Smallpox.

Smallpox the movie was mostly exaggerated, as seen here It requires 3 hours of prolonged contact to spread the disease.. to quote the site

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Fiction: In movies and television programs, a single infectious person may be shown infecting many people. In the movie Smallpox, the terrorist infected approximately 20 other people, who then infected twenty others, and so on, so that the subsequent infection rate was too great to contain. Fact: Smallpox is a contagious disease, but it is not generally as highly contagious as movies may depict. Historically, in smallpox outbreaks that occurred before naturally occurring smallpox was eradicated in 1980, each infectious person typically infected susceptible close or household contacts, but not casual or brief contacts. It is difficult to estimate possible transmission rates of smallpox infection which could occur today because of many factors which have changed over the past 25 years. However, there is some agreement amongst experts that each infectious person could infect 5-6 others. Nonetheless, measles, influenza, and whooping cough are each more contagious than smallpox.

The movie is mostly fiction....

Generally, I take what a see on TV with a grain of salt, and rely on my own experiences, because often a lot of facts are stretched..

For instance, a CSI episode about cooks is greatly exaggerated, at least from my personal experience.

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Original post by caffeineaddict Personally, I think it's quite possible. The world is a big place and infecting a big travel hub in a busy country, not even necessarily america, could spread a disease quite fast. If you're interested, here's a link to FX's page for the movie.

It's an interesting story, but I think it was a little farfetched. I would think that the more lethal and ravaging a virus, the less viable it is for spread via a human vector (that is, a human is the one who spreads it around). For instance, in the case of smallpox, by the time an affected victim is contagious he is typically experiencing severe muscle pain, high fevers, and nausea. After about two weeks of incubation, most people get hit with the symptoms hard, and there's typically only one day between the start of the contagious period the end of the incubation period for smallpox. Most sick people stay home and recuperate or seek medical attention, rather than going out and spreading the infection.

Furthermore, dying from smallpox is not a pleasant or instantaneous death. Because vaccination only prevents future infection and not an existing one, it would not be possible for the afflicted terrorist to subsequently cure himself of the disease, so he would almost certainly die. Whereas, say, a suicide bomber might willingly sacrifice himself in a firebombing, knowing that he'll die quickly, he might change his mind about having an agonizing, languishing end.

On another note, a virus can be thought of as a very ill-adapted parasite. Good parasites can use the host's machinery without the host being aware of it. In the best cases, the parasite develops a symbiotic relationship with the host, so that the host needs (or at least wants) to be infected with the parasite. In this regard, viruses are the excreta of evolution -- the host actively seeks to be rid of the virus by seeking medications, raising his body temperature with fever (creating an inhospitable environment for the virus), and so on.

None of this is meant to minimize the lethality of smallpox. Yes, it's a terrible disease; yes, it's lethal; yes, it's a possible terrorist plan. But the movie overshoots into the realm of exaggeration in its zeal to imitate reality.

No matter what people may want to believe terrorists arn't stupid. It doesn't even take a person of average intelligence to look at the spread of diseases and realise that to use such a weapon will come back and get you in the end. Look at HIV, within my lifetime it has gone from very few infections and no one even knowing about it to being a pandemic with infections in almost every (possibly every) country on Earth. Substitue an air born infection that gestates quickly and it would be stupid to use.

Little case in point.

Terrorist gets off plane from Pakistan (or where ever) and infects self in bathroom.
One of his fellow travelers from Pakistan uses restroom at the same time and gets infected. He is a businness man only in NYC for the day and goes back home the next day or within a week.
He gets home and infects people in Pakistan now killing off the righteous with the illness meant to infect the infidels.

Anyone with the brains to develop a weapon like this would realise that to use it would be suicide without a vaccine or anti-virus and even then you can't innoculate everyone.

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Original post by kSquared On another note, a virus can be thought of as a very ill-adapted parasite. Good parasites can use the host's machinery without the host being aware of it. In the best cases, the parasite develops a symbiotic relationship with the host, so that the host needs (or at least wants) to be infected with the parasite. In this regard, viruses are the excreta of evolution -- the host actively seeks to be rid of the virus by seeking medications, raising his body temperature with fever (creating an inhospitable environment for the virus), and so on.

If you're judging it according to the standard of "being a parasite" then I agree with you. But we must admit that viruses are not "the excreta of evolution" in general, since that is a misleading statement - viruses are extraordinarily successful, and that's all natural selection cares about. If viruses were really that crappy we would have out-evolved them by now.

The HIV virus is one example of the amazing power of viruses and evolution. Any single drug from today could have killed the HIV virus of only 10 to 20 years ago. Now the HIV virus is able to resist combinations of 10 different drugs simultaneously! And all this arrived simply through mutation.

