The only real gas mask I would trust my life to would be a Micronel M-95 mask. (not that you know me anyways)<br><br>http://www.botachtactical.com/micsafm95.html (beware of these guys, though)<br><br>This will protect against all known short term B/C. All the other stuff is junk, kiddie toys for protesters. There have been documented cases of people getting Gulf War Syndrome from used military surplus gas masks. Don't mess around. If they want just a respirator then buy a MSA Advantage 1000.<br><br>Real Info:<br><br>http://www.asod.org/index.htm<br><br>Good luck<br><br>GATOR<br><br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by GATOR on 09/20/01 02:46 AM (server time).</EM></FONT></P>

There are certainly a number of suitable commercial masks available. As I stated in a prior posting, the FEMA/USPHS team that I deployed to New York with uses an MSA PAPR with commercially available filters. <br><br>Similar to SCUBA equipment and most anything, people have strong opinions as to what is "best" while many things are suitable for use.<br><br>In the case of bio-terrorism, a simple respirator with a mechanical filter is acceptable, as agents are spread through inhalation or ingestion. To the best of my knowledge, there are no bio agents that are able to pass through intact skin.<br><br>Anthrax is spread in two ways: inhalation, which results in a far more lethal pulmonary infection and through open wounds which is not as serious and rarely life threatening. Anthrax pneumonia is not contagious.<br><br>Other, particularly viral, agents are far more serious, as they are contagious. In our era of global travel, it is very unlikely that use of a viral pathogen would result in casualties in only one geographic region and could spread world-wide.<br><br>Simply wearing a mask does not offer protection against either chemical or biological hazards. Tyvek and other similar suits with hoods and booties, nitrile gloves, and 10% bleach are also important.<br><br>Jeffery S. Anderson, M.D.<br><br>

