Paper Example on Two Biological Attacks on U.S. Soil

The fact that terrorist attacks have been using weapons of mass destruction on the U.S. soil, it is clear that biological attacks have become real threats. The biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) cause serious destructive, death or injury on a massive scale that has its presence in the hostile forces hand. Biological attacks involve intentional release of bacteria, viruses or germs to kill or sicken crops, livestock or people. When people suffer from bacterial attacks, an effective treatment can be using antibiotics. Nevertheless, the antibiotics are somehow not effective when it comes to treating viruses. Other treatments can also be used to deal with biological attacks. In America, there are two common biological attacks that have affected the U.S. soil. In addition, the use of such wepons may cause permanent disability on the population and thus presenting serious threat to the society. Since 1980, United States has only become a victim of two major biological attacks. The first attack involved spreading of bacteria in the area salad bars with an intention of sickening voters in the course of a local election. This is the largest bioterrorism act in the United States soil. The bacteria were slipped into the water the supply. The election was meant for electing their (religious group followers in Oregon) religious followers. Because of this, several people became victims of food poisoning (White, 2012).

The second attack started at the beginning of the 9/11 attack and it involved anthrax. It started when two employees from the news tabloid became victims of, through the mail, anthrax and this took place in Florida (White, 2012). The terrorist managed to spread anthrax through sending envelopes that had causative agents. One of these employees died. After some days, as the NBC Nightly News was receiving its mail, they received spores, hence making anthrax to appear again. Several deaths were reported on the East Coast without a clear explanation of how anthrax used to spread. When 2002 was approaching, five people died because of anthrax. Different states in America reported different cases because the public health had a poor response in addition to being disorganized. Likewise, the case was under investigation (White, 2012). The situation became worse.

At this pace, the development of anthrax indicated that the United States was not in a position of combating the biological attacks. Nevertheless, they considered to take operational measures over by law enforcement and public health in a way that reduced the number of people suffering from anthrax.

After the anthrax attack, the United States started planning on measures they would take against biological terrorism. Congress managed to come up with a bipartisan commission as a way of dealing with the issue, though the effectiveness of their efforts became questionable since Americans did not have any preparation. There was no structure that Americans could use to respond to these biological attacks. The Congress could not clarify or oversee the Department of Homeland Security in a proper way. Furthermore, the Congress could not initiate education as well as a training system that could prepare the citizens to become experts as far as national security is concerned. The United States does not have coordination as well as duplicative oversight, hence making it become vulnerable to biological attacks. For these reasons, biological attacks are becoming serious and preventing them can be almost next to impossible.

Reference

White, J. (2012). Terrorism and Homeland Security (7th ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.