Canadians 'Vulnerable' to Bioterror Weapons

Authorities are ill-equipped to handle an attack, federal documents warn

By Mark MacKinnon
Friday, April 27, 2001 - The Globe and Mail, Print Edition, Page A1

Health Canada is unprepared to deal with what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service sees as the growing threat of a "mass-casualty" chemical - or biological-weapons strike in this country, internal documents suggest.

Since a series of chemical weapons "hoaxes" earlier this year - including an incident where a box containing a mysterious blue powder was received at the Immigration Department in Ottawa, forcing the evacuation of the building - experts have warned that Canada is ill-equipped to handle such an attack if the real thing were ever to come along.

The Health Canada documents, obtained by the Globe and Mail, accepted by the department as well-founded, though the department felt the risk of a bioterrorism attack "remains remote."

In an interview yesterday, Ronald St. John, executive director of health Canada's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, said the situation is imperfect, but has improved since last year when the documents were prepared.

"The statements that were made a year ago aren't quite appropriate today," Dr. St.John said.

However, Dr. St. John acknowledged there's still a lot of work to do. "It wouldn't be fair to say it's fixed. The entire network hasn't been put into place yet." Even if it were, he said, "you're always going to have a limited capacity at the local level" to respond to a large scale terrorist attack.

"It's possible for somebody to devise something that will overwhelm anything. But we don't prepare for Armageddon."

The documents say the United States, Britain and Australia have all taken steps to prepare for the medical catastrophe of a bioterrorism attack, but as of a year ago, Canada has devoted no resources and no personnel to readying itself for a terrorist strike.

"Canada is vulnerable to a BT [bioterrorist] attack with either chemical or biological agents," one document, dated January, 2000, reads. "Currently, no funds are earmarked for dealing with BT activities at health Canada."

A chemical - or biological-weapons attack in Canada would be disastrous, according to modelling done by the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control.

Using the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, Ont., as an example, the LCDC found that if its 100,000 residents were exposed to the chemical agent anthrax, 32,875 would die. Medical costs from the resulting 332,5000 days of hospital care would total $6.5-billion.

If botulism were the agent used, and the same number exposed, it's estimated that 30,000 would die and it would cost $8.6-billion to keep in hospital the others affected for the needed 4,275,000 days.

In contrast to Canada's lack of preparedness, the documents say, the United States devoted $158-million (U.S.) in fiscal 1999 to prepare for possible bioterrorism strikes, giving the bulk of the money to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The documents show there was a debate last year within Health Canada over the need for dedicated funding.

Two options were presented to a multidepartment committee studying the issue.

One was the status quo; the other an undefined amount of money that would qualify as "sufficient funding."

Among the needed steps identified were the stockpiling of vaccines and other medicines, and training of doctors to recognize illnesses such as anthrax and smallpox.

The national emergency response centre needed "expansion and refurbishment" and an enhanced communications system was needed, the documents say.

"Currently there is a 'vacuum,' i.e., no one is taking (national) leadership for public health aspects of BT; anything that is done is likely better than the current situation," one reads.

"Our provincial and federal laboratory capacity is inadequate and unable to carry out rapid diagnosis of a biological attack' If an episode of any size were to occur today, Health Canada's ability to support local responses would be quickly overwhelmed." Preparedness varied at the local level city by city, one report noted.

The documents quote from a "CSIS Report 2000/02" in outlining the growing risk of a bioterrorism attack.

"Canada remains as vulnerable as any of the other Western industrialized states to the kind of nightmarish, mass-casualty CBRN - chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear - terrorist attack that until recently was confined to fiction," it says.

"Although it is impossible to estimate the precise likelihood of a mass-casualty terrorist attack using CBRN materials... it appears to be a case of not if, but when, the next such event will occur."

Dr. St. John said Canada has dramatically improved its diagnostic capabilities and has been working with municipalities, provinces and other countries to ensure preparedness.

A network of laboratories that could deal with a chemical or biological attack is also being put into place, with Winnipeg's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response as the hub. Canada is also further along in the stockpiling of medicines and vaccines, he said.

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