Environmental Health and Bioterrorism

Biological warfare has complex and permanent impact on the environment in comparison to other war types (conventional, nuclear, or chemical). However, changes in the environment interfere with many of the major determinants of biological warfare (bioterrorism - biological attack). Four components are required for a biological attack: perpetrators, agents, mediums/means of delivery, and targets. Environmental changes caused by humans (auto-bioterrorism) and bioterrorism-related diseases they may impact are urbanization, agricultural intensification, de(re)forestation, water projects, and climate changes. Agroterrorism implies deliberate attack against commercial crops or livestock population. Agroterrorism is a multidimensional threat, involving a wide range of motives and perpetrators, and encompassing a wide range of actions, from single act of sabotage to strategic wartime programs with potentially disastrous spill-over' effects on susceptible wildlife and endangered species population. The threat of an agroterrorist attack depends on motivations and technical requirements of agroterrorism. Technical barriers to agroterrorism are lower than these to human-targeted bioterrorism. Terrorists' motives vary widely. The two most common are the profit motive and the anti-GMO (genetically modified organism) motive. The threat of an agroterrorist attack can be countered at four levels: (1) at the organism level, through animal or plant disease resistance; (2) at the farm level, through facility management techniques designed to prevent disease introduction or transmission; (3) at the agricultural sector level, through disease detection and response procedures; (4) at the national level, through policies designed to minimize the social and economic costs of a catastrophic disease outbreak.