Is there a relationship between emerging disease and bioterror?
DF: Not everyone agrees with me, but I use a very simple equation to think about it: bioterrorism equals emerging infectious disease plus intent. Could we stop a would-be terrorist if they were intent on causing harm? DF: I think it would be really tough. If we do, it would likely be through something we pick up in intelligence. We hear something is planned, or someone has this little laboratory in their basement or in a cave somewhere, or we have a scientific colleague, somewhere in the world, working with someone who hears something. Assuming you can’t stop it, then what? DF: I looked at the bugs and said that for medical countermeasures we can’t make a “1-to-N” list and say we are going to go down the list and make a vaccine for each one—there are just too many. So I looked at the [dangerous] outliers. We now have enough vaccine for smallpox to immunize the population. We have vaccines now for anthrax and antibiotics for anthrax, and we have some stockpiles and a lot of other prepar
