The Risk of Bioterrorism and Appropriate Public Health Preparedness
Open Access
- Author:
- Lauer, Erin T
- Area of Honors:
- Security and Risk Analysis
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- James A Piazza, Thesis Supervisor
William Benjamin Gill, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Bioterrorism
Terrorism
Biological
Public Health
Influenza
Government - Abstract:
- In this thesis project, the goal was to determine whether or not bioterrorism constitutes a real risk for the public and thus, if valuable resources should be committed to counterterrorism instead of other public health sectors such as annual influenza outbreaks. Extensive literature substantiating two schools of thought, one supporting the affirmative of the research question and one opposing it, was evaluated along with bioterrorism case studies on Aum Shinrikyo’s attempted anthrax release in 1993, Al Qaeda’s effort to develop their own bioweapons, and the 2001 U.S. postal anthrax incident. The methodology of the analysis portion of this paper was a meta-analysis of scholarly research on the risk of a bioterrorism attack occurring and the harm it could cause, the effectiveness of preparedness, resulting effect on the general health infrastructure, and the comparative state of seasonal influenza. Conclusively, it was determined that evidence does not support that bioterrorism is a substantial enough threat to warrant the billions being solely allocated towards preparing for a biological attack. By funding counter-bioterrorism through the public health infrastructure, not only would bioweapon preparedness be improved, but influenza preparedness would also be benefitted and limited funding would be lost to bioterrorism attacks that never transpire.