Anthrax Attacks – Worry Over Stockpile

There’s Worry Over Stockpile – A Decade After The Anthrax Attacks:

I found this interesting and thought it worthwhile to pass on to you readers.

According to the Associated Press, anthrax vaccine (check), antibiotics (check), botulism treatment (check) and smallpox vaccine (check). Ten years after the anthrax attacks brought home the reality of bioterrorism, the nation has a stockpile of some basic tools to fight back against a few of the threats that worry defense experts most.

These defenses are not just gathering dust to await another attack. In August, a Minneapolis hospital had to dip into the stockpile to treat a critically ill tourist patient who had somewhere on his Midwest vacation, breathed the anthrax spores that lingered naturally in the dirt in parts of the country. They administered a kind of medication to the man that was not available in October 2001 that treated the anthrax spores sent through the mail killing five people and making an additional 17 sickened.

According to the report from the Associated Press, there’s a wide range of concern that the nation’s arsenal hasn’t grown fast enough. After a decade, there are no treatments for a number of bugs on the worry list, and also little to offer for other threats like a radiation emergency. Even a long-promised next-generation anthrax vaccine, that would be easier to produce, hasn’t arrived yet. Nor is there information on how to treat children.

There’s enough smallpox vaccine for everyone, plus some of a specially formulated version safe for cancer patients and others with weak immune systems. There’s an improved version of the decades-old anthrax vaccine used in 2001. There are a few treatments for toxins produced by anthrax and botulism, and a smallpox treatment is due soon.

According to the report, federal health officials are working to jumpstart production of more countermeasures and they say that more than 80 candidates are in advanced development.

References:

News & Messenger Serving Prince William, Manassas & Manassas Park, Virginia – article report by the Associated Press


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