OK, so the biggest threat for inhalation anthrax comes from an airborne attack?
Yes. Clearly, Stevens breathed a fatal dose, source unknown, which appears to be limited in scope. A large-scale attack would be much harder to pull off. Large-scale anthrax contamination takes large-scale production, experts say. It’s very high-tech. Not low-tech. Same with transportation of spores and equipment into the United States. A crop-dusting plane would have to be specially rigged to spray a lethal cloud of anthrax spores. But here’s an even more comforting fact from a counterterrorism expert: Planes flying near population centers appear on FAA air traffic control radar screens. The FAA has a stringent system of air traffic control. It is much easier to commandeer and crash a plane than it is to fly an unannounced pattern over a big city for prolonged periods. Anthrax spores cannot be effectively delivered by crashing a plane. Any plane that varies from a flight plan or doesn’t file a flight plan and then veers into heavily used air corridors will appear — literally — on ev
