U.S. Assesses Biochemical Concerns

Amid evidence that hostile nations have developed deadly biological and chemical weapons, the federal government has spent billions of dollars over the last five years to build the country’s capacity to handle an attack on U.S. cities by anthrax, smallpox, nerve gas or other lethal agents.

Antibiotics have been stockpiled. Vaccines are being purchased. Thousands of police, doctors and other “first responders” at disaster sites have been trained. Spending on preparedness has more than tripled since 1998, making it one of the fastest-growing federal programs of recent years.

Now, with the nation on notice that terrorists are serious about striking U.S. cities, federal officials face a tricky question of how quickly to accelerate their efforts.

Many lawmakers say that America has to improve its safety net, but some want to move immediately. On Thursday, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called for $1 billion of the $40-billion emergency package that Congress passed last week to go to “public health threats”--a set of programs that includes preparations for a biological attack.

“I am absolutely convinced we’ll have a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. The question is not if, it’s when, where and what will the magnitude be,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of a House subcommittee on national security. President Bush on Thursday created a new Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security to coordinate the dozens of federal agencies involved in America’s defense against terrorism.

Their fears are driven by the sheer devastation that could come from a chemical, biological or--almost unthinkably--a nuclear attack. Nightmare scenarios are easy to draw. One White House office estimated in 1993 that an anthrax release in Washington could kill as many as 3 million people.

And yet terrorism experts say it is difficult to assess how immediate the threat from unconventional weapons truly is--and therefore how it stacks up against other expensive priorities, such as improving airport security.

“There’s a threat here, but it’s a longer-term problem,” said Jason Pate, a terrorism specialist at California’s Monterey Institute of International Studies. “We need to be worried about the security of cockpit doors in airplanes, not buying gas masks, at this point.”

U.S. officials have believed since the early 1990s that Iraq had a stockpile of biological weapons, and Iraq has confirmed having such a weapons program in the 1980s. Iran, Syria, Libya and nine other nations also are known or thought to have biological weapons. The United States suspended its offensive biological weapons program in 1969, and it has been destroying its chemical weapons as ordered by a 1985 law.

U.S. intelligence officials have suspected for years that non-state terrorists--including Osama bin Laden--were trying to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction, although there is no confirmation that they have succeeded. One alleged Bin Laden aide testified this year that he had helped in an effort to buy uranium, a potential component of nuclear weapons, for Bin Laden in the early 1990s. But he did not know if the transaction had been completed.

Still, experts are divided over whether terrorists could overcome the technical hurdles in launching an attack with unconventional weapons.

When the shadowy Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo released nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system six years ago, many experts shivered at the thought that a small group had managed to kill 13 people and sicken thousands more. But others noted that the cult had reportedly tried eight other times to release anthrax and other toxic substances, without producing any known damage.

“This is not easy to do, you know,” said Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, senior scientist at the Monterey Institute. To be effective, he said, a terrorist would have to grow a virulent strain of a virus or bacterium, suspended in a solution while keeping it alive, “and figure out how to spray it out of a nozzle without clogging the nozzle,” he said. “You need to specially design a nozzle.”

The Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon signaled to some experts that terrorists might try biochemical weapons next. And yet others saw the attacks as evidence that terrorists are relying on familiar tools, not new toxic agents.

“Bugs and gas are never going to replace bullets and bombs as terrorist weapons,” said Frank Cilluffo, who tracks terrorism at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

More than 40 federal agencies and offices have some role in defending against a terrorist attack with a weapon of mass destruction, and they spend about $1.7 billion annually doing so. It is one part of the nation’s $10-billion effort to combat terrorism.

Many of the federal programs were created after two events in 1995--the Aum Shinrikyo attack in Japan and the Oklahoma City bombing--left federal officials alarmed about the vulnerability of the United States to a terrorist attack.

Now, as officials decide how to boost their efforts, a set of programs already in place can be ramped up and expanded. At the same time, many officials and experts say, there is much yet to be done.

Because local officials would be the first to arrive at most disaster sites, the Department of Justice and Federal Emergency Management Agency have trained more than 273,000 police, firefighters and health workers in how to respond. And doctors have been trained to identify symptoms of anthrax and other agents.

In fact, the Bush administration alerted local health departments to be on the lookout for unusual infectious diseases after last week’s attacks. The warning remained in effect through Tuesday.

“We’re in . . . a lot better shape than three or four years ago, when we weren’t ready for any biological disaster,’ Zilinskas said. “It never used to be that public health people talked to the FBI and police agencies. Now, that’s happening.”

But turnover at police and fire departments means that the training program should be extended and constant, terrorism experts say. And many local agencies are short on protective equipment, especially for biological hazards. Officials say they are better equipped for chemical disasters, as that equipment also is used for traditional hazardous materials spills.

“We’ve been so short-staffed that we can’t even keep up with calls from the public,” said Dr. Carol Peterson, bio-terrorism coordinator for the L.A. County Department of Health Services. “If we had a huge, massive exposure in a terrorist attack, I think we’d have difficulty responding to that. We need more money, more resources and more people.”

A survey of 186 hospitals this year in four Northwestern states found that only 20% had plans for biological or chemical weapons incidents. Fewer than half had a decontamination unit with ventilation and showers, and only 6% had the recommended minimum materials to handle a nerve gas attack of the type conducted by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan.

“Hospital emergency departments generally are not prepared in an organized fashion to treat victims of chemical or biological terrorism,” said the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health. Most troubling, some officials say, is that hospitals nationwide have removed beds and cut emergency room staffing, suggesting that the health system could be swamped in a crisis.

The Department of Health and Human Services has spent more than $104 million in the last two years to build a stockpile of vaccines and pharmaceuticals that could be used preventively or shipped to a diaster site. The General Accounting Office, a watchdog agency that reports to Congress, has largely praised the effort but has found problems with the management of the stockpile.

Because of poor inventory controls, the GAO said last year, the stockpile included expired drugs. And some materials were stocked below required levels. At one location, the GAO found that the entire supply of antidote for cyanide poisoning had expired.

The pharmaceutical inventory and a separate effort to stockpile vaccines are aimed at several biological threats, including smallpox and anthrax.

Anthrax, caused by bacteria, was developed as a biological warfare agent by both the Soviet Union and the United States. About 80% of people who contract it die without treatment, but the disease cannot be passed from one person to another.

The Pentagon initially wanted to vaccinate 2.4 million active and reserve military personnel, but production problems have forced it to curtail its plans. There are no vaccination plans for civilians, and stockpiled antibiotics would be used in case of an attack.

Smallpox, caused by a virus, kills about 30% of those who contract it. It is contagious, and there is no known treatment.

Most Americans older than 25, however, have been vaccinated for smallpox, and those vaccines might still convey some immunity. But the disease was eradicated as a natural phenomenon in 1980, and children are not vaccinated today.

About 12 million or fewer doses of an older smallpox vaccine exist today in the United States. The federal government has contracted for 40 million doses using a new method, but they are not expected to arrive until 2004.

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Zitner reported from Washington and Polakovic from Los Angeles.