What is different about biological warfare today?
I have always been of the mind that, yes, you can take the complicated modern aerosol particle technology and transmit disease, but also the “box-cutter efficiency” for transmission is a reality. And think of the situation that occurred at Fort Pitt at the end of the French-Indian War, when the British troops actually gave smallpox blankets to the Delaware Indians and, over the next six months, largely decimated that population. Giving people blankets with the scabs of smallpox in the fibers—that’s not a high-tech weapon. It was a very powerful bullet and a very ineffective gun, but combined they still made a very effective weapon. Today, this anthrax, a material that’s currently available to someone, is a very very powerful bullet but has to date been used in a relatively ineffective gun. But if it gets into a semieffective gun, we’re in big trouble as a society. We have to understand that that’s the reality today. That’s not fear mongering. You know, in early October I was on the var
