparently knew little or nothing of the relevant literature on botulinum toxin and nothing at all about the real-world capabilities of would-be bioterrorists and bioterrorism. Intelligence analysis and mathematical modeling share the same classic limitation: faulty assumptions lead to faulty conclusions. A mountain of mathematics, formulas, and curves cannot remedy flawed basic assumptions and inputs. It is difficult to understand how the PNAS reviewers and editors let this pass. Finally, Wein had given presentations of his model to public groups and government officials in Washington, D.C., long before the manuscript was submitted to PNAS for publication. During both the private and public presentations he had been informed that remedial measures had already been taken by the U.S. milk industry to raise both the temperature and duration of heating during the pasteurization process (personal communication, June 2005). This sharply increased the level of toxin inactivation reached during pasteurization—one of the three variables in question—and concomitantly reduced the amount of inactivated toxin that might remain. Thus one of the two recommendations that Wein suggested at the end of his paper had essentially already been carried out, although not mandated by law.

Although all of the public discussion surrounding the model concerned issues related to the delay in its publication, the far more germane issue appears to be that the model was wrong. At the same time, the episode served as yet another example of the gross exaggeration surrounding the potential for bioterrorism. The most likely outcome of such exaggeration is to prompt would-be terrorists who might not otherwise consider or pursue the development of biological agents to do so because a fictitious simplicity and a fictitious effectiveness was touted. Documentation captured in Afghanistan demonstrated that precisely that occurred in the case of al-Qaeda. On April 15, 1999, the Egyptian-born physician, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, wrote in a message to one of his colleagues:

We only became aware of them [biological weapons] when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concerns that they can be produced simply with easily available materials (Leitenberg, 2005).

There was a final coda to the PNAS publication, which ironically also concerns publication restrictions. When PNAS published the Wein-Liu model, it printed an accompanying lengthy commentary by Dr. Bruce Alberts, then the president of the NAS. In it he noted:

The Wein and Liu article has been widely circulated in preprint form, generating a great deal of discussion. For this reason, we are already aware of scientists who plan to publish challenges to some of its conclusions. This type of give-and-take lies at the heart of scientific progress and is precisely why scientific analyses are made available in the open literature (Alberts, 2005).

Alberts’ reference to “scientists who plan to publish challenges” referred specifically to a very brief critique of the Wein model by this author and Dr. George Smith. It had been submitted to PNAS asking if it could be published together with the model. However, Dr. Nicholas Cozzarelli, the PNAS editor, had already rejected that suggestion by June 2, a full six weeks earlier, saying “We do not have a letters to the editor section in our journal for what you propose. You are of course free to send in an article that will be subject to our customary peer review.” 19 The catch-22 however was that we did not write a scientific paper, only a brief three-page critique very similar to the material presented here. We then submitted the same critique to the New York Times . The editor who had published the Wein op-ed replied, “Thank you for your submission. As a matter of policy, we do not publish rebuttals on the op-ed page—that is the job of the letters page. I have taken the liberty of forwarding your article to them.” 20 We never heard

from the letter editor. Nature had editorialized about the PNAS publication delay, and the Washington Post had also carried an op-ed on the same aspect. The critique was submitted to both. The Washington Post declined to publish it either as an op-ed or as a letter. There was no reply from Nature . Despite Albert’s generous anticipation, no scientific “give and take” ever appeared in print.

Alberts also claimed that when:

NAS and PNAS representatives met with government representatives to discuss their specific concerns about the Wien and Liu article on June 7 … we learned in our discussion with government representatives that a great deal has been done to improve the pasteurization of milk since 9/11 … we appear to be considerably safer from an attack than they [Wein and Liu] have calculated (Alberts, 2005).

Although the NAS officials and PNAS editors professed not to have previously known what nearly everyone acquainted with the model apparently had heard about, they suggested no revisions in the manuscript as a result of their new knowledge, and it was printed exactly as it had been submitted with its original projections.

A Brief Conclusion

The degree of inaccuracy in information published by members of the scientific community regarding the past record and feasibility of bioterrorism by essentially untrained true terrorist organizations is unbelievably bad. That is a situation that the scientific community should consider impermissible. Any scientist that includes information concerning the record of terrorist interest and experience with biological agents in his papers is responsible to apply the same standards for accuracy to such passages as he does in reporting his own research work.

Much of that same information continues to grossly exaggerate, to misinform, and by suggesting the relative ease and feasibility of producing biological weapon agents, provokes interest among potential actors, state and nonstate, to investigate BW, which they might not otherwise have considered. As was indicated, the al-Qaeda experience is a case in point: it was explicitly provoked by the bioterrorism furor in the United States in 1996–1998. It is legitimate to explore vulnerabilities and to improve defenses, but there is no justification for imputing capabilities to real-world terrorists that they do not possess.

