A new House appropriations bill proposed by Democrats aims to prevent teacher layoffs by cutting $2 billion from bioterrorism and pandemic flu reserve funds. Experts on bioterrorism are critical of the move and believe biological attacks could kill 400,000 Americans and devastate the economy. Despite the potential budget decrease, the U.S. government has received 1 million of the first 20 million ordered doses of Imvamune the smallpox vaccine for the Strategic National Stockpile for Project Bioshield, a federal program to boost U.S. defenses against biological weapons initiated shortly after the terrorism attacks of 2001.
In response to the proposed bioterrorism budget cut, ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross believes we shouldn t be complacent about the possibility of bioterrorism coming to our shores. Although there has never been any documented bioterrorism attack in the U.S. by a foreign country the anthrax attacks of 2001 emanated from a domestic source our publications from that era still remain valid today.
