[Paleo Conservative]

I'm not trying to create paranoia. I'm trying to figure out how to prevent a foreign power from using infectious disease to threaten us.

The bad thing about bioterrorism is how cheap it is compared to terrorism using other WMD. At least nuclear weapons require huge investments of billions of dollars in exotic equipment. Biological weapons can be made using fairly inexpensive equipment obtained from mail order catalogs.

[bonesmccoy]

The fact that BT weapons require minimal capital is concerning.

If economics are to be used to regulate supplies and commerce used in biological labs, the expense of biochemicals should increase to very high levels and NIH funding should escalate to warp the availability of such supplies to third-world nations.

In addition, the costs to domestic research labs should be very low to speed our biomedical development at a disproportionate rate to other nations.

Another good point is that the cost of rapid diagnosis for disease is currently high. If the Bush Administration favors development of rapid diagnosis kits for various viral illnesses, it would have the effect of improving cash flow for primary care offices, improving the rate of diagnosis, improving the certainty of the diagnosis, and improving defenses to viral BT agents.