A Single Recommendation

The United States has appropriated $30 billion since FY 2002—in four years—towards bioterrorism prevention. Fiscal year 2005 and 2006 expenditure will amount to $12.7 billion. All further funding for “select agent” programs should be cancelled. Future funding should be split between public health programs such as described in the presentation by Dr. Robert Tauxe to the Forum on

Microbial Threats and to preparations to anticipate an H5N1 pandemic influenza outbreak. The former should include increased earmarked funding for state and county public health agencies to enable them to carry out the specified programs. The latter should include the construction of a National Influenza Vaccine Facility as well as a dedicated national pharmaceutical facility for the production of anti-influenza pharmaceuticals. These two dedicated facilities could be rented to commercial entities in the same way that production facilities for weapon systems were built by the federal government and rented to manufacturers during World War II, and for a very large portion of the post-WWII period. The vaccine facility should be prepared to produce an H5N1 vaccine. In all other years of operation, it could produce the required U.S. quota of influenza vaccine to cover annual needs, so that no shortfalls would continue to occur (annual flu mortality in the United States ranges from 22,000 to more than 80,000) (GAO, 2005a,b). Funds freed up by cancellation of existing and proposed Bioshield legislation for “select agents,” as well as the massive spending on infrastructure targeted to work on the same agents would more than suffice for this purpose.

The Microbe Clostridium

The word clostridium comes from the Greek word meaning “little spindle.” Among its characteristics is the ease with which it can be obtained. It is widely available in the environment, found in water and in soil, especially in areas fertile with the dung of grass-eating animals.

These microbes can have within them organisms, microbes, or bacteria which have potential in nonideal climatic circumstances. At this stage, they are latent and inactive until they get into the right circumstances. At that point, the walls of the bacteria are shed and they become active as deadly microbes. They are freed of the glucose that creates an acidic substance. They are active in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic).

As mentioned these kinds of poisons are of the Clostridium botulinum type. They are considered among the most destructive poisons because they act immediately on the nervous system and cause the muscles and respiratory organs to fail. These poisons resist fever to an extent, as well as gastric acid. Their effects are similar to food poisoning. The Clostridium microbe multiplies in fresh meat and causes it to rot (the strength of the poison is limited in the presence of heat, which invites the question of how it could survive the heat of an explosion. It might be possible to position the poison somehow away from the heat of the explosion, and transfer the poison onto, for example, legs or shoes in the case of a suicide operation). There may also be a way to specially design something to spit the poison out of the exhaust pipe of a car as an alternative to an aerosol.

Clostridium Bacteria

The bacteria of this microbe is killed in the presence of dry heat above 120 degrees Celsius. Its poison emerges from the cell into the environment. It might work to capture these contents on some of the plants on which the bacteria grows. It might be possible to obtain a lot of the poison available in the cell, after it has been released . These poisons have a protein nature such that they lose their poisonous quality if they are exposed to acid (in spite of the fact that they can stand up to gastric acid) or to heat. This microbe is rarely transmitted on tissue, living or dead, but it can be grown inside some cans of food, discharging its lethal poisons. These poisons can lose their effectiveness in temperatures between 61 and 80 degrees Celsius. They causes [sic] food poisoning when food is contaminated with the poisons. However, in observing cases of sickness by the same illness (botulism) occurring as a result of contamination with the microbe, it is my opinion that its usefulness would double in suicide operations. The microbe grows well in regular laboratory cultures under intense anaerobic conditions (meaning its worth as a lethal biological weapon could double.) The ideal temperature for growth is 25 degrees Celsius, but it can grow in temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. The bacteria of this microbe are active in anaerobic conditions. The activity causes the microbe to release the poisons.

Properties of the Poisons

They are released after [exposure to] a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius for a period of 30 minutes, or a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius for 10–15 minutes. They are released in acid, but the exception to that is stomach acid. The poisons are divided into six kinds: A, B, C, D, E, F (A, B, and E cause sickness in people, and C and D cause sickness in animals. The sickness in people is also caused by F, which is found in water environments and produces poison symptoms in people and fish). In English: [it is a] “globulin of high molecular weight.” The weight of the A part is between 6,000 and 9,000 B. These weights are beneficial in the electronic separation of poisons.

How to Cultivate the Specimen

These bacteria are cultivated in normal cultures in the complete absence of oxygen. This requirement can be met simply by lighting a candle inside the flask containing the microbe after either a rubber stopper or a piece of cotton has closed off the opening. This means: place the specimen contaminated with the microbe—which is a piece of dirt—....

From Where to Obtain the Specimen

From dry dirt. Place some of the dung of grass-eating animals in the dirt. Take the specimens after some days.

The nature of the specimen, as mentioned, is simply dirt. Leave it in anaerobic conditions for a number of days; it will become liquid.

A Section on Poisons

Seeing as bacterial culture contain a number of substances, it is important to use electricity on the poisons. These [processes] are known as electrophoresis and affinity column chromatography. They separate the different materials depending on the differences in their weights (references prior). Admittedly, I do not have details on this point, nor the topics of the concentration and preservation of poisons, may God forgive me.

THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION’S APPROACH TO FOOD DEFENSE

David W. K. Acheson, M.D. 21

Food and Drug Administration

A Risk-Based Approach to Food Defense

The FDA is pursuing a multipronged approach to food defense. It includes increasing the awareness of the food industry and other stakeholders to critical opportunities for safeguarding the U.S. food supply, developing prevention strategies and building capacity to implement them, and planning for response to and recovery from an intentional food contamination event. There are many foods that could be intentionally contaminated, and one food that has attracted a lot of attention of late is milk and its potential to be deliberately contaminated with Clostridium botulinum neurotoxin. Although this scenario is discussed in more detail below, it is important to recognize that this is only one food-agent combination amongst the many that the FDA has focused on.

