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Bioterrorism Part 2: How do they pick them?

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

There are literally hundreds of microoganisms that could be used by bioterrorists. However, there are only a few microbes that keep showing up in the headlines. This is a good thing. The job of defending ourselves becomes much easier if you know what to expect. The reason there are only a few microbes used in bioterrorism is because the microbe must meet certain criteria to be used in this horrific way.

There are five different features of a microbe that make it useful as a bioterrorism agent. These features are: the microbe's availability, ease of production, lethality, stability, and infectivity. It only makes logical sense that microbes that are difficult to get would be less useful for bioterrorists. If a microbe is only found in two or three places in the world and those places are guarded around the clock by armed guards it would be much easier to go with another microbe.

Usually the microbes chosen are relatively easy to get from the environment (soil= Bacillus anthracis) or from animals or humans (rabbits= Francisella tularensis). The smallpox virus is harder to obtain. It was at one time only known to exist in two laboratories in the world. A natural case (occurs in people not working in labs with the virus) of human smallpox has not occurred since 1977 (Somalia). If you need a microbe, then, one you can get nearly anywhere in the world is more useful.

The ease of production is another important consideration. You have to be able to grow large amounts of the microbe in many cases to cause human illness. If the microbe is difficult to grow or requires extensive amounts of training to grow it then it is not very useful. These same organisms are oftentimes very expensive to grow as well. The smallpox virus is difficult to grow, requires a large amount of training to grow it, and is expensive to grow. It is a poor choice for a bioterrorist.

Most microbes do NOT cause human disease (human pathogens) and of those microbes that do many cannot kill a person infected by the human pathogen. For instance, the common cold is usually caused by a rhinovirus. These rhinoviruses are very contagious and can spread very rapidly from person to person; however, they do not normally cause serious, life-threatening illnesses. Therefore, the microbe must not only be a human pathogen but it also must be capable of causing life-threatening illnesses to be used by bioterrorists.

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