What's Next?

Monday, Nov. 05, 2001 By FREDERICK GOLDEN

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Anthrax is the current focus of the nation's post-Sept. 11 trauma, but it's just one of many potential weapons in bioterrorism's terrible arsenal. How serious a threat are they? Or, for that matter, how deadly are the many other disease carriers, ranging from salmonella to drug-resistant TB strains to "flesh eating" bacteria, that might be unleashed by terrorists? What do they portend for the safety of the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink? Here are a few of the scenarios America may need to be prepared for.

FOOD

THE THREAT Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said last week what worries him most is the safety of the nation's food supply, especially of imports, a concern reflected in all the talk in the makeshift antiterrorist war room he has opened in his Washington headquarters. Only a tiny fraction of the food coming into the U.S. undergoes inspection, officials note. One concern: imported gum arabic plants, the source of additives for many foodstuffs. These come largely from Sudan, once bin Laden's lair, via Canada, and because of the North American Free Trade Agreement may enter the U.S. uninspected. "Am I satisfied with the inspections we're doing?" Thompson asked rhetorically. "No, I am more fearful about this than anything else."

Michael Doyle, director of the center for food safety at the University of Georgia, says terrorists could lace such imports with not only botulism toxin but also other pathogens, including E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, dysentery, cyclospora and hepatitis. As if to underscore the point, investigators last week identified salmonella in two of several plastic vials of undisclosed substances included in a packet of papers sent to former President Clinton's office in Harlem, though the bacteria apparently grew naturally through fermentation and caused no harm. Still, the concerns of Thompson and his colleagues are understandable. Even without any diabolical intent, U.S. packing houses in recent years have accidentally passed along meat infected with deadly E. coli O157.

WHAT CAN BE DONE At Thompson's urging. Congress is considering greatly expanding the number of inspectors employed by the nation's two food-safety agencies, the Department of Agriculture, which inspects beef and poultry, including imports, and the Food and Drug Administration, which overlooks most other processed foods. Consumers can protect themselves by washing raw fruits and vegetables in soap and water or a dilute chlorine bleach solution.

AIR

THE THREAT Any of the CDC's A-list of deadly agents could be delivered through the air. But of these, smallpox may be the most worrisome. Killing 30% of those infected and leaving the rest scarred for life, it spreads easily from person to person, especially in a population that has largely lost its immunity; mass outbreaks would swamp hospitals. While vaccination in the first days after infection offers the only cure, enough freeze-dried vaccine left over from the early 1980s remains on hand to inoculate, by some estimates, just 7.5 million people. In this state of unpreparedness, smallpox could take many lives.