To the Editor:
Focus on Dr. Bruce E. Ivins’s suicide obscures the remarkable fact that the anthrax that killed five people came from a United States defense laboratory, even if evidence against any individual is not conclusive.
Before 2001, some of us in public health described bioterrorism as an exaggerated threat. No one had ever died from bioterrorism, and we warned that the proliferation of laboratories studying anthrax and other biological weapons agents was a terrible mistake, diverting money from real health needs and dangerously multiplying the number of people with access.
After the 2001 anthrax letters, our warnings were buried in an avalanche of fear-mongering; to this day, billions are being spent to support many more such labs.
With the only bioterrorist casualties traceable to a defense laboratory, isn’t it time for a new look at whether the bioterrorism scare was as fictitious and harmful as the W.M.D. scare that helped lead us into the Iraq war disaster, and whether the huge spending on so-called bioterrorism defense continues to increase the public’s risk from accidental or purposeful release of the dangerous materials being studied?
Hillel W. Cohen
Bronx, Aug. 2, 2008
The writer is an associate professor of epidemiology and population health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
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