Terrorism in America: Time for medicine to prepare

The Sept. 11 terrorist attack suggests that even more devastating weapons might be used against Americans and that doctors might be the ones on the front lines.

Editorial. Oct. 8, 2001.

The staggered, daylight attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were tailor-made for the cameras.

For the terrorists, it wasn't enough to murder thousands of innocent victims and hundreds of rescuers. They wanted something that could be replayed again and again, as a reminder of America's vulnerability and loss.

Yet watching those images brings another even more disturbing realization. What the cameras recorded was destruction by what are only the most primitive weapons in the terrorist arsenal.

Fire, shattering force and men with knives -- except for the hijacked jetliners, this is technology a caveman could relate to -- are what brought down the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon. It's also why the injuries and loss of human life, even as terrible as they turned out to be, were contained.

Chemical, biological and radiation weapons are at the other end of the spectrum in terms of technology and potential for mayhem. Experts have warned for years that these weapons are likely within the reach of a fanatic, tightly organized and well-financed terrorist organization. The terrorist network behind the Sept. 11 attack proved it was all that and something worse -- it already has acted to kill thousands.

What these terrorists are certain to know, from a more than ample public record, is that this nation is not adequately prepared to deal with all the dimensions -- especially the medical ones -- of a chemical, biological or radiological strike. Will they try such an attack before justice catches up with them? [...]