Friday, October 19, 2001

Bioterrorism fear not new — and overplayed
Commentary by Rebecca Meyer

We speak of networks and computers being infected by a virus. We speak of terrorist cells where nefarious plots hatch and anti-American sentiment breeds like bacteria cultured in a petri dish. Viruses, cells, hatching, breeding — these idioms betray a pervasive anxiety about biological menaces. Biological threats have superseded nuclear ones as the lodestar of our apocalyptic fears.

Yet anthrax — noncontagious and treatable by antibiotic — is merely a red herring.

The hysteria associated with the recent anthrax scare is a product of the heightened perils of asymmetric warfare further fueled by a deep anxiety about biological threats that has been maturing over many years.

Syphilis, HIV, Ebola and other modern epidemics have created a climate whereby a biological holocaust has become a popular Armageddon scenario. Books and movies like “The Hot Zone” dramatized our fears, while the increasing ubiquity of biological metaphors for destruction and evil burrowed those fears deeper into our subconscious. Optimistic faith that modern science might be able to rid the world of disease through immunization and antibiotics has faltered, as fears of modern plagues become a dominant contemporary narrative.

This modern belief energizes the anthrax scare with disproportionate mania. On the surface, we have a handful of reported cases of anthrax exposure, not all of which have been confirmed. We are dealing with a single death, and none of these incidents have been linked to Osama bin Laden’s network. Thus, in no way do the cases of anthrax exposure constitute a wide-scale bioterrorist attack. More likely, they are the work of small-time kooks capitalizing on the climate of fear.

Yet instead of seeing a paltry number of incidents of a noncontagious disease that can be treated with early intervention through antibiotics, panicked Americans beg their doctors for prescriptions of Cipro and order gas masks on eBay.

Ironically, this misguided hysteria could create a real public health crisis by sapping limited resources of antibiotics and diverting attention to this red herring issue. It is no coincidence that sickness is embedded in the expression “to be ill at ease.” Our uneasiness might be called a dis-ease, as the threat of disease makes us dangerously — and counterproductively — uneasy.

The only role I can see anthrax playing in a coordinated, wide-scale terrorist attack is as a diversionary tactic. What threats might we not be seeing by focusing on boxcar-shaped bacteria that causes a disease for which Louis Pasteur created a vaccine well over 100 years ago?

In our neologistic idiom, the destructive computer programs often spread through e-mail are called viruses. Yet when we find our metaphors rising up with a lethal literalism, we have to wonder whether we are merely projecting our fears onto the world.

Bioterrorism embodies a potent American fear, but does it reflect a realistic threat?

Many recent reports have suggested that we are far more susceptible to a bioterrorist attack than we would like to be.

Bin Laden seems more interested in attacking symbols of secular democracy and American freedom than simply making a lot of Americans sick.

We fear bioterrorism because that fear has been festering for decades. Although the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have set a precedent for targets that are unnervingly grandiose, I think it is far more likely that we will see terrorism take more mundane forms like the suicide car bombings that are tragically commonplace in Israel. Sadly, these insidious attacks may be the hardest to prevent. All it takes is a van full of explosives at a highway interchange to cripple our infrastructure.

Rather than a contaminated water supply or a toxic crop-dusting, I think we are more likely to see a bomb go off in a shopping mall.

Bioterrorism is possible, and it is terrifying. However, I am not about to start wearing latex gloves before I open my mail. If bin Laden’s agents can carry out a strike on our nation as insidious as turning domestic airlines into fiery wrecking balls, they can probably execute a more sophisticated biological attack than a direct-mail campaign.

Rebecca Meyer is a columnist for the Daily Californian at the University of California-Berkeley. This column was distributed by U-Wire.