Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: terrorism – Page 7

Circa 2000

The intentional release of biological agents by belligerents or terrorists is a possibility that has recently attracted increased attention. Law enforcement agencies, military planners, public health officials, and clinicians are gaining an increasing awareness of this potential threat. From a military perspective, an important component of the protective pre-exposure armamentarium against this threat is immunization. In addition, certain vaccines are an accepted component of postexposure prophylaxis against potential bioterrorist threat agents. These vaccines might, therefore, be used to respond to a terrorist attack against civilians. We review the development of vaccines against 10 of the most credible biological threats.

Read more | >

The potential threat of biological warfare with a specific agent is proportional to the susceptibility of the population to that agent. Preventing disease after exposure to a biological agent is partially a function of the immunity of the exposed individual. The only available countermeasure that can provide immediate immunity against a biological agent is passive antibody. Unlike vaccines, which require time to induce protective immunity and depend on the host’s ability to mount an immune response, passive antibody can theoretically confer protection regardless of the immune status of the host. Passive antibody therapy has substantial advantages over antimicrobial agents and other measures for postexposure prophylaxis, including low toxicity and high specific activity. Specific antibodies are active against the major agents of bioterrorism, including anthrax, smallpox, botulinum toxin, tularemia, and plague. This article proposes a biological defense initiative based on developing, producing, and stockpiling specific antibody reagents that can be used to protect the population against biological warfare threats.

Defense strategies against biological weapons include such measures as enhanced epidemiologic surveillance, vaccination, and use of antimicrobial agents, with the important caveat that the final line of defense is the immune system of the exposed individual. The potential threat of biological warfare and bioterrorism is inversely proportional to the number of immune persons in the targeted population. Thus, biological agents are potential weapons only against populations with a substantial proportion of susceptible persons. For example, smallpox virus would not be considered a useful biological weapon against a population universally immunized with vaccinia.

Vaccination can reduce the susceptibility of a population against specific threats provided that a safe vaccine exists that can induce a protective response. Unfortunately, inducing a protective response by vaccination may take longer than the time between exposure and onset of disease. Moreover, many vaccines require multiple doses to achieve a protective immune response, which would limit their usefulness in an emergency vaccination program to provide rapid prophylaxis after an attack. In fact, not all vaccine recipients mount a protective response, even after receiving the recommended immunization schedule. Persons with impaired immunity are often unable to generate effective response to vaccination, and certain vaccines may be contraindicated for them.

Read more | >

The plaintiffs have sought $20 trillion, which is a bigger amount than China’s GDP, claiming coronavirus is the result of a biological weapon prepared by the Chinese authorities.

They have accused China of aiding and abetting death, provision of material support to terrorists, conspiracy to cause injury and death of US citizens, negligence, wrongful death, and assault and battery.

Also read: Coronavirus impact: India to produce hazmat suits locally as global suppliers say no.

Read more | >

The super-charged face scanning tech is costing the military at least $4.3 million.

The United States Army is currently building a super-charged facial recognition system — tech that could be ready for action as soon as next year.

The system, as described in a new One Zero story, analyzes infrared images of a person’s face to see if they’re a match for anyone on a government watchlist, such as a known terrorist. Not only will the finished system reportedly work in the dark, through car windshields, and even in less-than-clear weather conditions — but it’ll also be able to ID individuals from up to 500 meters away.

Army Agreements

Continue reading “Army Developing Tech to ID Terrorists in the Dark From .5 KM Away” | >

Sam Harris discusses the coronavirus withAmesh Adalja.

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Amesh Adalja about the spreading coronavirus pandemic. They discuss the contagiousness of the virus and the severity of the resultant illness, the mortality rate and risk factors, vectors of transmission, how long coronavirus can live on surfaces, the importance of social distancing, possible anti-viral treatments, the timeline for a vaccine, the importance of pandemic preparedness, and other topics.

