Be prepared?

Wed, 03 Oct 2001 22:15:00 +0000

On Sept. 11, hours after New York's twin towers crumbled to the ground, the state Department of Health and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were on the scene sampling the rubble and the air. While officials expressed concern over exposure to asbestos, acidic gas and other contaminated dust and debris, their greater fear was that the crashing planes might have discharged weaponized anthrax, smallpox or plague. They were relieved to find no evidence of biological attack. Some were also surprised.

Three weeks later, with lower Manhattan a war zone, Americans face a new reality: Police vehicles barricade reservoirs against acts of biological and chemical terror. Crop dusters and hazardous waste trucks, allegedly targeted by terrorists for delivery of killer cargo, are under 24-hour surveillance. And talking TV heads invoke nightmare scenarios of bioterrorism, which they say could claim millions of lives.

In case of an actual germ attack, what should we, individually, do? A recent New York Times story reported a sudden flurry of prescriptions for the antibiotic ciprofloxacin -- shown in peer-reviewed medical literature to be superior in treating anthrax and other weapons of biological war. The doctors the story cited labeled the effort misguided, and, said the Times, felt that "Cipro would probably be useless in treating anthrax."

Salon.com > Pamela Weintraub

Be prepared?