This is something I did for school a while, which I enjoyed. It is from Focus magazine, which I mentioned earlier.
Bioterrorism is a form of terrorism that involves spread deadly or harmful pathogens. The more feared pathogens in bioterrorists’ arsenals are anthrax, plague, and smallpox. In fact, anthrax has already been used as a weapon. Recently after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, several senators and important people received letters with anthrax spores inside. Five people inhaled the spores and died. Bioweapons are less easily detectable by authorities, which makes them especially dangerous. Currently, the most feared possible bioweapon is smallpox. Smallpox caused a pandemic in the 20th century that killed 500 million deaths. Although smallpox has been eradicated from nature, it is still kept in secure laboratories.
Fortunately, bioterrorism has its downsides too. It would be very difficult to aquire the pathogen in usable amounts in the first place. Then, after they aquired it, they would have to keep it alive before it was released. Then, after the pathogen is release, it has to be protected from wind and harmful UV radiation. It would be very hard to pull all of this off. Compared to the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks did very little, but they did do enough to tell us that we must tread carefully in the future.
From “Bioterrorism,” BBC Focus Magazine http://www.bbcfocusmagazine.com/feature/bioterrorism
