Call for New 'Manhattan Project' to Fight Bioterror

[420inTN]

Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:32 PM ET

By Ben Hirschler

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The world needs an effort similar to that behind the creation of the atomic bomb to tackle the multi-faceted threat of biowarfare, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday.

"We need to do something that even dwarfs the Manhattan project," Frist told the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States's World War II effort to devise an atomic weapon.

"The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological. Why? Because unlike any other threat it has the power of panic and paralysis to be global."

He predicted that the world would experience another bioweapon attack within the next decade, following the limited casualties seen when anthrax was sent through the U.S. mail system in 2001.

more, full story here: today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-01-27T173133Z_01_L27160382_RTRIDST_0_POLITICS-DAVOS-SECURITY-BIOWEAPONS-DC.XML