The threat of biological warfare had been subjected to "far too much media hype and far too little critical analysis", according to one of the ADF's top medical chiefs.
The Director of the Joint Health Support Agency, Capt Andrew Robertson (RAN) speaking at the Defence Health 2002 Symposium in Sydney earlier this month, said assertions that biological threats had been used quite often in the past as "probably the bio-terrorism equivalent of the urban myth".
Capt Robertson, the ADF's foremost expert on the medical aspects of nuclear, chemical and biological (NBC) warfare, has trained in the US, Canada and Britain, completed three tours to Iraq and been awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross for his contribution to Australian NBC defense.
He said the 1993 statement in from the US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment that a single plane delivering 100kg of anthrax spores by aerosol over a clear night over Washington, with an inversion layer, would produce between one and three million deaths under ideal weather conditions, had been frequently used as an example of biological warfare.
"I don't doubt these figures, however - and it is a big 'however' - what we're talking about is military grade, dried anthrax," he said.
"Most countries can't make military grade dried anthrax. Iraq only managed to make a wet slurry despite the fact that it produced quite a few thousand liters of it.
"And the US letter campaign, for the attacks which followed the September 11 terrorist incidents, is estimated to have produced 10g - not kilograms - and certainly not 100kg.
"So we should be very careful, because a lot of our thinking is based on the 100kg picture, not the 10g picture, that we don't base our assessment on such threats."
Capt Robertson listed what he termed "biological myths and legends" including:
--Because chemical and bioterrorism have been used in recent history, terrorists will increasingly use them; --Biological agents have been used quite often in the past; --Biological agents have been acquired to meet terrorists' aims; --A popular portrayal that these agents are easy to acquire and to produce.
While there had been increased terrorism in the form of the September 11 attacks in the US and suicide bombings in Israel, there was no sign of increased wide scale chemical or biological threats since the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks in Tokyo's subways that killed 19 people.
