Report Documentation PageForm Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. Executive SummaryThe U.S. government continues to improve its plans for protecting civilians and soldiers from attacks with biological weapons. Part of this effort focuses on developing strategies that recognize the difficult choices to be made in using and deploying resources. This paper presents a risk-and decision-based framework-derived from the field of Bayesian statistics-for developing strategies that facilitate managing the risks of biological agents. The framework recognizes the significantly different attributes of potential biological weapons and offers a strategy for improving communication to effectively coordinate national biopreparedness efforts.The framework identifies generic decisions related to routine immunization, response planning, stockpiling vaccines and therapeutic agents, surveillance choices, containment, emergency response training, research, media and communications preparations, information management, and policy development. This paper provides a straw man to be used in wargames, exercises, practices, etc., at all levels of government. 203% from the week ending 14 September through the week ending 12 October, according to NDCHealth, a drug research company. Nationally during the same period of time, the number of Cipro pills dispensed has increased 41%, according to the company. Mr Weinstein said: 'Cipro seems to be the one that's got the most press, and people seem to think that it is the only one they think will work against anthrax.'" 5 British Broadcasting Company, "America's anthrax patent dilemma," October 23, 2001. Available at .Human Services, 6 but it also displaced other investments and contributed to deficit spending. The existence of weaponized anthrax with demonstrated lethality and failure to apprehend the perpetrator(s) of the anthrax letters create a demand for the U.S.government to develop a strategic plan to manage risks from anthrax and to manage resource investments at this level. Part of the challenge arises from the fact that managing the risks requires making several critical decisions related to vaccination (whom to vaccinate, which vaccine to administer), surveillance,...

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This is the autobiography of Dr. Igor Domaradskij, who spent his career as a researcher with the Soviet biowarfare industry. The book is subtitled "Inside the Soviet/Russian Biological War Machine." More accurately, it should be subtitled "Confessions of an Unrepentant Cold Warrior."In this country, we would view this as a classic Horatio Alger story, with a bit of a tragic ending. Domaradskij comes from peasant stock. He writes of his humble beginnings and then chronicles his education and his rise-and fall-in the Soviet bioweapons hierarchy. Through various, unintended subplots, he also offers a view of a social system that followed a similar trajectory-rising and falling nearly coincidentally with his lifetime. Domaradskij professes a lifelong desire to "do science." For the first twenty-three years of his career, Domaradskij was involved in something that, to our ears, sounds downright medieval: plague control. The plague-or Black Death, as we "remember" it from our cultural past-was responsible for killing approximately one-third of the European population in the 1300s. The fact that one of the twentieth century's superpowers was dedicating considerable scientific and medical resources against a disease such as the plague is a fascinating insight into its true state of health affairs. Prior to the rise of antibiotics, plague was a significant problem in the former Soviet Union. Even as recently as 1989, the country suffered more than 2,600 fatalities from the disease, nearly equal to the roughly 3,000 annual worldwide deaths presently reported.Included in this subplot are passing references to some truly unsung medical heroes who identified modern-day sources of the plague and developed improved treatments-for example, Ippolit Deminskij, who in 1912 was infected by plague, which he reasoned he had caught from a ground squirrel. Realizing he was dying, he left instructions regarding his autopsy and provided the first evidence that the ground squirrel served as a reservoir for the disease. The work of V. P. Smirnov was equally courageous. Smirnov infected himself with the plague and then demonstrated the efficacy of a vaccination technique he developed using eye drops. This technique was later modified to a nasal approach that is still used in Russia.