Finding the Risks

The FDA has adopted a risk-based approach to determine where food defense resources should be applied. Following September 11, 2001, the FDA utilized an approach known as operational risk management (ORM). ORM involves

a determination of which combinations of foods and agents, and where on the farm-to-table continuum, constitute the highest risks. The FDA began this process with a list of potential terrorism agents that was developed by the CDC in 2000. The FDA modified the agents’ rankings according to a variety of criteria such as the stability of the agent in a food matrix; the effect of the agent on the odor, flavor, or color in a food matrix; the severity of public health outcomes associated with the agent; its oral infective or toxic dose; its availability; and perhaps most important, existing threat intelligence on the use of this agent for foodborne bioterrorism. We then evaluated combinations of these agents with a wide range of foods and food ingredients considered to represent possible targets for foodborne attacks.

The ORM evaluations revealed the probability of contaminating a specific point in the food chain with a specific agent. That information was further enhanced by combining it, in matrix format, with an assessment of the likely severity of outcome, as measured by estimated mortality. The construction of these matrices involved the application of basic science, knowledge of food processing, the food industry, transportation, and logic, but the availability of credible intelligence of a food threat trumped all other factors. We recognize that any food could potentially be contaminated by a determined person or group, thus zero-risk foods do not exist. Higher-risk foods do, however, share several common vulnerability factors: large batch size, which implies a large number of servings; short shelf life, which implies rapid turnaround at retail and rapid consumption; uniform mixing, which would maximize the number of people exposed to an agent; and accessibility of a so-called critical node, defined as a process or activity in the farm-to-table chain during which the agent could be added, undetected, in effective quantities.

Based on this information, the FDA developed guidance documents and training for its staff, state and local regulatory colleagues, and the food industry. This knowledge has also contributed to shaping the agency’s considerations of preventive measures, its emergency response planning, and the setting of its research priorities. Because the FDA does not have authority to regulate the security or defense of the food supply, we use this information as we work cooperatively with state and local regulatory officials, the food industry, and other stakeholders in food defense. A For Official Use Only (FOUO) version of the FDA ORM evaluations was prepared and distributed to both industry and states to facilitate a better understanding of where the risks lie.

Following the ORM approach described above, which gave a broad overview of the relative risks, the FDA has also employed a more sophisticated vulnerability assessment tool called CARVER + Shock. CARVER is an acronym for the following factors by which it assesses the vulnerability of a potential food-agent combination as a target for terrorism:

C riticality (public health and economic impacts)

A ccessibility (physical access to the targeted food)

R ecuperability (ability of the affected system/population to recover from the attack)

V ulnerability (ease of accomplishing the attack)

E ffect (losses directly attributable to attack)

R ecognizability (ease of identifying a target)

An additional measure called “shock,” which combines the physical, psychological, and economic effects, was also evaluated. This framework allows a far more detailed assessment of the farm-to-table continuum than is possible with operational risk management. For example, we might perform a CARVER + Shock vulnerability assessment of a specific beverage product, having already recognized that the uniform mixing of large volumes of this beverage from different suppliers raises the vulnerability of that commodity to terrorism. For example, for fruit juice production a flow diagram is developed, starting with the fruit on a tree in a growing area in the United States or abroad, and continuing with the worker who picks that fruit, the fruit storage facilities on the farm, transport to the dock, shipping and transport from the docks to the warehouse, every processing step through blending and pasteurization, packaging, distribution, and retail. Initially the FDA undertook CARVER + Shock determinations within the federal government only. The results of this process were classified documents that could not be readily shared and thus had the distinct disadvantage of not being readily available to the industry. To address this shortcoming the FDA worked with a number of industries to train them in CARVER + Shock methodology so they could perform their own assessments. With that information, food industries can make the best use of limited resources for food defense.

The current approach for vulnerability assessments is a joint approach led by FDA, USDA, DHS, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and is known as the Strategic Partnership Program Agroterrorism (SPPA) initiative. The SPPA was launched in July 2005 and solicits industry and state volunteers to undertake locally based vulnerability assessments on a variety of food commodities. By being locally based these assessments not only address a specific food commodity but also facilitate local interactions between the very federal, state, and local officials that would have to deal with a deliberate attack on the food supply.

Deliberate Contamination of Milk with Botulinum Toxin

Vulnerability assessments such as the ORM and CARVER + Shock methods discussed above indicate certain foods of higher concern. One of these foods is fluid milk and the specific example of botulinum toxin in milk is frequently raised, since milk production is a significant industry, both in terms of the volume of product consumed and its importance to the U.S. economy.

After the milking process, milk is typically stored in a tank on the farm that may hold up to 500 gallons until it is transported to the dairy in a 5,000-gallon tanker. At the dairy, milk received from several such tankers is held in bulk tanks of up to 60,000 gallons before it is pasteurized and packaged. Packaged milk is distributed first to a warehouse and then to a retail outlet. Milk has many of the common vulnerability factors mentioned above. The same conclusion was reached in an FOUO report prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in 2004, which was intended to inform the dairy industry about vulnerabilities in the milk supply and ways to address them.

