I did a PhD in drug delivery and believe me there is (at the moment) not much to fear from bio weapons, more scare mongering I’m afraid!

I cant imagine that the PLO would have held off with them if they were an effective killing agent, or SH for that as he clearly isn’t bothered by ethics as we saw with the Kurdish victims of nerve gas several years ago.

Botulism acts by cleaving the SNARE proteins involved in synaptic transmishion, you have to eat it or have it injected for it to kill you and it is about as much of a worry as ricin, Both are not good for killing a lot of people and difficult to produce even with a microbiological lab. C. botulinum, the one that produces botulism toxin A is killed by oxygen for a start, not your average kitchen / chemistry set experiment

As far as I know the only time BWs have killed a lot of people was when Japan unleashed Y. pestis the agent that causes Bubonic plague during WWII. They killed as many of their own troupes as they did the enemy. Not a success !!!

As for scare mongering well it is everywhere. I saw a headline in the local paper “ The daily cow” or something that was banging on about the risk of a hand held weapon taking out a commercial jet. Even with heat seeking technology, this is a jet plane traveling 600 MPH 6 miles above the ground ! How the hell are you going to hit it, even if it is in range!

It is funny coming from the UK to the USA, I see all sorts of "little manipulative devices" used by people in power to scare everyone else into believing that they are in danger, and need the people in power to protect them. Example; university buildings with "fall out shelter" written on them. It is a drafty old building, no help at all, why is the sign their?

As for the media hear, well I have made this point before and Ill make it again. I’m sick of being lied to by the US Media, it happen so frequently it is just a joke. Accountability is at the heart of a democracy and for that accountability to be effective you have to have an honest media, if one link in the circle is broken the whole process breaks down and you are reverting back to an autocracy, land of the free ?

I like educatedfilms comment about evidence, there is not much of it about these days, why is that ? Playing the rational against the hysterical ?


[Edited by Dr_simon on 02-03-2003 at 06:03 PM]