RSS
The United States might need to spend trillions of dollars to decontaminate the site of a major biological attack, warns a report published last week by the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity (see GSN, Sept. 23, 2009).
The release of significant amounts of a biological warfare material could cause thousands of deaths and sicknesses, says the report, sponsored by the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (see GSN, Jan. 26).
The material also could spread through building interiors as well as the outside environment of a major U.S. population center, potentially settling indoors as well as on streets, parks and vehicles,
The federal government has not assigned clear-cut cleanup research and execution duties to the federal entities that would be most involved in dealing with the aftermath of a biological strike -- the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense and Homeland Security departments -- the report concludes in an assessment of federal decontamination policy and procedures.
As they are now defined, the duties of each agency blur into one another and often receive inadequate funding, asserts the document. It was also uncertain what standards would have to be met for an area affected by a biological attack to be considered decontaminated or safe for habitation, according to the report.
The paper urges the Homeland Security Department to designate clearer decontamination duties to each federal agency, and it presses lawmakers to increase spending on biological-weapon cleanup studies and personnel (University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity release, April 12).