In response to the results of this report, and continuing discussions with the dairy industry, changes have been made by individual milk producers and the dairy industry as a whole that have improved the security of the U.S. milk supply.

There are multiple points along the farm-to-table continuum where food may be vulnerable, and it is critical that the approach to this problem be multifaceted. To this end, the FDA has produced a series of guidance documents, one of which is targeted at the dairy industry and outlines an array of possible steps that can be taken to minimize the chance of a deliberate attack on the food supply (CFSAN, 2003).

Fluid milk is not the only food commodity that may be subject to a deliberate attack, and to that end the FDA produced guidance documents directed toward a variety of other industries. These include the following:

Retail food stores and food service establishments: www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/secgui11.html

Food producers, processors, and transporters: www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/secguid6.html

Importers and filers: www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/secguid7.html

Cosmetics processors and transporters: www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/secgui10.html

Each one of these documents provides general guidance as well as more focused messages directed toward the specific industry groups.

Research Questions

During the vulnerability assessment process, whether it be ORM or CARVER + Shock, a number of questions typically arise that require research. FDA has undertaken a food defense research strategy that is focused on a number of areas. These include work on the behavior of select agents in certain food matrices, the value of specific mitigation approaches, sensitive and specific detection methods that are rapid, and dose-response relationships with select agents that may be added to food.

Mitigation of Botulinum Toxin in Milk

Specific steps to mitigate the intentional contamination of milk with botulinum toxin are also being researched. The toxin is sensitive to the effects of heat, and thermal destruction of the toxin occurs in foods that are heated to certain temperatures for long enough times. Milk that is shipped in interstate commerce has to be pasteurized using a minimum temperature of 161° Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. Consideration was therefore given to the impact of pasteurization of milk at higher temperatures and/or for longer times. Basic research was undertaken to address this question and the results shared with the milk industry. However, a number of other issues have to be taken into account if higher pasteurization temperatures or longer times are considered. Such things include the economic impact of heating, then cooling the milk, the increase in plate fouling that occurs at higher temperatures, as well as any possible affect to milk’s taste and color, and potential reductions in its nutritional value.

Another research question that has arisen is whether testing for botulinum toxin in milk provides an alternative to raising pasteurization temperatures. Testing could potentially be performed at various points from farm to table, and depending on a variety of factors such as the sensitivity, specificity, cost, and assay speed it could be a useful addition to other mitigation strategies. Issues such as sensitivity are critical as approximately one million milk tanker trips occur annually in the United States, a test yielding a one percent false positive rate (e.g., an Enzyme Immuno Assay) would falsely identify 10,000 positive tankers holding a total of 500,000 gallons of milk each year. Dealing with such false positives in a timely way could become complex and time consuming.

Although tests for botulinum toxin currently exist, they are not necessarily appropriate for mass testing because of cost or time required to conduct the assay and so on. Toward the goal of a rapid, sensitive, specific, and cost effective assay, a DHS initiative is currently funding the first phase of a program for a rapid (less than 20 minute turnaround), sensitive, specific (less than one per million false positives), simple (could be performed by someone with a high school education), and cost-effective test for botulinum toxin in food. The eventual objective of this project is to develop a platform that could be adapted to detect multiple agents in different food matrices.

At the end of the day, the most important message regarding mitigation strategies is not to rely on a single strategy alone to produce adequate protection. Rather put in place as many different strategies at different points on the farm-to-table continuum that will, overall, minimize the chances of a successful attack on the food supply.

Preparatory Measures

Being prepared for an attack on the food supply is a very important aspect of the FDA’s work. To that end, in 2004 the FDA initiated a series of assignments

that were associated with special security events and focused on ensuring the safety and defense of the nation’s food supply. These assignments involved activities associated with the G8-Summit, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. These special event assignments were, however, regional and limited in scope. Based on heightened security during the national election in November 2004, the FDA determined that it was appropriate to issue a broader nationwide food defense assignment. The first assignment of this nature was issued in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom under Operation Liberty Shield. In October 2004, the FDA initiated a new assignment (FDA Security Surveillance Assignment [FSSA]) that, while similar to the Liberty Shield assignment, was designed to involve federal, state, local, and industry partners to a greater extent than was done in Operation Liberty Shield and to better evaluate our national preparedness capabilities. The primary goals of this national assignment are as follows:

Deter intentional contamination of food through heightened and targeted preventive activities at various points in the chain of supply; and

Exercise the planning and implementation of the system for responding to a period of increased food security risk to identify and address gaps in the system.

The food items selected to be part of the assignment were based on the ORM vulnerability assessments undertaken previously by the FDA. This process allowed the FSSA to focus the limited federal, state, and local public health resources on those food commodities with the highest potential for intentional contamination (CFSAN, 2005). The FSSA was designed to test the FDA’s ability to respond to a threat to the food supply, and as such FDA inspectors entered the premises of domestic firms that produced certain foods to discuss food security and food defense issues with their managers. They also took samples of foods in the above categories, which were tested for a variety of chemical (e.g., cyanide) and microbiological (e.g., botulinum toxin) agents using the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) laboratories. In addition, the FDA conducted an electronic vulnerability analysis of registrations for imported foods in the above categories; it identified 38 “suspicious” products that were subsequently tested using the FERN laboratories.

