Advances in Biological and Chemical Terrorism Countermeasures

Biological and chemical weapons are a growing terrorist threat to the United States and other nations and countermeasures continue to evolve as a national and global priority issue. To keep up with this rapidly changing and vital field we must establish the current state-of-the-science on countermeasures to form a platform from which to offer perspectives, policies, and procedures that will assist the United States and other nations to defend themselves from future threats. An up-to-date assessment of the technologies and strategies for providing countermeasures to biological and chemical terrorism, integrates vastly disparate disciplines, calling on authors that are directly and currently involved in the research to present their own data as well as their educated opinions and advice. It draws heavily on the findings and conclusions from research conducted through the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. National Program for Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats, which is partially funded through the U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command. This book focuses on four general areas of research: modeling, simulation, and visualization; environmental protection; personal protection and therapeutics; and the mechanistic and toxic effects of weapons. Individual chapters discuss the relationship between risk and vulnerability, threat agent dispersal through the environment, threat agent sensor development, the use of phage display for detection and therapeutic intervention, and an overview of recognized threats and their toxic effects. Heavily referenced, this science-based work is an excellent tool to assist military and homeland security personnel and first responders to improve their ability to develop and implement countermeasures to the potential biological and chemical threat agents that continue to emerge.