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How vulnerable is your company to bio-terrorism?
Assess, Plan, and Survive
By Matthew Nelson
Just a few days after terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center, Robert Stevens began to feel ill.
Stevens, a 63-year-old photo editor with tabloid publisher American Media Inc., in Boca Raton, Fl., cancelled his trip with his wife and checked into a hospital. He was dead by Oct. 5. Cause of death: anthrax contracted from a deliberately infected letter or package.
Over the next few months, more people died of anthrax as a result of handling tainted mail. Anthrax-laced letters appeared at CBS and NBC offices in New York, and at the offices of Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in Washington, DC. Postal Service employees were also infected and treated for anthrax infections. Already reeling from September 11th, the nation found itself in the grip of panic, as each letter and package suddenly became suspect.
Federal authorities are still investigating who sent the letters and what their motivation for the biological attacks might have been.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates individual risk from anthrax as extremely low - only about 17 cases reported per year between 1955 and 2001 including the spike caused by the post-Sept. 11 attack - anthrax or other biological attacks can have far-reaching and expensive consequences for businesses.
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American Media's headquarters was sealed for more than a year while the FBI and other federal authorities swarmed over the building searching for clues. In addition to the untimely death of a valued employee, it meant a costly long-term relocation for the publisher, loss of key employees who were too frightened to return to work, damage to the company's reputation and financial stability, and many other consequences.
J.J. Sullivan Jr. MPA, CFE of San Carlos, Calif., an anti-terrorism security consultant and associate of Risk Analysis Group says that businesses must assess if they are at risk and take the appropriate precautions.
Click here for the rest of the story.
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well."
Jonathan McBride, CPP, Security and Safety Director, Innotrac (Reno, NV)
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