ESTABLISHMENT OF A SCIENTIFICALLY-INFORMED RAPID RESPONSE SYSTEM

摘要

In this discussion I will focus on two, very different, types of possible terrorist attacks to illustrate the problem and to show how a Rapid Response system could be effective. The two would be explosion of a "dirty bomb", a Radioactivity Dispersal Device (RDD), in a crowded area of a city which I will describe as Wall Street, and the wide dispersal of an infectious agent. In each of these it has been argued, and I believe correctly, that the most important action to prepare for terrorism is to be prepared for a natural occurrence—an accident involving radioactivity or a natural outbreak of a disease such as SARS or HIN1 influenza..