While I appreciate the sentiments of the letter. It isn't referenced,
so one has to ask:
> Iran has no less than 38 intermediate range nuclear missiles ready
> to go.
Evidence?
Re: smallpox
> You are talking about one infected person could cause a wildfire affect
> across a nation and the globe. This viscous disease will kill within a week.
> The USA for example only has a total of 7 million vaccines available.
Once the outbreak became known we would likely have a tremendous
hunkering down by people not traveling anywhere near locations
where there are known outbreaks. The damage to economies might
be much worse than the damage from the smallpox itself.
It is also true that one could probably scale up a crash vaccination
production program if required. You could synthesize the required
DNA vectors around the world and do bulk fermentation growth in
wine or beer manufacturing equipment. You might not get the best
vaccine out of it but something is better than nothing.
> SMALLPOX escaped the controlled laboratories with the end of the Russian
> communist regime.
Credible evidence?
> The required resources, technology, and human endeavor are at our
> collective fingertips.
True, neutralizing antibodies produced in bulk would be much more
effective than vaccines at stopping the spread of viral diseases.
A very clever technique *has* been published that demonstrates it is
possible to use a mutated anthrax toxin to neutralize the normal anthrax
toxin by disrupting the channel in forms. One would need bulk production
of this, though one could imagine the conversion of insulin production
facilities in a crisis situation.
I don't mind being urged to action, the claims need to be backed by
credible evidence though. For example I've seen claims that bin Laden
obtained soviet nuclear missle warheads from the Chechnyans, but the
question becomes *where* did the Chechnyans get them.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:56 MDT