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Ever
since former President Clinton read and personally became
more than a little agitated over the events depicted in
Richard Preston's fictional work The Cobra Event (which
extrapolated from the naturally-caused contagion depicted
in Preston's more factual Hot Zone), the United States -
among others - has witnessed an immense growth in the funds
dedicated and words
expended
in order to battle a new bogeyman: the non-state actor (aka
terrorist) armed with biological or chemical weapons intent
on using them in the US.
Since
the mid-90s, Washington - hopefully not influenced by the
tirade of ill-conceived, and often, self-serving, literature
on the subject - has pumped billions of dollars into researching
and preparing for a 'WMD (weapons of mass destruction) event'
and seems to be ready to continue to do so (current anti-terrorism
funding exceeds $10 billion annually, or 4% of the entire
US defence budget).
http://chembio.janes.com/
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