Found in the remains of Egyptian mummies and all over ancient Asia and China, the virus has probably killed more people than wars, famine, and drought have done.  Epidemics in Europe during the Middle Ages affected the course of western history.  Outbreaks of small pox started the decline of the Roman Empire and, once transported to the New World, succeeded in wiping-out most of the native population.  During the early 1700’s in Europe as many as 400,000 people died annually—about the population of Minneapolis.

The war on small pox started with the practice of inoculation against the disease.  Medical practitioners brought the practice from Istanbul to Western Europe and then to the United States by the mid-1700’s.

The process involved pricking the skin of a person and infecting them with a small amount of pox.  It caused them to become slightly ill but also made them immune to the more serious disease when it struck.

During the American Revolution the Continental army attacked the British city of Quebec.  They came close to succeeding until an outbreak of small pox stopped them. The British army had been inoculated, avoided the plague, and repulsed the American’s attack for good.

Edward Jenner didn’t actually discover the vaccine used against small pox, but he was the first scientist to attempt to control an infectious disease—and he was successful.

By the 1950’s small pox had been effectively eradicated from Europe and North America, thanks to public sanitation efforts and the widespread use of the vaccine.  By 1980, after a world-wide campaign, the World Health Organization announced the official end of the disease in the world and recommended that countries cease vaccination—which meant that today no one has immunity to the disease.  (Even for those of us who received vaccine years ago, the protection has decayed.)

Everyone in the world is vulnerable.

With that scary thought in mind, I’ve written a suspense novel about terrorists who steal samples of small pox from a repository in Russia and intend to infect American school children with it—creating hundreds of “weapons of mass destruction.”  It’s called Reprisal.  It takes place in Minneapolis where several Somali boys have disappeared in the past few years.  In my book, they’ve been kidnapped to be used by the terrorists to carry small pox back into the schools and start a pandemic.

Could it happen?  What do you think our most vulnerable spot is for bio-terrorists to attack?  What should we do?

The post The Smallest Terrorist appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.

Found in the remains of Egyptian mummies and all over ancient Asia and China, the virus has probably killed more people than wars, famine, and terrorists have done.  Epidemics in Europe during the Middle Ages affected the course of western history.  Outbreaks of small pox started the decline of the Roman Empire and, once transported to the New World, succeeded in wiping-out most of the native population.  During the early 1700’s in Europe as many as 400,000 people died annually—about the population of Minneapolis.

The war on small pox started with the practice of inoculation against the disease.  Medical practitioners took the practice from Istanbul to Western Europe and then to the United States by the mid-1700’s.

The process involved pricking the skin of a person and infecting them with a small amount of pox.  It caused them to become slightly ill but also made them immune to the more serious disease when it struck.

During the American Revolution the Continental army attacked the British city of Quebec.  They came close to succeeding until an outbreak of small pox stopped them. The British army had been inoculated, avoided the plague, and repulsed the American’s attack for good.

Edward Jenner didn’t actually discover the vaccine used against small pox, but he was the first scientist to attempt to control an infectious disease—and he was successful.

By the 1950’s small pox had been effectively eradicated from Europe and North America, thanks to public sanitation efforts and the widespread use of the vaccine.  In 1980, after a world-wide campaign, the World Health Organization announced the official end of the disease in the world and recommended that countries cease vaccination—which meant that today no one has immunity to the disease.  (Even for those of us who received vaccine years ago, the protection has decayed.)

Everyone in the world is vulnerable.

With that scary thought in mind, I’ve written a suspense novel about terrorists who steal samples of small pox from a repository in Russia and intend to infect American school children with it—creating hundreds of “weapons of mass destruction.”  It’s called Reprisal.  It takes place in Minneapolis where several Somali boys have disappeared in the past few years.  In my book, they’ve been kidnapped to be used by the terrorists to carry small pox back into the schools and start a pandemic.

What really scares me—and readers also—is that the “enemy” here is something you can’t see, touch, feel, or smell…how do you defend against it?  Also, once the population learns about the spread of small pox, I think the panic will be worse than the disease itself.

Luckily, I can tell you the heroine in my book succeeds in stopping the terrorists and preventing an outbreak—at the last-minute, of course.

Check-out the book at my web site and tell me what you think.

The post Something Worse Than bin Laden appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.

Is that legacy “beating” us now?

After 9/11, the White House and Congress (both parties) passed sweeping legislation which gave our investigatory agencies new powers of intrusion into our lives.  Most people felt these new laws were necessary to discover intelligence and information that terrorists could use against us.  I’m certain that in many instances, the new laws and procedures used by U.S. security agencies worked as the Congress intended.  They also created a massive new system of counterterrorism with huge budgets and more people.

This concerns me because:

1.  The fear that we all felt after 9/11 caused us, as a country, to give our own security agencies more power  to probe into our personal lives much easier.  As an example, the restrictions on wire-tapping and other means of gaining private information were relaxed under the idea of “warrantless surveillance.”  All these laws still remain on the books and are used by the government.  How do we know they won’t be used against innocent citizens under the guise of investigating terrorism?

Think of the internment laws used against innocent Japanese-Americans during the heightened fear of WWII.  In retrospect, we are all embarrassed by these actions and can see clearly how fear drove the Congress and public to enact laws that went much too far in combating internal security risks.

And think of how intrusive and scary the IRS can be…these new laws give the U.S. security agencies a lot more power.

2.  The “War on Terror,” by definition, will go on indefinitely.  Does that mean these intrusive laws will be on the books indefinitely? Have we given-up significant portions of our privacy for ever?  These rights of privacy are uniquely American and I hate to see them compromised.  They protect us from a too-powerful government.  The new laws allow more warrantless surveillance tactics–could these be used against innocent people rather than terrorists?  Who defines what a “terrorist” is?  Will this go on forever?

So, in a way, has bin Laden achieved something more than perhaps he even intended?  Have we Americans given-up our democratic rights of privacy and civil liberties because of the fear he caused?  I hope we never see another attack on our shores, but if that happens will we pass more laws giving-up even more of our privacy?

The post Has Bin Laden Beaten Us At Home? appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.