Dreaded Risks and the Control of Biological Weapons

September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to the ofaces of NBC News, the New York Post, and the publisher of the National Enquirer. Contaminated letters were subsequently sent to, among others, then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). By the end of the year, anthraxcontaminated letters had infected eighteen people, ave of whom died.1 Although the anthrax attacks resulted in relatively few casualties, at least one poll suggested that public concern about biological terrorism had increased.2 Some 10,000 people, actually or potentially exposed to virulent anthrax spores, were prescribed prophylactic antibiotics with unknown longterm effects on their health or the health of the public at large.3 In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and anthrax mailings, U.S. policymakers scrambled to enact new legislation to address the terrorist threat. The urgency of the effort precluded careful balancing of competing interests, with potential adverse effects on civil liberties, public health, and national security. The U.S.A. Patriot Act, passed by both Houses of Congress in the space of weeks, was signed by President George W. Bush on October 26. Among its provisions, the act overrides laws in forty-eight states that made library reDreaded Risks and the Control of Biological Weapons