Has Biodefense Gone Overboard?

The article reports on bioterrorism and its prevention. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax letters triggered a vast program to protect the U.S. from bioterrorism. More than 750 U.S. microbiologists complaining that the current spending spree in biodefense is threatening the very foundation of microbiology. While budgets have skyrocketed for exotic agents such as plague, anthrax, and tularemia--each of them negligible as human health threats--research on widespread and perhaps mundane pathogens is falling by the wayside, the letter says, as is work with traditional model organisms. INSET: Microbiologist on a Mission.