In the year following the tragic events of Sept. 11, Americans have had to confront a new enemy that kills indiscriminately, jumps quickly from victim to victim and operates outside the paramaters of conventional warfare.
The worldwide threat of bioterrorism quickly became a primary issue on the nation's defense agenda last fall, following a series of deaths caused by anthrax.
The first victim, a photo editor for American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., died Oct. 5, 2001 from inhalation anthrax.
Federal investigators began a new search of the AMI building last month, hoping to solve the mystery of how the Florida man could have contracted the rare disease.
Anthrax bacteria, known to scientists as Bacillus anthracis, are tiny rod-shaped organisms that look like termites under the microscope. About 250,000 of them can fit on a period at then end of a sentence.
A total of five Americans died as a result of contracting the illness, all within a period of less than two months. At least 13 more were infected, but eventually recovered.
Media outlets, post offices and federal offices last fall seemed to be the primary targets of what many observers have called an "anthrax attack."
The microbial attack highlighted America's vulnerability to biological, chemical and radiological weapons. The first death from anthrax in early October set into motion a cascade of events that has not yet lost momentum.
Frightened Americans immediately began demanding Cipro, an antibiotic that can cause moderate to severe side effects. Many doctors feared that overuse of the drug might lead to new, drug-resistent strains of bacteria.
The anthrax deaths last fall, along with other biological threats, prompted Congress to draft legislation earmarking $4.3 billion for bioterrorism preparedness.
The bill, signed into law by President Bush in June, set aside $640 million of that money for stockpiling smallpox vaccines.
Even before the law was enacted, however, some political observers already were clamoring for public access to the vaccine.
Unlike anthrax, which can not be spread from person to person, the smallpox virus is highly contagious and kills one-third of its victims. Individuals infected with the virus remain contagious for 11 days, making the virus an ideal bioweapon.
Fueled by a jittery public in the wake of the anthrax attacks, a battle over the best smallpox vaccination policy erupted among policy analysts, politicians and federal bureaucrats.
Mass vaccinations against the virus ceased in 1978, after public health officials declared smallpox eradicated.
Health experts express doubt that U.S. adults who received the vaccine more than 20 years ago still are effectively immunized against smallpox.
Most federal officials have long favored a "ring containment" strategy that seeks to isolate smallpox outbreaks as they occur.
Proponents of this plan argue that making the vaccine publicly available would cause an unacceptable number of fatalities.
The vaccine is known to cause serious complications or death in rare cases, especially in sick and elderly individuals.
Supporters of voluntary vaccination reject the ring containment strategy, saying safety measures can prevent many deaths that otherwise would result from mass vaccination.
U.S. officials are planning to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of health workers this fall. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has not yet announced if he plans to make the vaccine available to the general public.
It is expected, however, that the federal government will have more than 350 million doses of vaccine by the end of this year.
Two additional events this summer highlighted possible methods of biowarfare that terrorists could use to attack the United States.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced in June that authorities had captured more than a month earlier a man suspected of plotting to explode a "dirty bomb."
Such a device theoretically would have contained radioactive material, packaged inside of conventional explosives.
Experts agree that the actual blast from a dirty bomb would be far more harmful than any radioactivity dispersed by the device.
Some have gone so far as to call dirty bombs "weapons of mass disruption," underscoring the ability of the devices to cause mass terror.
Americans reacted to the alleged bomb plot much as they did toward the anthrax attack, panicking and demanding potassium iodide, gas masks and radiation detectors.
One month after "dirty bomb" entered the American lexicon, researchers in New York announced they had synthesized polio virus using commercially available chemicals and equipment.
The results appeared in the July issue of Science magazine, leading some observers to wonder if the information might fall into the hands of biotech-capable terrorists.
As federal agencies work to prevent further terrorist attacks, they also are developing strategies against the threat of bioterrorism.
The debut of radically different methods of warfare has forced Americans to adopt an aggressive, flexible stance against terrorist organizations.
The era of biological weapons has begun.
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