posted on Jun, 30 2005 @ 05:58 AM
I'm still curious as to how we'd prevent a "milk attack" of this nature.
Whilst I do agree that informing the public is generally a good thing; I truly don't think it's wise to let the public know about every single
possible threat.
Why?
Party because the public in general too often cannot distinguish between a theoretical model and a verifiable threat; give someone half of the
story, and they'll be more inclined to panic than to search out further knowledge.
Frequently, releasing a statement such as "Two students today published a hypothesis which discussed how....a theoretical enemy might attack using X
method...." will result in many people only hearing "enemy might attack using X method".
To use a medical analogy; you can't be vaccinated against every disease on the planet; it's much smarter to assess your risk and act accordingly,
but you can't demand protection against everything based upon a minute possibility that you'd encounter that threat - there must be a viable risk
before you'd take action. To do otherwise would not only put you at risk from an extreme reaction, but would also render your defenses fairly
useless...and that's a fairly good indicator of how perhaps we'd be risking more by trying to combat every terrorist possibility.
Realistically, terrorists could very easily obtain one of a million toxins and get it into the water/food system. There are literally endless
supplies of naturally-occuring toxins, not to mention easily-obtained chemicals, and compounds which would be easy to obtain with a little research.
What would we do to prevent these from getting in the wrong hands?
Would it not be more prudent to try and fight the "terrorist virus" at the source, rather than when it produces symptoms?
We can't live in a society where we live in fear of, and are defending ourselves against, every possible, vague, hypothetical threat. If
we do - we're actually letting the terrorists win.