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The terrorists may be unable to successfully deliver large quanities of weapon grade anthrax to the general populace but apparently they seem content in delivering small amounts of regular run-of-the-mill anthrax in non-military manner.
The yield would be low but the effect of terror would be enormus....

Growing up a large quantity of Anthrax while maintaining virulence, and then succesfully aeosolizing it so that a large number of people become infected is, I think, quite difficult.

Puffing around some spores and infecting one or two people would be easy, I fear.

I suspect the media and the government are putting on a full-court press to try and suppress panic here.

IMHO, suppressing the news is usually a very bad idea..... Trust is a very hard commodity to manufacturer but easily discarded....

If people in general believe that the government is intentionally keeping information from them that could potentially be livesaving to their family to protect the economy, there will be hell will pay.....

I'd fight and die for my country but protecting my wife and kid's is first on my list....

The first sign of biologicals in the Atlanta area and my family will be moved to our second house in a remote isolated area of the North Carolina mountains.....

NeverGore

What is the goal here? If you want to spread terror, a few scattered cases of Anthrax will do very nicely. You don't have to kill many people before our economy grinds to a halt. People will be afraid to leave the house. I suspect the media and the government are putting on a full-court press to try and suppress panic here.

That is a possibility. I have neighbors who refuse to go into the city or shopping malls for fear of bombs and/or bio-terrorism. They know that it is irrational. On the plus side, their savings account is getting fuller. They are also more likely to buy necessary stuff and not useless decorative junk made in China. They are blissfully unaware of the kinds of news gathering FReepers are exposed to. They get what they need from the newspaper (NYT-owned) and CNN, yet they're still cautious and would definitely freak if I showed them these articles, postings and links.

It might be difficult to produce large amounts of Anthrax spores in a civilized nation, but in some place like Iraq, all you have to do is pick a prison, infect the population, and then package the bodies in a filtered chamber to collect the spores. It's much easier when you don't have to worry about losing potency over multiple generations, or preparing an artificial medium to grow it in..

So9

Growing up a large quantity of Anthrax while maintaining virulence, and then succesfully aeosolizing it so that a large number of people become infected is, I think, quite difficult.
Puffing around some spores and infecting one or two people would be easy, I fear

Thank you. I said this on another anthrax thread the other day.

What is the goal here? If you want to spread terror, a few scattered cases of Anthrax will do very nicely. You don't have to kill many people before our economy grinds to a halt. People will be afraid to leave the house.

Bingo! This has been my problem with all the "biowarfare is hard" experts. Military results may be hard, terror is a snap. This is a very very difficult problem we are dealing with.