http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011019/hl/bioterror_7.html
Friday October 19 10:17 AM ET
By Karla Gale
LONDON (Reuters Health) - Long-term social and psychological damage from the
threat of biological or chemical terrorism may be worse than any physical
illness these weapons cause if care is not taken, editorialists observe in the
British Medical Journal for October 20.
Dr. Simon Wessely, a professor at Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' School of
Medicine in London, and colleagues warn that fears of biological and chemical
warfare can lead to panic and have already produced cases of ``mass sociogenic
illness,'' in which groups of people develop symptoms in response to an
imaginary threat.
And some methods for dealing with the threat of terrorism, such as having
investigators arrive on the scene of a suspected biological attack wearing
``space suits,'' can further amplify fears, the authors warn.
The fact is, they note, that biological and chemical warfare agents are very
limited as military weapons. Their real purpose, they add, is to ``wreak
destruction via psychological means--by inducing fear, confusion, and
uncertainty in everyday life.''
Wessely and colleagues point out that people have lived through other types
of attacks designed only to terrorize, such as aerial bombing. And many
societies today, Wessely adds, have learned to cope with terror as a daily
threat.
He offered Irish Republican Army (news
- web
sites) bombings in Belfast and London as examples of how civilians cope
with a continuing threat. ``It becomes an irritation,'' he told Reuters Health
in a telephone interview. ``For some people, it was an appalling tragedy, but
for society it was something to get used to. The quicker that happens, the
better.
``We can easily underestimate the powers of resilience of civic society,''
he continued. ``We can easily underestimate people's capacity to absorb
adversity.''
Wessely and his colleagues urge physicians and others in positions of
authority to beware of inadvertently amplifying psychological responses to
bioterrorism.
``It's sometimes difficult for physicians to not get swept up in the general
anxiety,'' Wessely told Reuters Health. ``They should remember their training
and stay cool.''
In 1995, when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin on the Tokyo
subway, which Wessely described as ``the most concentrated area of humanity in
the world,'' there were only 12 fatalities. ``If that's the best they can
do...'' he said, his voice trailing off.
The only way terrorists can bring society to its knees, he said, is when the
response is to shut down government, media, commerce and industry. ``That is
the purpose of it. Terrorists couldn't do it by any other way, because the
weapons themselves are not particularly effective.''SOURCE: British Medical
Journal 2001;323:878-879.
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