Paul Williams LIVE on Savage Nation: Al Qaida Nukes in America?

Most bioweapons make for poor weapons of war. Anthrax, for instance, has had a vaccine available for it since Louis Pastuer invented it in 1859...and modern prescription anti-biotics defeat anthrax in all but the final stage.

Look for the terrorists to do more of what they do...which is to send idiot 12 year olds into night clubs, trains, and busses to each detonate 12 pounds of Semex.

They'll get an occasional sniper, and in some places they can even make car bombs.

If a state sponsor decides to use them, then they may knock off a single large-scale attack with something more potent. I'd bet money that Iraq under Hussein or Syria under Assad was the source for the terrorists' post-9/11 anthrax mailings, for instance (and that killed all of two people).

For perspective, the U.S. loses roughly 80 people per day in typical car wrecks.

Anthrax is a poor weapon and it is not contagious between people. Smallpox, on the other hand would find a very susceptible population here in the U.S. and elsewhere. People would die like flies with an expected mortality of perhaps 25-30%. Foot and Mouth (FMD) disease in cloven-hoofed livestock and wildlife would be devastating and unable to contain. Morbidity would be near 100%. Calculations suggest, that FMD would spread to 20-25 states in 5 days through normal commercial channels after a single release in a salebarn. For perspective, we have 100 million cattle here and agricultural exports are far and away number 1 in the U.S. trade market--we are a food machine for much of the world.

More than half of all Americans are already vaccinated for Smallpox, though the lingering effectiveness of those old vaccinations is debatable.

As for Hoof and Mouth, pretty harmless...

Overview of Hoof and Mouth Disease (HMD) Even though it has a low fatality rate, HMD is considered the world's most important animal disease. HMD affects all cloven-footed animals and is present in Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. A good Web resource is found at http://aleffgroup.com/avisfmd/.

The current outbreak of the disease in the United Kingdom has brought considerable media attention. The previous most recent outbreak in the UK was in 1967-68. A devastating epidemic occurred in Taipei, China in 1997, when over four million pigs died or were slaughtered within two months. The last outbreak for the United States was 1929, in Canada was 1951-54, and in Mexico was 1946-54.

Horses are not susceptible to the disease. Humans are evidently slightly susceptible and may develop vesicles (or blisters) in the mouth or on hands. For more information: http://www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/virus/Picornaviridae/enterovirus/hfmd.htm. Cases of human infection are rare, even among people working with infected animals and materials.

The virus that causes HMD is easily and rapidly transmitted through air, infected meat and milk products, clothing, or other means by which the agent can be carried to the next host. It is estimated that sufficient virus to initiate an infection can be windborne as far as 150 miles. Pigs are the most potent excretors of airborne virus, and cattle the most susceptible to airborne infections. The virus has been found in the semen of bulls and boars, although transmission via embryos from infected cows has not been found to occur. Animals that have recovered from the disease can commonly continue to be carriers of the virus and remain infectious for as long as 6 months. The virus may persist for over one year on infected premises, for 12 weeks on clothing and feed, and for up to a month on hair.

The morbidity rate in outbreaks of HMD in susceptible animals can rapidly approach 100 percent, although the case fatality rate is generally less than two percent but slightly higher in younger animals.

True enough. Many have been vaccinated for smallpox long ago but the immunity is not protective in most of that older population. The young, however would be devastated.

FMD is a big deal. The U.S. has not had an outbreak since 1929 thanks to effective protection in keeping the disease out. There are 7 serotypes making development of a multivalent vaccine difficult and expensive. The availability is not there as it stands today. You are right that mortality is low, but the economic devastation would be in the hundreds of billions. As I stated earlier, it only affects cloven-hoofed animals. Exports would cease immediately, cattle and pigs get extremely ill and become an economic liability, aka poor doers, that are destroyed--that is the policy, test and slaughter and bury. If you can't make money, you don't raise em. If FMD escaped, which is highly likely, into the wild, deer and elk, it would be out of control. Control measures, personnel, and time would force us to accept that we have it and can't get rid of it. Like I said, Agriculture is our number 1 industry. There is not a close second. We have trillions of dollars tied up here and the economic devastation, not just to Ag, but to downstream industries, would wreak havoc.

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