Experts Question Merit of Recent Smallpox Exercise
Scientists Working Group Members Furmanski and Leitenberg cited in article appearing on the Global Security Newswire
What [the organizers] don’t touch on is what this would do to the Islamic world, to the putative homeland of these terrorists who have no vaccine, crowded conditions, not very good public health. … they’ve banged the drums and possibly gotten everyone interested in doing this. They should have banged the drums and said this could be a catastrophe for the Islamic world.” — Martin Furmanski, commenting on the recent Atlantic Storm exercise.
Experts Question Merit of Recent Smallpox Exercise
January 18, 2005 By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire
Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Some biological weapons experts have criticized a highly publicized smallpox attack exercise conducted last month that involved prominent current and former officials from the United States and Europe (see GSN, Jan. 18).
The tabletop simulation used unrealistic assumptions to project massive casualties and scare the public and Western governments into thinking there is a strong potential for an attack that is actually unlikely to occur, the experts said. The exercise, called Atlantic Storm, was run by the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
A terrorist organization, the experts said, is not likely to be able to conduct the smallpox attack as portrayed in the exercise, according to the experts.