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A "terror".... kay. Actually, I'm more afraid of terrorist cells comprised of Muslim extremists.

You may want to rethink that. I used to work as a medical missionary in East Africa, and the rampant disease there is horrifying.

Lepers with no fingers and collapsed noses, begging on every street corner. People with running sores covering their bodies. Patients with holes in their faces the size of half dollars, oozing with pus, because they couldn't afford proper dental care. Mass graves full of cholera victims. TB and AIDS cases everywhere. Packs of dogs infected with rabies allowed to roam freely.

One member of my team was bitten by a rabid dog. A half dozen of us contracted malaria (in spite of religiously taking Larium) and became miserably ill.

Trust me, there will be terror and plenty of it if third world diseases gain a foothold in this country. Maybe, it's one of those things you really have to see to believe; something that just doesn't quite register as a reality to the American mind until you're standing in the midst of it.

Right now, we fear cancer and heart disease. That's plenty enough. Do we really want to lengthen the list? Cancer, heart disease, ebola, cholera, TB, hepatitis, yellow fever, leprosy, typhoid, SARS, lassa fever, changas' disease, meningococcal meningitis, etc. etc. etc....

Yep. One terror act against our infrastructure (coal plant)may cause a hundred lives and 20 million dollars, say, of mostly private money and disrupted public power supply. Importing preventable communicable disease costs thousands of lives and millions in public funds yearly. With a national health epidemic in the populated areas, try your daily commute without breathing someone else's air!

Along with a shortage on medical therapy.

We use sterile bottled water for inhalation therapy and there is a shortage on the whole west coast.

Called the company Baxter who claims they make it as demanded by another company Cardinal Health. Cardinal said there has been a shortage since last August.

Last week my vendor (local hosp. home health) dropped of gallon jugs of distilled water for me to refill the bottles. No one seems to care.

I would hate to see if we had a real crisis in this country what would happen to our supplies.

I usaully keep a month a head stocked and now refilling bottles, not exactly sterile. : (