ABSTRACT
The specter of bioterrorism-long the subject of who-dun-it fiction and well-intentioned but inconclusive policy-making-became a terrifying reality for the United States in October 2001. The United States is still coming to grips-politically and psychologically-with the perpetration of bioterrorism within its borders. Speculating about the impact of the anthrax attacks on political, economic, or legal areas is, thus, fraught with difficulties. For many Americans, the anthrax attacks were a frightening initiation into a threat that expense in the United States have been analyzing since at least the early 1990s. The attacks also introduced many Americans to “public health” - a discipline distinct from healthcare and largely obscure to the average American. Evidence of Soviet and Iraqi bioweaponeering raised fears that biological weapons proliferation had become a serious international problem. The anthrax attacks in the United States brought together each strand discussed above in disturbing ways.
