Chemical Agents of Opportunity for Terrorism: TICs & TIMs

Chemical Agents of Opportunity for Terrorism
Training Support Package
Participant Guide
Slide 34
In the model just depicted, the authors note that infiltration of the system anywhere on
the “left-hand side of the bow-tie” with only 1-10 grams of botulinum toxin has the
potential to poison 100,000 people to more than 5 times that number (i.e. all of the
tainted milk consumers), if undetected.
If a clinical surveillance system notes a signal and is correctly interpreted, 2/3 of the
cases could be prevented by public notification and milk recall, yet 100,000 people could
still be poisoned.
The authors estimate the cost to care for 100,000 botulinum poisoned patients (even if
that number of ICU-equivalent beds, ventilators, and anti-toxin were available) would be
17.2 million dollars
December 2008 Version 2.0 Page 290