Amesh Adalja, MD, is an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. His work is focused on emerging infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity. Amesh has served on US government panels tasked with developing guidelines for the treatment of plague, botulism, and anthrax. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Health Security, co-editor of the volume Global Catastrophic Biological Risks, and a contributing author for the Handbook of Bioterrorism and Disaster Medicine. Amesh actively practices infectious disease, critical care, and emergency medicine in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

Continue reading “Making Sense with Sam Harris #191 — Early Thoughts On a Pandemic (with Amesh Adalja)” | >

Bioterrorism is defined as the intentional use of biological, chemical, nuclear, or radiological agents to cause disease, death, or environmental damage. Early recognition of a bioterrorist attack is of utmost importance to minimize casualties and initiate appropriate therapy. The range of agents that could potentially be used as weapons is wide, however, only a few of these agents have all the characteristics making them ideal for that purpose. Many of the chemical and biological weapons can cause neurological symptoms and damage the nervous system in varying degrees. Therefore, preparedness among neurologists is important. The main challenge is to be cognizant of the clinical syndromes and to be able to differentiate diseases caused by bioterrorism from naturally occurring disorders. This review provides an overview of the biological and chemical warfare agents, with a focus on neurological manifestation and an approach to treatment from a perspective of neurological critical care.

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13311-011‑0097-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Keywords: Neuroterrorism, Bioterrorism, Warfare Agents.

Read more | >

Superb piece.

“But, I say we should pursue science and technology because, like Prometheus, the fires of invention burn bright, and although we may not always know where it leads us, a world darkened by the fear of treading upon the unknown, is unimaginable.”

Yet we can look to a brighter side, one I could never have imagined in the ’60’s when the chromosomes we karyotyped would be uncoiled to lay bare the genome as an instrument for critical medical diagnoses, to set free those erroneously convicted of crime, or enlighten us about Mitochondrial Eve our common mother, and the long journey that began two hundred thousand years ago; the journey that brought me into the world of physical things, air, table and chairs, and beyond into the space of the geometries and cohorts, like Golay and Bolsey, who helped me better understand my Universe, the one either too small or too far to see, unless aided by the eyes of science and technology. I once wondered how I got here, and now I think I know, but I am afraid my second query, “where will it lead,” will remain an open question.

Continue reading “We cannot predict with any precision where technology will lead us” | >

Despite a federal judge’s ruling last September that the U.S. government’s terror watch list violates constitutional rights, an FBI report obtained by Yahoo News shows local and state law enforcement agencies are being used to gather intelligence on individuals to collect information about those already in the database.

Law enforcement “encounters of watchlisted individuals almost certainly yield increased opportunities for intelligence collection,” says the FBI document, dated more than a month after the federal court ruling. The FBI says such encounters could include traffic stops or domestic disputes, which gives law enforcement “the opportunity to acquire additional biographic identifiers, fraudulent identification documents, financial information and associates of watchlisted individuals,” which might assist in thwarting terrorist acts.

The Terrorism Screening Database, widely known as the watch list, was created in 2003 and consists of names of people suspected of being involved with terrorism. Over the years, the list has grown to include the names of 1.1 million people, raising concerns that many of those on the list have no involvement in terrorism but have little or no legal resources with which to challenge the designation.

Read more | >

Still, the fact that many labs worldwide are capable of printing viruses is worrisome.

A few years ago, for instance, Canadian researchers alarmed the scientific community when they assembled synthetic horsepox in a lab — a virus closely related to smallpox, which killed hundreds of millions before researchers developed a vaccine.

The same technique, the researchers said at the time, could be be used to bring back smallpox, giving terrorists tools to set off a deadly pandemic.

Read more | >

I’m excited to share my new opinion piece on AI facial recognition and privacy for IEEE Spectrum:

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

Many people seem to regard facial-recognition software in much the same way they would a nest of spiders: They recognize, in some abstract way, that it probably has some benefits. But it still gives them the creeps.

It’s time for us to get over this squeamishness and embrace face recognition as the life-enhancing—indeed, life–saving—technology that it is. In many cities, closed-circuit cameras increasingly monitor streets, plazas, and parks around the clock. Meanwhile, the price of recognition software is decreasing, while its capabilities are increasing.

Continue reading “Facing Up to Facial Recognition” | >