ABSTRACT

One week after terrorists crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, two senators and several news media outlets began to receive deadly anthrax letters instructing them to “Take Penacilin Now” (sic). What if these letters had contained no warning? What if this strain of anthrax had been resistant to antibiotics? What if anthrax had been aerosolized in a subway or from a plane over New York City? What if, instead of anthrax, terrorists unleashed a highly contagious disease? These were the questions that ran through the minds of U.S. health officials, emergency planners, and politicians in the fall of 2001.