Jeffery, your reply coincides with a letter in today's Wall Street Journal (see below) regarding the potential danger from biological weapons. However, you seem to beleive that viral infections are present a higher risk than the author beleives. The author does not focus on primary infections from "typical" biological warfare agents (Anthax, Small Pox, etct.), where the victims come in direct contact with the infecting agent (spores, etc.). They will most likely become infected and most if not all will die. But he down plays the risk of secondary infection primarily because the victims perish to soon to become transmitters of further desease. Viral infections, on the other hand, are highly contageous, but are not normally leathal. But your message indicates that there may be some risk from viral agents. Am I interpreting the facts correctly?<br><br>I've also posted a second story from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution regarding the risk of biological agents from the CDC in the event of an attack on that facility.<br>=======================================<br> Biological Warfare: The 'Good' News -- letter to the editor<br><br>Wall Street Journal<br><br>September 20, 2001<br><br>As noted in your Sept. 18 story "Are We Prepared for the Unthinkable?" history records various incidents -- including accidents -- involving either biological or chemical warfare agents. Although bacteria and other micro-organisms can sicken or even kill an individual patient who is exposed, their ability to spread and cause "secondary" cases is limited. The reason is that if they are to survive, bacteria and viruses need living hosts to provide shelter and sustenance, and they cannot afford to kill their hosts too quickly and too often.<br><br>During the past half-century, university and government laboratories working with infectious agents that cause diseases like anthrax and bubonic plague have, unintentionally, performed what amounts to small-scale biological warfare "experiments." In other words, there were laboratory accidents in which organisms were released.<br><br>The outcomes of these incidents are revealing and somewhat reassuring. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, which used to monitor these mishaps, recorded 109 laboratory-associated infections during the period 1947-1973, but not a single secondary case -- that is, infection of a patient's family member or community contact -- was reported.<br><br>The medical literature similarly reveals only a handful of people secondarily infected. In 1948-50, there were reports of six cases of Q fever (a disease caused by intracellular parasites called Rickettsia) in employees of a commercial laundry that handled linens and uniforms from a laboratory that conducted research with the agent, one case of Q fever in a visitor to a laboratory, and two cases of Q fever in household contacts of a laboratory scientist. A secondary case of a disease caused by an Ebola-like virus in the wife of a primary case was presumed to have been transmitted sexually two months after his dismissal from the hospital in 1967. Finally, three secondary cases of smallpox were reported in two laboratory-associated outbreaks in England in 1973 and 1978.<br><br>As a public health threat, most biological agents act much like the chemical sarin in the 1995 release in the Tokyo subway by terrorists, with injury limited primarily to those exposed initially. The appearance of symptoms would be more delayed for a biological agent than a chemical -- the incubation period for bubonic plague is two to seven days and that for anthrax two to three days, for example. Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics, assuming that the offending organism is identified early enough and that there are enough drugs on hand.<br><br>Certain viruses, such as influenza and rhinoviruses (which cause most common colds), are highly contagious, spreading readily from one person to another (and viral infections cannot readily be treated with drugs), but their infections are seldom life-threatening.<br><br>Thus, although a future lethal epidemic caused by progressive person-to-person spread of infectious agents is unlikely, their widespread dispersion -- throughout a subway system or in the ventilating system of an office building, for example -- potentially could infect thousands of people.<br><br>The prospect of exposure to biological weapons should elicit not hysteria, but vigilance and planning. Louis Pasteur, the father of bacteriology, was correct that "chance favors only the prepared mind."<br><br>Henry I. Miller, M.D.<br> <br>(The author, a physician and molecular biologist, was an FDA official, 1979-94.)<br>=================================================<br>Offering prayers, assistant; CDC steps up security after terrorist attacks<br><br>The Atlanta Journal and Constitution <br><br>September 20, 2001 <br><br>By: Ben Smith <br><br>A commercial jet, hijacked by terrorists, plunges into laboratories next to Atlanta's Emory University and explodes, unleashing some of the world's most deadly viruses. <br><br>It's bad science fiction, say officials for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DeKalb County site for research laboratories that house the world's most contagious viruses. <br><br>"Anything that would destroy the buildings would destroy the viruses," said Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the CDC. "They are very delicate, and they don't survive in the open air very long. Viruses don't live outside the human body very easily." The CDC is one of only eight institutions in the world to have the highest level of containment, called "Biosafety Level 4," for storing and handling the most dangerous known microbes, such as the viruses that cause Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and Machupo fever. <br><br>But the strength of its existing security didn't stop CDC officials from taking extra steps last week immediately after three jets commandeered by terrorists slammed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, killing thousands. <br><br>Before noon after the attacks, the agency asked nonessential employees to leave the CDC's main campus on Clifton Road, while members of the agency's bioterrorism and chemical weapons teams were sent to a more secure facility elsewhere in metro Atlanta. <br><br>DeKalb police shut down traffic for nearly two hours to complete the evacuation of nonessential personnel, and Georgia state troopers were stationed in front of the facility's four entrances. <br><br>The campus has remained on "heightened security," said Reynolds, who declined to discuss any of the steps taken by the agency. <br><br>"Some (security measures) are visible and some are not," Reynolds said, adding that there are no plans to upgrade security at the CDC, the only U.S. agency not headquartered in Washington. <br><br>Before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the CDC conducted a comprehensive review of its security. Among the changes were tighter restrictions on people, cars and packages coming in and out of the campus. <br><br>In recent years, the institution created new federal regulations governing the transportation of dangerous germs for research, such as requiring health officials to register and track anyone who receives or sends infectious viruses, bacteria or other microbes, and forbidding anyone without adequate laboratory facilities from receiving them. <br><br>The new regulations were prompted, in part, by a rash of terrorist acts, including the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building as well as the arrest the same year of an Ohio white supremacist who allegedly obtained bubonic plague bacteria through the mail from a Maryland biotechnology company. <br><br>Meanwhile, the CDC's campus was expanded in 1998 when the agency annexed 17 acres around the facility. The razing of houses around the CDC and the expansion of the gates have created a wider buffer for the facility, which has the unintended effect of making much of the CDC's campus more remote. <br><br>Reynolds said the new buildings planned for the additional acreage will, of course, feature state-of-the art security systems. <br><br>Reynolds added that stepping up CDC security wasn't the only response the institution had made to last week's attacks. The agency tapped into supplies from the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile and had several truckloads of supplies sent to New York, including medicine, bandages, IV equipment and ventilators. <br><br><br><br>Willie Vannerson<br>McHenry, IL