Even bacteria pull some cool evolutionary feats sometimes. For example, in times of intense stress (ie. when they're "losing"), they decouple the machinery that prevents transcription errors in DNA replication. You'd think that this would be suicidal, since almost all of this bacterium's "children" will now be flawed and die. However, it dramatically increases the likelihood that one of this bacterium's descendants will develop a new innovation to counter whatever is trying to destroy it - such as antibiotics.

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Original post by kSquared I would think that the more lethal and ravaging a virus, the less viable it is for spread via a human vector (that is, a human is the one who spreads it around).

That's quite correct. It's always the disease agents that spread through the most "difficult" means that end up being the most lethal. For example: HIV is spread through sexual contact and you only have something like 1/100 chance of contracting it even with such contact. Also, diseases spread through water and feces tend to be quite lethal, such as cholera.

(I guess one way to think of this is with the parasite way. If the virus is too virulent, it will either wipe out its host species or kill its vector, and it doesn't "want" that.)

Europeans suffered a lot of smallpox already so immunity has somewhat spread already, casualties will be significant but much lower then say middle east where the terrorists are most likely to originate from.

It's too fast anyway.

A true maniac would use a slow, 100% mortality rate virus. Like airborne AIDS.

Yup, airborne aids would be a really bad thing, it kills basically everyone and it's slow enough to spread to everyone as well.

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Original post by Nerusai Europeans suffered a lot of smallpox already so immunity has somewhat spread already, casualties will be significant but much lower then say middle east where the terrorists are most likely to originate from. It's too fast anyway. A true maniac would use a slow, 100% mortality rate virus. Like airborne AIDS. Yup, airborne aids would be a really bad thing, it kills basically everyone and it's slow enough to spread to everyone as well.

Does such a thing exist, or were you just using something like airborne AIDS as an example?

Airborne AIDS wouldn't do anything, methinks. Like I said, even direct contact with another's infected body fluids only has a small chance of passing on the disease. (Well, infected blood transplants would probably be another story.)

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Original post by Tron3k Airborne AIDS wouldn't do anything, methinks. Like I said, even direct contact with another's infected body fluids only has a small chance of passing on the disease. (Well, infected blood transplants would probably be another story.)

AIDS is not viable in air -- an atmosphere of oxygen destroys the fragile protein coat in a matter of microseconds. It is theoretically possible for AIDS to be transmitted through droplets expelled by a cough or sneeze, but the person would have to be experiencing either considerable internal bleeding or have an open wound on their mouth/airways. The recipient would also have to have an exposed opening into their bloodstream as well, like a cut on their gums or something. AFAIK, no documented cases of such transmission exist.

As of now there is no airborne version of aids, particles can't really be carried trough the air.

If it were made airborn, it would find it's way to your lungs, although also covered with a slime layer, infection there is quite likely (I think).

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Original post by kSquared Quote: Original post by Tron3k Airborne AIDS wouldn't do anything, methinks. Like I said, even direct contact with another's infected body fluids only has a small chance of passing on the disease. (Well, infected blood transplants would probably be another story.) AIDS is not viable in air -- an atmosphere of oxygen destroys the fragile protein coat in a matter of microseconds. It is theoretically possible for AIDS to be transmitted through droplets expelled by a cough or sneeze, but the person would have to be experiencing either considerable internal bleeding or have an open wound on their mouth/airways. The recipient would also have to have an exposed opening into their bloodstream as well, like a cut on their gums or something. AFAIK, no documented cases of such transmission exist.

With airborne aids I meant just that, an airborne version of aids that can survive in the air - just theory of course.

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Original post by kSquared Furthermore, dying from smallpox is not a pleasant or instantaneous death. Because vaccination only prevents future infection and not an existing one, it would not be possible for the afflicted terrorist to subsequently cure himself of the disease, so he would almost certainly die. Whereas, say, a suicide bomber might willingly sacrifice himself in a firebombing, knowing that he'll die quickly, he might change his mind about having an agonizing, languishing end.

Actually, smallpox vaccine is effective in remedying cases where symptoms have already appeared.

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Original post by Sheep Quote: Original post by kSquared Furthermore, dying from smallpox is not a pleasant or instantaneous death. Because vaccination only prevents future infection and not an existing one, it would not be possible for the afflicted terrorist to subsequently cure himself of the disease, so he would almost certainly die. Whereas, say, a suicide bomber might willingly sacrifice himself in a firebombing, knowing that he'll die quickly, he might change his mind about having an agonizing, languishing end. Actually, smallpox vaccine is effective in remedying cases where symptoms have already appeared.

That's not true (at least if you believe CDC and CNN):

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Once symptoms develop, there's no effective treatment for smallpox and no known cure, but a vaccine is available that can protect against the disease.