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Brian Vastag

JAMA. 2001;285:30-32.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Washington—Last May, nearly 1000 people "died" in Denver after a terrorist sprayed airborne plague bacteria at a concert. As reports of hundreds of people seeking relief from fever and coughs trickled up from hospitals to the state health department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a hastily convened expert panel struggled to contain the outbreak, allocate limited antibiotics, and keep the public peace. Through it all, confusion reigned.

Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium, is one of the biological agents that concern bioterrorism experts. (Photo credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Fortunately, it was all a simulation, run by the Department of Justice at the behest of Congress, designed to test the United States' ability to respond to bioterrorism. Officials called the 3-day, $3-million exercise a success. But the chaos the exercise engendered revealed that "the systems and resources now in place would be . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

The Rest of the Story: Public Health, the News, and the 2001 Anthrax Attacks
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ABSTRACT