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What Stops Terrorists from Spreading Leprosy?

posted by martyb on Sunday May 07 2017, @01:33AM   
from the disarm-the-terrorists dept.

cafebabe writes:

Leprosy is bacterial. In addition to curing leprosy with antibiotics, we also have anti-biotic resistant leprosy. What prevents a terrorist from deliberately infecting themself with leprosy and then engaging in promiscuous activity? How would a city like San Francisco, Washington DC, Paris or Berlin react to leprosy? When leprosy has a long incubation period, are we certain that leprosy isn't spreading already?

martyb: I was debating whether or not to run this story; from the Wikipedia page, "Contrary to popular belief, it is not highly contagious." But, there is more to this than just antibiotic-resistant leprosy. It invites discussion as to other agents with delayed response that could be employed. In addition, given a terrorist's intention to affect some other group, what options do they have which would affect that group without also adversely affecting their own group? How many of their own group are people willing to "harm" in the pursuit of harm to another group?

takyon: Bill Gates: Bioterrorism could kill more than nuclear war — but no one is ready to deal with it
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Original Submission

• Re:Not very dramatic Re:Not very dramatic (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 07 2017, @02:43AM (1 child)

  by khallow (3766) on Sunday May 07 2017, @02:43AM (#505685) Journal

  My take is that anyone smart enough to figure out how to spread leprosy, will realize that it doesn't suit their needs. Sure, it's kind of scary. But in the long run, it's just news. And they've made a lot of people pissed off. They need some attacks so that they can get recruits, funding, and street cred. But they don't need attacks big enough that it could justify a developed world, salt-the-earth campaign. They want to be appeased, not destroyed.
  
  Here, the Nazis are an object lesson to anyone who goes too far. For the first years of the Second World War, they defeated everyone they fought in a series of brilliant operations. But they pissed off a lot more people than they could beat. And those people were willing to kill millions of people to make sure the Nazis were wiped out from history.

  Parent

• Re:Not very dramatic (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:22AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:22AM (#505696)

  And it's got to have Milla Jonovich .

  Parent