WMA meeting: Bioterrorism requires local and global response

The World Medical Assn. emphasizes the role of physician organizations, and physicians themselves, in combating biothreats.

Editorial. Oct. 28, 2002.

Disease does not know politics, does not respect boundaries and cannot be contained by treaties. These are basic truths about infectious illnesses that physicians well understand -- and a reality made more chilling when considered in the context of bioterrorism and biological weaponry.

The World Medical Assn.'s annual meeting, held earlier this month in Washington, D.C., was a landmark event for this reason. It was the first time the international physician community met to discuss its critical role in responding to these insidious threats.

Interestingly enough, the American Medical Association, the meeting's host organization, selected the theme for the WMA general assembly's scientific session long before the frightening concept of bioterrorism became a domestic reality last fall with an anthrax outbreak. Now, there seems to be an emerging consensus: Complacency is no longer an option.

A resolution passed by the WMA's general assembly underscores that there is a lot out there to worry about. Technology has afforded newfound potential for the production of microbial agents. Add to this the ease of travel and the globalization of society, making an outbreak in any one place a possible threat to all. Finally, any such outbreak on a large scale could exhaust entire health systems, both in the developing countries and the industrialized world. [...]