ProPublica In-Depth: Has Bioterrorism Effort Increased Risk of Attack?
Today we’re releasing a three-part series about how the U.S. has dealt with the bioterrorism threat during the Bush administration. Our reporting, done in collaboration with Reader’s Digest and multimedia magazine FLYP Media, found that the $48 billion the government has spent fighting bioterrorism over the past seven years might actually have accelerated the risk of an attack while making only modest progress in preparing for one.
Earlier this week, a bipartisan commission found that a biological terrorist attack is likely somewhere in the world within the next five years. Like the congressionally mandated commission, ProPublica found that major changes are necessary in the nation’s approach to containing the threat of bioterrorism.
Experts told ProPublica that the government must find ways to make us safer from bioterrorism without accelerating risk. Insiders also told us the government needs to weigh the full range of microbial threats facing the country, whether they are posed by nature, accident or terrorism.
Get Updates
Our Hottest Stories
- The 182 Percent Loan: How Installment Lenders Put Borrowers in a World of Hurt
- IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups
- Six Facts Lost in the IRS Scandal
- Medicare Drug Program Fails to Monitor Prescribers, Putting Seniors and Disabled at Risk
- Sound, Fury and the IRS Mess
- On Victory Drive, Soldiers Defeated by Debt
- A Prosecutor, a Wrongful Conviction and a Question of Justice
- The Most Important #Muckreads on Rape in the Military
- A Prolonged Stay: The Reasons Behind the Slow Pace of Executions
- Congressmen to Hagel: Where Are the Missing War Records?
- IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups
- Six Facts Lost in the IRS Scandal
- The 182 Percent Loan: How Installment Lenders Put Borrowers in a World of Hurt
- How the IRS’s Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional
- On Victory Drive, Soldiers Defeated by Debt
- Sound, Fury and the IRS Mess
- Medicare Drug Program Fails to Monitor Prescribers, Putting Seniors and Disabled at Risk
- Congressmen to Hagel: Where Are the Missing War Records?
- The Most Important #Muckreads on Rape in the Military
- A Prolonged Stay: The Reasons Behind the Slow Pace of Executions