Response and Recovery

It is likely that a successful attack on the food supply would be detected first at a local level, most likely due to the detection of a sick animal or a sick human, so an effective response requires close coordination with local public health officials. Key aspects of such a response is containment of the threat and communication with the public. Achieving recovery from such an attack requires the means to demonstrate that the food supply is safe, as well as to decontaminate

and dispose of potentially large amounts of tainted food—including food in the homes of consumers—and processing equipment. Once again, good communication with consumers is critical to the success of a recovery program to reassure the public of when a particular food is safe to consume.

Food Safety vs. Food Defense

Although the discussion in this chapter has been focused on food defense, it is imperative that we do not lose sight of the importance of food safety. A deliberate attack on the food supply is plausible and potentially catastrophic both economically as well as in loss of life. However, foodborne illness due to unintentional events is an ongoing and real everyday event resulting in sickness and death. As we continue to move forward in meeting our food defense goals by increasing preparedness, developing response plans and ensuring we have the tools to facilitate recovery, we must also integrate these approaches into our ongoing food safety work. In this context, we are talking about the same foods in the same farms, manufacturers, warehouses, and so on, as well as the same set of inspectors at the local, state, and federal level, and in some instances even the same agents. The overlap is huge and obvious, and the same resources are used for both. Food safety and food defense are here to stay, and it is critical they be integrated to the maximum extent possible to ensure the most efficient use of resources as well as optimizing response to an event.

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In December 2004, at a press conference called to announce his departure as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Tommy Thompson raised both concern and controversy when he remarked that he could not understand why the terrorists had not yet attacked our food supply "because it is so easy to do." Although to date the United States has been spared such a disaster, the many documented examples of unintentional outbreaks of foodborne disease—some of which have sickened hundreds of thousands of people, and killed hundreds—provide a grim basis for estimating the impact of deliberate food adulteration. Due to the wide variety of potential chemical and biological agents that could be introduced at many vulnerable points along the food supply continuum, contaminating food is considered an especially simple, yet effective, means to threaten large populations.

To explore the nature and extent of such threats, possibilities for reducing their impact, and obstacles to this goal, the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened the workshop Foodborne Threats to Health: The Policies and Practice of Surveillance, Prevention, Outbreak Investigations, and International Coordination on October 25 and 26, 2005. Workshop participants discussed the threat spectrum and burden of disease associated with foodborne illness and the role that increasing globalization of food production and distribution plays in the transmission of foodborne disease. Participants also reviewed existing research, policies, and practices concerning foodborne threats in order to identify unmet needs, challenges, and opportunities for improving food safety systems, surveillance, and emergency response.

Although this workshop summary provides an account of the individual presentations, it also reflects an important aspect of the Forum philosophy. The workshop functions as a dialogue among representatives from different sectors and presents their beliefs on which areas may merit further attention. However, the reader should be aware that the material presented here expresses the views and opinions of the individuals participating in the workshop and not the deliberations of a formally constituted IOM study committee. These proceedings summarize only what participants stated in the workshop and are not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of the subject matter or a representation of consensus evaluation.

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Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons Essay

Introduction, epidemiology, bioterrorism-related issue: salmonella typhimurium, differential diagnosis and surveillance.

Bioterrorism is the use of biological agents as weapons by an individual or as a state against the other. Bioterrorist attacks may not be easily distinguished from a natural disease infection. Therefore, the mode of transmission, the rate of transmission, the frequency with which the outbreak is witnessed as well as the geographical location of the areas of outbreak are some factors that the health researchers need to consider in determine the nature of the outbreak.

Natural disease outbreaks are generally seen in specific areas. The disease transmissions are often periodic and the possibility of the outbreak can be foretold by the researchers. On the other hand, a bioterrorist attack is characterized by unpredictable outbreak that is not endemic to a geographical region, occurs at any time, and may exhibit high rate of transmission.

However, it should be noted that this might not be the usual situations. Bioterrorism attacks often take different forms and an outbreak may not be foretold from the past outbreaks. Some of agents and diseases associated with bioterrorism are botulism, cholera (Vibrio cholera), and Escherichia coli 0157: H7, Salmonellosis, Shygella dysenteriae Type 1, and Typhi (Typhoid fever).

A study on the life patterns of the biological agents used as weapons in bioterrorist attacks is vital in managing the emergency cases. The genetically manufactured organisms are “resistant to all known vaccines and drugs, highly contagious, and able to harm thousands of people” (Pavlin 1999, p1). This is also not the case always; some attacks have been characterized by less contagious strains that can be cured by antibiotics.

In this regard, we must maintain high level of diligence in “identifying and reacting to a biological attack since the attack may not follow a regular pattern” (Pavlin, 1999, p1). A mild attack may indicate a more serious case in the future and preventive precautions should be put in place. Essentially, Pavlin (1999) observes that ‘all healthcare providers and public health personnel should have basic epidemiological skills and knowledge of what to expect in such a setting” (p.1).

