Can We Handle An Attack???

Can we handle a bioterrorism attack on America? I say no. After the 2001 anthrax letters America tightened up and decided to research ways to prevent such a scenario. This country has spent a lot of money trying to research it and also find ways to prevent attacks. In 2002, America spent millions of tax payers dollars on labs and scientists to research such a thing. Did tax payers know this is what they helped pay for? Most likely not. But is it for the common good of humanity? After reading an article entitled "Antrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror" published in 2008, I have formulated my own opinion to this, Microbes such as Antrax, are too powerful. A scholar from Stanford calculated that if two pounds of anthrax spores were dropped over an American city, it would kill over 100,000 people, even if antibiotics were spread as fast as they can. These microbes can wipe out entire communities, ecosystems, and basically anything. This world started with microbes and with some human help they can end the world. My solution to the problem? Simple. Stop access to deadly microbes if possible, get rid of all the people trying to use microbes for bioterrorism, and last but not least if an attack happens your best bet to do is let the microbe take its course and avoid every person so they can't contract what you sadly got.


Resources: "Anthrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror" by Eric Lipton and Scott Shane published August  third, 2008, New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/03anthrax.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

The Enemy Within

Plague Time is a book by Paul W. Ewald and is the main topic of the article I read. The book is about the complex relationships between humans and the microbial. The author of the article is by Julie Parsonnet,  a Sanford University school of medicine graduate who works for Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine. The article mainly focuses on what makes this book Plague Time bad, such as its broadness; which results in overstatements with the many categories Ewald took on. Parsonnet does give Ewald credit for the work he has done and the information he gathered, but goes strongly against some things he has to say; such as the statement that Edwal put in his book saying “a mix of environmental and genetic factors [play a role in every disease].” Pasonnet argues that some diseases are strictly genetic and no environmental factors take role. Personally I agree with Pasonnet because of how complex our DNA is. I feel as if a microbe, or in many cases microbes, can cause the onset, worsening, or even cease to diseases. People though out the world all have their own idea of what roles microbes play in the role of diseases, but no one can ever know, since there is not a clean human to be tested on. Scientists can test on rats, monkeys, mice, and even gorillas but the fact is we do not have the exact DNA of humans, who are also clean, and in an area microbe free. The most intresting part of this article was the fact that it turns out worms have more DNA than us humans, but our DNA is thought to be more complex.

Works Cited: 

Plague Time: How Stealth Infections Cause Cancers, Heart Disease, and Other Deadly Ailments. Paul W. Ewald. vi + 288 pp. The Free Press, 2000. $25.

The Enemy Within. Julie Parsonnet. Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine