Bioterrorism Threat Leads to Drug Research

The threat of the use of biological agents as weapons of mass destruction has prompted the Pentagon to commission a group of New York scientists to develop drugs to treat smallpox.  The Center for Disease Control has also contracted pharmaceutical firms to mass-produce 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.

The National Intelligence Council, a think tank group assembled by the CIA, issued its assessment saying that the danger from terrorist attacks is greater now than it was during the Cold War, predicting that nationalistic and religious terrorists will continue to seek out U.S. targets.