Dealing With Anthrax

The Anthrax Vaccine; Is It Safe? Does It Work? is a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine book available free on the web.

CDC's Public Health and Emergency Response page is the most frequently updated authoritative source on anthrax and its treatment. This is the key website to bookmark to stay on top of the entire anthrax situation. It includes health alerts, advisories and updates, in addition to basic information about this disease.

Immunization Newsbriefs, published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays by the National Network for Immunization Information, keep readers up to date on all diseases in the news that may be vaccine-preventable.

Anthrax as a Biological Weapon is an American Medical Association Consensus Statement for the guidance of medical and paramedical personnel, made available free as a public service by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The New York State Fact Sheet on Anthrax gives basic information in an easy-to-read Q&A format.

Lycos Health/WebMD Anthrax page presents symptoms, signs and tests for the two kinds of anthrax infection, inhalation and cutaneous.

DoD's Official Website on the Anthrax Vaccine, aimed at the military, presses the case that anthrax kills, while immunization protects.

Interim Guidelines for Investigation of and Response to Bacillus Anthracis Exposures is part of the CDC's Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report.

Anticipating Smallpox

The April 25 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) includes much valuable material on smallpox, including a timely article for practitioners; a Perspective by Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen; an Editorial by Dr. Anthony Fauci; two original articles; Correspondence; a Sounding Board piece on The Case for Voluntary Smallpox Vaccination, and more.

CDC's Public Health and Emergency Response page for smallpox is only partially developed, in view of the fact that there is no current smallpox threat. Should such a threat arise, CDC will certainly pull together the same kinds of material that it now makes available for anthrax.

Immunization Newsbriefs, published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays by the National Network for Immunization Information, keep readers up to date on all diseases in the news that may be vaccine-preventable.

Smallpox as a Biological Weapon is an American Medical Association Consensus Statement for the guidance of medical and paramedical personnel, made available free as a public service by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Smallpox: What Every Clinician Should Know is a videotape from the CDC on the disease that was eradicated in 1977 but that now could be used as an agent of bioterrorism.

Anticipating Tularemia

The CDC Page on Tularemia for lab and health professionals is a handy source with several links, including one to a similar page for lay people.

Tularemia as a Biological Weapon is the Journal of the American Medical Association page on this subject.

Tularemia -- United States, 1990--2000 is a new page on CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It was added because of the possibility that "rabbit fever" could be used by bioterrorists.

The Yahoo! Directory includes a growing number of listings of websites about smallpox.

More on Bioterrorism

Responding First to Bioterrorism, a new website from the National Academies, is designed to help the community of first responders more easily locate valuable bioterrorism preparedness information. Bioterrorism information is on this web page. Unfortunately, it's not an easy page to navigate.

The World Health Organization website on frequently asked questions regarding the deliberate use of biological agents and chemicals as weapons contains links to probable disease agents, detection and surveillance, treatment (including mass vaccination) and what governments should be doing now.

National Academy Press Books on Bioterrorism are available free online. Included are titles such as Airline Passenger Security Screening, Blast Mitigation for Structures and Detection of Explosives for Commercial Aviation Security.