A little while back, VC and Winds team member Tim Oren noted that bioterrorism was the long-term threat for "3 Conjectures" type scenarios, with an event horizon of around 20-30 years before dual-use technologies and technology advancement/ diffusion made such scenarios very thinkable.
If you're looking for sources in this area, the Biotechnology Industry Council has a bioterrorism and biodefense news page.
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DID I MENTION OUR POROUS SOUTHERN BORDER!
[Human Bioweapons - Smallpox]
Here's a cheerful thought from our border issues blog re a comment on post at Dean's World:
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I’m afraid not many would. Too distant. Of course 9/11 was a fluke. These wiley bastards may up the ante next time and use a bio-chem weapon. All the harassing of old ladies with wire in their bras at airport gates will be for naught.
Smallpox would be my choice. I wouldn’t use crop dusting planes either, I would use infected suicidal terrorists to infiltrate our porous southern border and mingle with the people at crowded venues e.g. sports events, mass transit, welfares offices et al. Six infected subjects would be sufficient. Did I mention OUR POROUS SOUTHERN BORDER!
Our public health system will be completely overwhelmed because the first cases would go undiagnosed until second and third generation cases were already well in progress. The CDC’s current ring containment model will be useless. Assuming a “reasonable” response by the time we got a grip on the epidemic there would be 30K deaths [low estimate].
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