>>Viral infections, on the other hand, are highly contageous, but are not normally leathal<<<br><br>From what I've read about the Ebola virus, two forms of it are lethal in most people infected within a few weeks. I believe the Ebola Zaire variant has over a 90% fatality rate. It is highly contaigous through contact with bodily fluids, which are produced in abundance by the victums in the terminal phase of the infection (vomiting, bleading, etc). The disease can be transmitted even after the host is dead (through contact with bodily fluids or eating contaminated meat).<br><br>There is one form (Ebola Reston) that appears to be even more highly contaigous (it can be transmitted through breathing), but that form doesn't seem to be deadly to humans (thankfully). If a new form appears or can be developed that combines the high lethality of Ebola Zaire with the airborne contaigousness of Ebola Reston, deploying the virus would be trivially easy and the results could be catastrophic on a national or global level. <br><br>Let's hope that there isn't a boilogical lab somewhere funded by Osama bin Laden's fortune with a fanatical and demented genetic engineer working on this potential weapon.<br><br>

>>>There is one form (Ebola Reston) that appears to be even more highly contaigous (it can be transmitted through breathing), ...<<<<br><br>But it still would require a host to transmit. It quickly dies outside of a host body, which makes it unsuitable in an attack, thank goodness. Scary stuff, though.<br><br>Willie Vannerson<br>McHenry, IL

I just completed the Bio-Terrorism module for our team so the material is as fresh as possible for someone of my age!<br><br>Regarding your comments about viral agents, smallpox and ebola are rarely survivable. The Russians attempted to genetically combine the viruses so that someone exposed would contract both Ebola and Smallpox. Each has a 80-95% mortality rate. No one would survive the combined infection.<br><br>The most likely Bio threat is anthrax. The organism is readily available, easy to manufacture and distribute, and has a high lethality. It is not transmissible from person to person and therefore a "controllable" agent. Dispersed at the superbowl, it would likely kill most everyone infected, but not others that they come into contact with, such as health care workers and family members, etc.<br><br>The cult that dumped SARIN in the Tokyo subway tried UNSUCCESSFULLY to develop Anthrax as a weapon. It is easy for governments to do, less so for terrorists.<br><br>Viral agents and bacterial agents that are capable of spread from infected to healthy people are not controllable. Should Ebola or Smallpox be released in a terrorist incident, there is potential to spread the infection internationally. It is not reasonable to think that those immediately infected would die before infecting others. Ebola is spread through contact with infected secretions, Smallpox is spread as colds and influenza by aerosol droplets.<br><br>Those of us that are old enough to have Smallpox vaccination scars are NOT protected against Smallpox today.<br><br>The problem with infectious agents is that they can and will spread once delivered. This makes them a less than suitable weapon.<br><br>Remember that the THREAT to employ chemical and biological weapons is far more a concern than the actual release. We all remember images of the troops during desert storm wearing their MOPP gear and hunkering down in bunkers, unable to do much of anything more, when there was a THREAT of a chemical release.<br><br>Imagine the effect on a large city if someone would announce that they had released or would release an agent at a given time. Imagine the panic and effect on our society.<br><br>It appears to me that the government is more concerned about a chemical threat than any other, followed by possibly anthrax. A distant third is a "suitcase" nuclear device.<br><br>Jeffery S. Anderson, M.D.<br><br>

Beachdoc : As a member of FEMA, please comment on the statement (myth ? ) by some survivalists that FEMA has the authority to suspend the U.S. Constitution. Thanks !! <br><br>

To clarify my position: I am a member of a FEMA/USPHS sponsored disaster/weapons of mass destruction team. I am not a "member" of FEMA.<br>I can offer no comment on your question.<br><br>Jeffery S. Anderson, M.D.<br><br>

All you would need is one person willing to become a martyr for the cause, just like the hijackers last week were. This person would be voluntarily infected with the virus, travel to the US, sneeze on a couple of people, and a chain reaction would begin that would travel like wildfire through the population. For that matter, a terrorist in a foreign country could slip something into the food of a single unknowing person scheduled to get onto a plane to the US. There would be no need to create a bomb that would scatter the virus or to infect a municipal water supply or load a crop-duster with it or any other artifical means of broadcasting it. The scary part is that natural processes of the virus would do all that automatically by jumping from host to host one person at a time.<br><br>

Problem with this scenario is that once unleashed, there is no stopping the spread of the viral illness. There is significant risk of wiping out a huge number of people, including those the terrorist represents.<br>The other consideration is that viruses this virulent are very dangerous to work with. Once infected, but before travelling, the terrorist may well infect his buddies or countrymen prior to visiting his target.<br>The thinking is that viruses are not a likely threat.<br><br>Jeffery S. Anderson, M.D.<br><br>