Bio-Terror Fear More Costly Than Attacks

from - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,35264,00.html

Many special interests are encouraging fears of terrorism to advance their
own dubious causes at public expense. We need to get a grip on our fears and
not become victims of our domestic terrorists.

In one of the more egregious efforts at scare-mongering, the anti-nuclear
activists at the Nuclear Control Institute ominously declared that "Any
nuclear power plant is conceivably vulnerable (to a direct hit from a
commercial airliner.)"

The group’s solution is to station National Guard troops and military
anti-aircraft units at nuclear power plants until the terrorist threat is
"controlled" – that is until there are no more nuclear power plants. The
Nuclear Control Institute’s real goal is to frighten the public about
nuclear power plants, thereby facilitating its anti-nuclear power agenda.

But such fear-mongering could logically be extended to hundreds—if not
thousands—of non-nuclear industrial facilities located near urban or
residential areas, particularly plants that make or use hazardous chemicals.

Two thousand people were killed in 1984 by an accidental explosion at the
Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India. Not much imagination is
required to realize that a similar tragedy could happen at a U.S. industrial
facility via a hijacked commercial airliner, truck bomb or suicide bomber.

But what should we do about these "conceivable" threats? Enlist legions of
National Guardsmen and place ack-ack guns wherever chemicals are stored and
used? Hardly.

We are vulnerable in limitless ways and places to a variety of terrorist
acts. Those are the chances taken by a free society. We could become a
completely paranoid nation that tries to secure every conceivable target of
terrorists, but that would necessitate becoming a police state where most of
our resources are spent on mostly useless security efforts.

Controlling mass fear, though, may not be so easy for a public that’s been
conditioned over the last 40 years to fear everything from diet drinks to
cell phones.

One special interest that we unfortunately need to be especially wary of is
the public health establishment.

Perceiving gold in the reality of terrorists daring to strike within U.S.
borders, the public health establishment is pressing the panic button about
the likelihood of an attack involving biological agents such as anthrax,
plague, smallpox and botulinum.

Since Sept. 11, media reports and shows have been chock-full of public
health officials aided by other so-called "experts"—particularly authors of
books on bio-terrorism—spreading alarm about the possibility, if not
"likelihood," of impending biological attacks.

Further alarming the public, the public health establishment says we have
allowed the public health system to deteriorate over the last several
decades. "Our public health infrastructure has decayed to an alarming
extent," claims Richard Levinson of the American Public Health Association.

The public health establishment’s solution, of course, is more money—even
though taxpayers already spend more than $11 billion annually on terrorism
defense and tens of billions of dollars more on other public health efforts.

You might think that out of some minimum respect for the public’s money, the
public health establishment would first rearrange its priorities before
pleading poverty.

We spend, for example, billions of tax dollars annually chasing phantom
health risks from trace levels of chemicals in the workplace and
environment. Shouldn’t the real threat of terrorism nudge ahead these
imaginary threats on the list of public health priorities?

Tara O’Toole, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for
Civilian Biodefense Studies, doesn’t think so. O’Toole says money for
bio-terrorism shouldn’t be "siphoned" off other public health efforts.

If the public health establishment really believes its own ominous
predictions, it should put its money where its mouth is by first
reprioritizing its current resources and efforts before asking for more
money.

We need to catch our collective breath in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Instead of falling for special interest agendas and handing a blank check to
the public health industry, we need to appraise in a rational manner the
threat of the different forms of terrorism and then determine sensible and
cost-effective preparations.

If we don’t, our fear will cost us more than any terrorist attack.

Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the
Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against
Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).