SCOOTERTECHNO.COM

Someone here is going to hate me for writing this. He likes to take things at "face value", whereas I look for deeper meanings. This isn't comprehensive by any means. Just based on a few thoughts and memory.

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The September 11 attacks on New York in 2001 showed us just how far terrorists are willing to go in order to serve the God in their Holy books. It was the worst attack ever recorded on American soil, precipitating a wave of mourning and anger across the world. This act of war was not only a source of devastating upset, but also a wake up call to the delusion of our collective safety. People that are willing to take their own lives in the context of religious motives shocked the world to its very core. These depraved psychopaths demonstrated to us just what they are capable of when pushed the wrong way. To think that something so trivial as their religious convictions being a fundamental motive behind this attack is bad enough, but the myriad of terrifying means in which they are able to unleash and act upon their misguided hatred is even more worrying. Not only were clean up crews at ground zero looking for hazardous bits of debris and dust, they were also on the look out for evidence of the dissemination of smallpox, plague and anthrax.

Only a month after these horrific attacks, letters contaminated with finely produced anthrax were sent to senators, celebrities, staff workers and other innocent men and women via the US mail in New York. Many lost their lives in what was determined to be a bioterrorist attack. The widely held belief that a bioterror event could easily be prevented in the US was shattered instantly, and exposed an incredible sense of vulnerability in our ability to adequately prevent these acts from happening. Pentagon officials and scientists have ran simulations into the possibility of a deliberate release of the deadly smallpox virus, which ended up with an estimated 3 million infected and over 1 million dead. All 50 states would be irreversibly crippled by such an attack. It is for this reason that fuelled the Russians during the Cold War to amass their own biological weapons program of genetically engineering, manufacturing and stockpiling an assortment of lethal germs.

Mohammed Atta, one of the sadistic coordinators of the plane that crashed into one of the towers, reportedly was involved in talks with an Iraqi intelligence official. Iraq has long been suspected of maintaining a clandestine biological munitions program under the noses of UN inspectors. There is a great deal of evidence that suggests many of the Russia's biological weapons division scientists have gone to work for rouge nations like Iran, North Korea and Libya because of the desperation following losing their jobs after Russia's effort disbanded. According to Ken Alibek, the former senior director of the program who wrote book 'Biohazard', Russia produced an estimated 80 tons of smallpox. Additionally, they also managed to amass enough anthrax to kill the entire world 4 times over. Not surprisingly, these saddening revelations show just how widespread and unregulated these things are. And given our vulnerability to such attacks, terrorists appear to have the upper hand.

US officials have publicly stated that were such a vicious attack to take place, the medical infrastructure would be quickly overwhelmed and unable to respond to the massive surge in patients. It is already documented to be running at a 95% capacity rate, and struggles to deal with pretty serious car crashes on motorways. A bioterror attack would entail the complete collapse of the medical establishment, which has precipitated a wave of preparedness organizations being set up to deal with such an eventuality. Even so, officials are adamant that citizens would essentially be on their own in the event a pathogen was deployed. Ways to deal with a deployment of a germ have been released to the public in the forms of leaflets and books. It contains all sorts of things to what medications to stock up on to containment procedures and methods of body disposal to avoid cadavers infecting anyone else. No, it is not pleasant. Governments are calling for a better set of regulations and techniques to deal with the possibility, but so far it hasn't been as forthcoming as we'd like.

I suppose even with all this in mind, no amount of legislation or measures to tackle the list of pathogens these people would use to cripple society addresses the weaponized product that has been genetically modified. Scientists say it is child's play to alter a genetic segment of a virus or bacteria to enable it to evade antibiotic and vaccination/anti-viral treatment. Other means of treatment to deal with this alternative have to be heavily explored on a wide-scale. A globally unified effort to locate other areas of treatment that would treat both forms of infection. Especially considering that the genetic modification of a virus is so simplistic, that someone unqualified in the area of science could learn how to perfect the process. It has become a standardized process, with many different applications. The insertion of genes from one thing to the other can be done under noble purposes, or can be utilized for the sinister reasons above. It's therefore pretty darn dangerous.


