The front line in the war against anthrax bioterrorism may be in San Diego.
That is important, said Curran, because fighting bioterrorism is at this point as much a matter of law enforcement as medicine.
In this broader context, Cassell argues, the victims of bioterrorism provide an "indistinguishable" challenge to doctors and administrators working in public health.
He was fired last month from a position at Louisiana State University where he helped train emergency workers to respond to bioterrorism attacks.
U.S. equity markets closed mostly lower Thursday as national safety issues surrounding bioterrorism concerns and weak corporate results put pressure on blue-chip stock investors.
He was fired in September from a position at Louisiana State University, where he was helping train first-responders in the case of a bioterrorism attack.
They zeroed in on Mr. Preston because of his science writing background, which included nonfiction books about astronomy, steel and viruses, as well as a novel about bioterrorism.
Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) is hoping the concern about bioterrorism will help spur creating a new, single agency to ensure everything Americans eat is held to the same safety standards.
One anti-sceptic is Donald Henderson, director of the Centre for Civilian Biodefence Studies at Johns Hopkins University, who believes that the threat of bioterrorism has increased in recent years.
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In order to confront the bioterrorism threat, Daschle said the nation's supply of antibiotics and vaccines should be increased and the government response to possible attacks should be better coordinated.
Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary University of London, believes the bioterrorism threat is "a load of old tosh" but still argues in favour of keeping the virus.
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The U.S. government's Bioterrorism Act of 2002 allows such medicines to be approved after they have been shown to be effective in two different kinds of animals and safe in humans.
Earlier, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told CNN that investigators were treating the anthrax incident in Florida as a criminal matter but were not prepared to label it a bioterrorism attack.
After Hatfill was designated a "person of interest, " he lost his job at Louisiana State University, where he was helping train first-responders to handle a bioterrorism attack, and had his apartment searched three times.
"Given the economic climate, everyone is trying to get in line at the trough, " says Charles Cantor , a bioterrorism expert and chief scientific officer at San Diego biotech firm Sequenom (nasdaq: SQNM - news - people ).
Former Army bioterrorism researcher Dr. Stephen Hatfill -- who once worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland -- has been named a "person of interest" in the case by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Kelly -- one of the world's foremost experts on bioterrorism -- found himself at the center of the biggest political crisis for Blair's government in its six-year rule after he gave an off-the-record briefing to the BBC in May.
It is important that we build into all the training programmes of doctors and other health professionals the first signs of any of the major bioterrorism diseases, and we will keep refreshing that training to make sure it stays up in their minds as a potential diagnosis should they see it.
These problems will directly affect the ability of researchers to fight bioterrorism, and they were outlined clearly by Gail Cassell , a noted microbiologist and vice president of scientific affairs for Eli Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ), when she testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last July.
Law enforcement agents should be able to test the toxin found in the letters to determine its potency and purity, as well as learn what chemicals may have been used to extract it from widely available castor beans, said Murray Cohen, the founder of the Atlanta-based Frontline Foundation, which trains workers on preparedness and response to bioterrorism and epidemics.
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