| Anthrax is not a good terror weapon. It was developed
by the United States (which still holds the world's
largest stockpiles of weapons grade Anthrax) as a
battlefield weapon, because there is no possibility of
runaway infection. Anthrax has no secondary communicability. People who have the disease cannot give it to others around them. One must be directly exposed to the spores to get the disease. This makes Anthrax a great weapon to use to cripple an opposing army, because ONLY that army thus sprayed will get sick (tying up additional logistical and medical resources to keep them from dying). To use Anthrax effectively requires large numbers of delivery systems, something a terrorist would not have available. Real bio-terror (as opposed to a staged fake incident) requires a pathogen with a high secondary communicability, so that a target group infected with it proceeds to infect more people around them, spreading the disease without additional effort on the part of the terrorists. Therefore, Anthrax is a poor choice for real terrorists to use, but a great choice for someone planning to stage a phony terror event. |
See also Biological Weapons as Disinformation