With this in mind, I think Danny Boyle's '28 Days Later' does a marvellous job of revealing just how dangerous this practise very well may be. While the backdrop story behind the devastating Rage virus that ravishes Britain in the film isn't touched upon, a illustrated comic for the movie was released by Fox Comics which explores the story behind this recombinant pathogen. Without going into too much detail, the virus was accidentally created by two British scientists exploring neurochemical applications into the mitigation of violent impulses in humans; among the list of ingredients for this chemical inhibitor was a gene fragment from the haemorrhagic Ebola virus; with one strain having a mortality rate of 89%. They used a chimp as a guinea pig to ascertain the effectiveness of their reconstruction, inserting the product into the animals cranium. However, instead of taming the animal and ridding it of any violent impulses, it did the complete opposite. The animal went into an animalistic rage. Animal Rights activists then stormed the compound and released the infected animal, and everything turns ugly from there.

The infection is blood-borne and transmitted via nothing more than a bite. If an infected persons blood were to enter a tiny abrasion on your skin, it would be enough for the virus to enter your bloodstream and transform you in an enraged killing machine. This conversion takes no more than a few seconds. It acts in a similar fashion to Rabies, driving the animal into a mad frenzy that will attack and attempt to kill just about anything-- passing on the infection as it goes. And within a few short weeks, the entire population of Britain is infected. Everything from our government, medical establishment, schools and everything else, utterly decimated by this viruses release. It's infectivity was just to great to contain, and evacuation efforts by the British government failed to act in time. It spelled doom from the moment it left the Primate Research Centre. Our country is as good as dead.

If you haven't seen the film '28 Days Later', I suggest you go out and pick it up. It's this frightening prospect explored in the film that led me to think about the possibility of this happening in the real world. Clearly, more should be done to prevent shocking things like this from happening. When it all comes down to it, it isn't so much the government that has to deal with the catastrophes, but us, the civilians. We would be at the forefront of such a disaster; so what better excuse to educate ourselves and be in a position of preparedness. Perhaps our local medical centre can offer courses to the public, and maybe colleges could offer students the option to study what do in that sort of event? It's probably within our best interests.

Yay or nay? Would such measures only be sensationalist and serve to simply scare people? How would you deal with protecting people from bioterror?

Written by the geek, May.

And to anyone who hung in there and read this, I love you. x

Agreed.

Once all of the amenities we naturally take for granted have been rendered useless, civilization will invariably begin collapsing. The Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest will become the chief mechanical cog. And this is why I think it's so important to provide the public with as much helpful survival tips as possible, which at the very at least gives people a chance to adapt and survive a post-apocalyptic world. It is, after all, the civilians that are first on the scene to tragedies that engender these sorts of nightmares. We would be on the frontline. This kind of frightening scenario has been explored on the history channel in the past. It focused on an outbreak of Influenza similar to the strain that killed millions at the beginning of the 20th century. Survival would no longer be based on mutual trust and altruism, but a jungle like environment where everyone is looking for safe shelter, food and water-- a truly Darwinian like playground where only the strong persevere.

And of course, once the devastation and deaths have reached their peak, you're left with a pretty empty world. The scenes in London shot on 28 Days Later have become so iconic as it gives us a clear idea of what our capital would look like if something like a virus were to infect and kill great numbers of our population. There would literally be little remaining in terms of what keeps our society functional today.



Honestly, I don't think I'd even want to live in such a world. But others might. So it is therefore crucial, in my opinion, to offer as much information as possible for people willing to do what it takes to prepare for such a thing, IF it did indeed happen. It would be nice to say that the chances of such a thing happening are slim-- but that would be a lie. It's better we face reality, and admit that the best we can do as civilians is enlighten ourselves as to what can be done to ensure we make it and merely cross our fingers and hope for the best. And that applies to this point in time, as, to my knowledge, nothing substantial has been formulated to cure viral infections other than vaccination and anti-viral meds. And, as you pointed out, there's not much the government can do in terms of prevention. It's quite scary.