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Threat Assessment: Anthrax Difficult to Use as Mass Weapon, Expert Says In a worst-case scenario, a well-organized terrorist operation with access to high financing and technology could kill dozens, not thousands of people, according to Steven Milloy, a Cato Institute scholar writing in the Washington Times. Milloy said an anthrax victim needs to inhale 10,000 anthrax spores to begin an infection, an amount that is difficult to deliver. “Wool sorters inhale 150 to 700 anthrax spores per hour continually without danger,” said Milloy, author of Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams. Technical difficulties make delivering anthrax extremely difficult. First the spores must be powderized; liquefied spores would simply fall to the ground and be ineffective. Producing mass quantities of powderized anthrax, however, would require hundreds of millions of dollars of facilities and development. Employing disgruntled former Soviet biological warfare personnel would be insufficient, Milloy said. It is not surprising, Milloy said, that only the United States and Russia have succeeded in powderizing anthrax for weaponization. If a terrorist organization were successful in acquiring powderized anthrax, it would still face the hurdle of delivering the weapon. Once released into the air, the spores would be affected by atmospheric conditions. “Too much wind will disperse spores into harmless concentrations. Not enough wind and the spores will fall to the ground and not arise again in harmful concentrations,” Milloy said. Milloy criticized those who are alarming the public and said that the health system is handling the current problem adequately. What could drive the public health system to a halt, however, is if every case of flu were investigated as a possible case of anthrax (Steven Milloy, Washington Times, Oct. 15).
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