The bacterium Salmonella enterica serova typhimurium is a disease causing pathogen found in the genus Salmonella in the broad family of Enterobacterioceae . The genus comprises facultatively anaerobic bacteria with spore-less rods and peritrichous flagella. The pathogen causes Salmonellosis infections in humans.

It symptoms that can be seen as from 12 to 72 hours after infection include fever, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps. The infection is transmitted mainly through animal and human waste. This occurs of the contaminated substances find their way to foods and water. Its feeding adaptations and rate of multiplication makes it a suitable agent that can be used by an intentional attacker.

The use of this pathogen as a biological agent was witnessed in the summer of 1984 near Dalles, Oregon. The attack was made by a religious cult led by the Bhagwan Shri Rajneeshee. The attack was a political move aimed blocking a section of the electorate from participating in the election to influence its result. The residents of Wasco County were sickened by the biological agent to enable the Rajneeshee candidate to secure the seat (McDade & Franz, 1998).

The cult had other biological agents but, under the direction of their nurse, settled on the strain that caused food poisoning. They had obtained the medical equipments from a medical supply company on false grounds. Towards the end of August, they spread the bacteria on many common places like doorknobs, drinking glasses, produce in the local market, and on salad bars in ten restaurants (McDade & Franz, 1998). Later on, they went ahead and contaminated the Dalles water supply.

The effect of this was a series of patients reporting cases of fever, nausea, diarrhea, and headache in the nearby health centers. As McDade and Franz (1998) reported about 750 people were infected by the bacterium and within few days, the medical practitioners identified the causal agent to be Salmonella typhimurium . However, it took long before it was established that just one strain causes the different cases. This was reported by the Center for the Disease Control (CDC).

This is an initial consideration of a disease outbreak regardless of its seriousness. It is aimed at determining if the facts surrounding an outbreak are rare types that could indicate a bioterrorist attack.

The diagnosis of the Salmonella typhimurium infection and its subsequent treatment can be arrived at through sequencing the genomes of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 and Salmonella Typhi. The latter is a common infection and such comparison would explain why the former has unique characteristics. It is not easily noticed like typhoid and several cases can go unnoticed.

Primarily, surveillance of a disease refers to the study of the progress of the disease among a group of people. The terrorist attack witnessed in New York City and Washington D.C prompted the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to advocate for strong surveillance on the unusual disease outbreaks or multiple occurrences that can be associated by terrorism (CDC, 2001).

Currently, in the US, an initiative has been started to incorporate information technology in surveillance. In this case, the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) promotes surveillance systems used at the federal, state, and local levels to collect and monitor data on trends and outbreak of diseases. The surveillance strategy was evidenced in managing the typhimurium attack since the local physicians and the hospital caretakers were on their toes to notice the abnormal reports.

In attempt to have control over the occurrences and or/progress of a bioterrorist attacks, the health care providers must be informed that certain occurrences might not be easy to notice, more so if the first cases are not many. There need not to be multiple occurrences of a disease outbreak to indicate an intentional attack. For instance, just one observed case of anthrax inhalation should be enough warning of possible attack. On the other hand, it should be noted that not only primary healthcare providers could detect an unusual outbreak.

An alarm could be raised by a laboratory technician coming across an ‘unusual strains of organisms or the county epidemiologist keeping track of hospital admission or a pharmacists distributing more antibiotics than usual’ (Pavlin 1999, p1).

Further, away from health care providers, an abnormal increase in sales of funeral services could also blow the whistle. Therefore, in order to ensure proper disease surveillance and differential diagnosis, ‘all the epidemiologic data should be tracked and aggressively followed to ensure the most rapid recognition and response’ (Pavlin, 1999, p1).

After a case has been noticed, the usual epidemiological procedures are conducted to confirm the outbreak and compare it to any previous cases. The rates of infection and transmission as well as the geographical setting and the age group attacked are also noted. The information obtained here could help in determining the cause of the outbreak and the possible remedy. The pattern exhibited by the disease will help distinguish an intentional attack from a natural disease outbreak.

Bioterrorism has been a threat to the public at both state and international levels. Since dealing with bioterrorism attacks call for co-operation from different personnel in the public sector, creating awareness and having proper preparation should the major national and international concern.

All the health workers should be continuously provided with the basic epidemiological skills and some elementary clinical diagnosis of agents causing greater challenges. Advanced disease surveillance programs need to instituted to monitor the disease outbreaks and indeed such initiatives have been witnessed in the US CDC programs that extend it services to other countries (CDC, 2001).

CDC. (2001). Recognition of Illness Associated with the Intentional Release of a Biologic Agent . A Weekly Report, 2001/50(41); 893-7. Web.

McDade, J. E. and Franz, D. (1998). US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Bioterrorism as a Public Health Threat , Vol. 4 No 3. Maryland. Web.

Pavlin, J. (1999). Epidemiology of Bioterrorism. Emerging Infectious Diseases , Vol.5 No 4. Washington: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, May 2). Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bioterrorism/

"Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons." IvyPanda , 2 May 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/bioterrorism/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons'. 2 May.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons." May 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bioterrorism/.

1. IvyPanda . "Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons." May 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bioterrorism/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Bioterrorism: Biological Agents as Weapons." May 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bioterrorism/.

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J Forensic Dent Sci
v.2(2); Jul-Dec 2010

Bioterrorism: Challenges and considerations

Nilima prakash.

Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, M.G.V's K.B.H Dental College and Hospital, Panchavati, Nashik – 422 003, Maharashtra, India

1 AECS Maaruti College of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Bioterrorism, the deliberate, private use of biological agents to harm and frighten the people of a state or society, is related to the military use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Attacks with biological agents are among the most insidious and breed the greatest fear. Attacks could go undetected for a long time, potentially exposing a vast number of people, who are unaware of the threat. Dentist's responses to catastrophes have been redefined by bioterrorism. Accurate and substantial information given to the public by credible public health and medical experts can do much to allay their fears and encourage their cooperation and participation in constructive, organized community response efforts. The dental profession could potentially play a significant role in the emergency response to a major bioterrorism attack.

Introduction

Bioterrorism covers a very broad spectrum of concerns, from catastrophic terrorism with mass casualties, to microevents using low technology but producing civil unrest, disruption, disease, disabilities, and death.[ 1 ] The threat of bioterrorism, long ignored and denied, has heightened over the past few years. We are ill prepared to deal with a terrorist attack that employs biological weapons. As was done in response to the nuclear threat, the medical community should educate the public and policy makers about the threat. In the longer term, we need to be prepared to detect, diagnose, characterize epidemiologically, and respond appropriately to biological weapons use and the threat of new and re-emerging infections. On the immediate horizon, we cannot delay the development and implementation of strategic plans for coping with civilian bioterrorism.[ 2 ]

The use of biological weapons for terror is ancient.

Assyrian politicians dumped fungus from rye into their opponents′ wells, giving them fatal ergot poisoning in 650 BC.[ 3 ]
Armies besieging a town relied on increased disease among the defending population and threw dead animals into water supplies, to spread it.[ 3 ]
Tatars of the 14th century spread bubonic plague by catapulting diseased corpses into towns.[ 3 ]
In World War I, United States and Germany developed biological weapons to contaminate animal fodder.[ 3 ]
In Cold War, United States and Soviet Union created arsenals of biological agents for use in battle and against civilian populations.[ 3 ]
Dr. Anton Dilger worked with cultures of anthrax and glanders, between 1915 and 1916, with the intention of biological sabotage on behalf of the German Government.[ 4 ]

Modern bioterrorist incidents

In 1984, pseudo-Buddhist Rajneeshee cult distributed Salmonella in restaurants and grocery stores in Oregon to poison civic leaders and gain control of the local Government.[ 3 ]
In 1992, Russia had the ability to launch missiles containing weapons-grade small pox. A number of terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda, have explored the use of biological agents.[ 3 ]
In 1995, Sarin gas was released in a Tokyo subway, by the religious sect Aum Shinrikyo, which immediately killed 12 and hospitalized 5000 people.[ 3 ]
In 2001, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to a television news anchor, US senator, and others, leading to the death of a few people and hospitalization of a few others.[ 3 ]

Biological Agents

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention ranks the biological agents and diseases that have the potential to be used as weapons into 3 categories.[ 5 , 6 ]

Category A biological agents (CDC)

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Object name is JFDS-2-59-g001.jpg

Category B biological agents (CDC)

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Object name is JFDS-2-59-g002.jpg

Category C: Tan viruses comprise this category. These could be used for mass dissemination in the future because of their availability, ease of production, dissemination, and high morbidity and mortality rates.

Role of a dentist in response to a bioterrorism attack

Dentistry can contribute valuable assets, both in personnel and in facilities, to the preparation for and in the immediate response to a bioterrorist attack and its aftermath. These assets can make a significant difference in the outcome. In a major bioterrorist attack, the local needs could be massive and immediate. As hospitals become filled, alternate sites for the provision of health care may be required, and dental offices could fill that need.[ 7 ]

Preparation before an attack

Education of the dental profession regarding the medical and oral manifestations of diseases that may result from a bioterrorist attack will be important. Formal plans for an organized response by dental personnel in case of an attack must be developed, integrated into each community's response plan, and practiced periodically. Dental offices are equipped with potentially useful equipment and supplies and should be prepared to serve as decentralized auxiliary hospitals in case the need arises. Educational programs that provide information about potential biological weapons should be developed and made available to dentists through continuing education courses and to dental students as a part of the dental school curriculum.[ 7 ]

Up-to-date sources of information should be developed that can be accessed quickly during an attack and reference materials that can be distributed for use as needed. These quick references should be able to provide dentists with a sufficient level of information concerning the particular agent used in an attack to enable them to respond effectively. Dentists have contact with the general public on a regular basis. Armed with knowledge and connected to scientifically based information sources about agents that may be used in bioterrorism, dentists can educate their patients and correct misinformation that may be circulating throughout the general public. Special training may be needed for risk communication. Dental offices are located throughout any given community and have many of the resources that hospital facilities have: sterilization equipment, air and gas lines, suction equipment, radiology capabilities, instruments, and needles. They may be called on to serve as local “minihospitals” when local hospital facilities become overwhelmed or when the concentration of patients is to be avoided, as in attacks involving contagious agents. Predesignated dental offices may act as stockpiling sites for materials and supplies to be distributed in the event of an attack.[ 7 ]

