Friday, October 31, 2008

Defending against Bioterror

Writing in City Journal, Judith Miller explores the math of bioterrorism . An excerpt:

The Hamilton-Leighton study builds on earlier work by Lawrence Wein, a Stanford University business school professor. In 2003, he calculated that a large aerosolized anthrax attack in New York might result in 100,000 deaths, even if early cases were successfully diagnosed and drugs quickly delivered and taken. Two years later, he calculated that decontaminating New York by traditional methods could cost well over $20 billion and take 314 years. Wein has also argued that current plans for distribution of antibiotics from PODs could result in delays costing up to 10,000 lives a day.

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