The key to successful preparation for an effective response to a major bioterrorism attack is the development of a response plan that is integrated into each community's disaster response plan and testing it by conducting mock attacks.[ 7 ]

Assistance during an attack

The assistance that dentists and other dental personnel can provide during the first few days of a significant bioterrorist attack will vary according to the needs of the community and the resources available. These may run the gamut from the packaging of medications in individual doses to providing a major portion of primary medical care in a quarantined area if physicians are unavailable because they have become disabled or have died.[ 7 ]

In 1999, the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biomedicalnone Informatics deployed the first automated bioterrorism detection system, called Real-Time Outbreak Disease Surveillance (RODS). RODS is designed to collect data from many data sources and use them to perform signal detection, that is, to detect a possible bioterrorism event at the earliest possible moment. RODS, and other systems similar to it, collect data from sources, including clinic data, laboratory data, and data from over-the-counter drug sales.[ 8 ]

Surveillance and Notification

Disease surveillance systems are critical not only for the initial detection of an outbreak but also for monitoring the extent and spread of the outbreak and for determining when it is over. Managing a large outbreak would require gathering information from contact tracing and source-of-exposure investigations, as well as information about the availability of critical medicine, medical equipment, and the handling of corpses.[ 9 ]

Since there is incubation period before the clinical manifestations of diseases that have been used as weapons in bioterrorist attacks become apparent, the initial recognition that an attack has been perpetrated may be difficult. Dentists can serve as an excellent surveillance resource, as they can detect characteristic intraoral or cutaneous lesions, if they are present and report them to public health authorities. They also may be able to detect unusual patterns of employee absences or patients′ cancelling or missing appointments that are not explainable by recognizable local circumstances. These occurrences may well be a harbinger of serious events about to happen.[ 7 ]

Diagnosis and Monitoring

Besides assisting in the early identification of the disease or diseases introduced in a bioterrorist attack, dentists can provide individual patient diagnosis by observing the physical and behavioral signs people manifest when the nature of the attack has been determined. Salivary swabs may yield important diagnostic or treatment information and can be collected by dentists for laboratory testing to determine diagnosis when necessary or to monitor treatment progress.[ 7 ]

Dentists can refer suspicious cases to the appropriate specialists for confirmation, treatment, or both.[ 7 ]

Immunizations

In the event that rapid inoculation or vaccination of the public is required to prevent the spread of infection by a biological agent, dentists may be recruited to assist in a mass inoculation program.[ 7 ]

Whenever there are a greater number of casualties that the medical care system cannot accommodate or whenever medical care resources are overwhelmed, some system for establishing priorities for treatment must be established. Appropriately trained dentists can fulfill this function, thus freeing up medical professionals to provide definitive care for the large number of patients. This system should be established now, in preparation for potential future attacks.[ 7 ]

Medical care augmentation

Because of their training and experience, many dentists may be able to augment and assist medical and surgical personnel in providing definitive treatment for victims of bioterrorist attacks. Some of the services dentists may provide include the following:

treatment of cranial and facial injuries;
providing or assisting in administration of anesthesia;
starting intravenous lines;
performing appropriate surgery and suturing;
assisting in shock management;
assisting in stabilizing patients;
collecting preantibiotic blood samples;
taking medical histories; and
providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.[ 7 ]

Decontamination and Infection Control

Dentists and dental auxiliaries are well versed in infection control procedures and can apply their knowledge in reducing the spread of infections—between patients and between patients and caregivers—in mass disasters. The decontamination of casualties, when appropriate, can be accomplished effectively by dental personnel. Dentists who have experience in practicing in a hospital setting may be especially valuable and may be particularly equipped to provide services that require a close working relationship with physicians.[ 7 ]

After the initial attack

Dentists trained in forensic odontology will work closely with local Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams, (DMORTs). Dentists also may provide local surveillance to detect any spreading of disease beyond the original area of attack or re-emergence of infections in the original attack area.[ 7 ]

Terrorism with biological weapons is likely to remain rare. Because the magnitude of the threat is so difficult to calculate, however, it is sensible to focus on dual-use remedies: pursuing medical countermeasures that will improve public health in general, regardless of whether major biological attacks ever occur. This would include strengthening the international system of monitoring disease outbreaks in humans, animals, and plants and developing better pharmaceutical drugs.[ 10 ] The current public discussion of the threat of biologic terrorism is an opportunity to evaluate our collective capabilities and to assess weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Raising the level of national preparedness will require leadership and action by responsible federal agencies. A thoughtful analysis of the consequences of unpreparedness provides a mandate for action.[ 11 ] For longer-term solutions, the medical community must educate both the public and policy makers about bioterrorism and build a global consensus condemning its use.[ 2 ] Dentists can provide a valuable service to their patients and communities by providing quality information about the potential for attacks, what to watch for, and how to respond appropriately should an attack occur.[ 12 ]

Source of Support: Nil

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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Each of the three papers collected in this chapter address a different aspect of a single, highly publicized scenario for foodborne terrorism: the intentional contamination of the U.S. milk supply with botulinum toxin, as described in a May 2005 New York Times op-ed essay by Lawrence Wein (Wein, 2005). The article sparked an intense debate about the possible security risk it posed, a ...
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