Smallpox 2002 – Silent Weapon

Judging by commentators’ reactions, Smallpox 2002 — Silent Weapon, screened by the BBC in the UK but to be shown in many countries, was an outstanding success in provoking fear and loathing over an epidemic triggered by a terrorist releasing the virus. One reviewer said that this was the programme to watch “if you want to be scared – and even made paranoid about everybody you meet in the street, even the air you breathe”. Many others described the “mockdocumentary” as chillingly realistic. Set in the near future, looking back to events this year, the film showed the consequences when a lone individual infects himself and then wanders around New York. The infection, which many doctors fail to recognize, spreads like wildfire, leading to “the greatest act of mass murder in history”. A shortage of vaccine plus panic over the disease itself lead to rioting and looting. The virus moves quickly to London and other parts of the world. Suspected victims are sent to quarantine camps. Other people head for remote areas to avoid the disease. Some are too frightened to leave their homes. Within weeks, there are 60 million dead. Such a scenario neither required nor received creative embellishment. Instead, the producers told the story through a subtle blend of talking heads and a video diary kept by one family. Alongside disturbing pictures of smallpox victims and rows of coffins, other elements of the horror were almost under-stated. So much for the style. What of the substance? Could a calamity of this sort really be launched by a solitary madman (who left behind a bible open at the Book of Ezekiel)? Two assertions in the programme provoke scepticism at least. Firstly, an FBI Commander said that “the greatest threat... to our lives and security is a single individual with a $50 chemistry set and the will to decimate the planet”. This was followed by the bizarre allegation that, to infect himself, the madman would simply have needed to “take a spec... of this virus... get a Petri dish or brewing kit and culture it”. Could the virus have come from either of the two known remaining laboratory stocks, one in the USA and the other in Russia? Ken Alibek, who ran the former USSR’s biological weapons programme, was on hand to give credence to the latter possibility. Indeed, the organism was identified as India-1, the USSR’s “principal battle strain”. But such a virus is far more likely to have fallen into the hands not of a solitary fanatic but of state-sponsored terrorists. In that case the country concerned would surely, before launching an attack, have mounted a vaccination campaign for its own population. This prudent preparation would have become widely known and aroused suspicions accordingly. The film’s portrayal of the rapid dissemination of the organism also raises questions. “By the time New York had diagnosed its first case, it was already too late. The virus had moved on,” said the voice-over. While this seems entirely credible, given the speed and volume of modern air travel, accompanying remarks were seriously misleading. For example, the agent of Ebola fever was said to require direct contact whereas that of smallpox was airborne. Shortly afterwards, we were shown shots of people wearing gas masks as they rollerskated down the street. This gave the mistaken impression that the virus could spread far and wide in the air and on the wind. Some urgent dilemmas facing public health officials in responding to an attack of this sort were vividly explained. One was the difficulty of deciding whether to use a large but limited quantity of vaccine to immunise New York’s entire population before it became clear whether, if the incident really were a result of terrorism, other cities would also be attacked. So could this scenario which led within days to New York’s infrastructure unravelling and its entire healthcare system being on the point of collapse — actually happen? Could it mean planet Earth being caught up in “a disaster of biblical proportions”? Perhaps. Yet this was a very worst possible case analysis. All stages, from the fanatic’s procurement of the virus to its dissemination, were built upon the most threatening premises, some of them implausible. There was also a tendency to marginalise any good news, even news that is no more than relatively good. It was, for example, very near the end of the film when viewers were told that two thirds of smallpox patients do actually recover from the disease. Likewise, the measured comments of Donald Henderson (who masterminded the WHO’s eradication of smallpox two decades ago) were screened after the programme itself finished. “Any release of smallpox is going to challenge us in a very serious way,” Henderson said. “So we have to be ready to move very quickly and effectively with a large amount of vaccine...We are now approaching the point where we are going to be able to do that. But we are not going to be able to pick up all cases. Although we are better and better and better prepared, I’m never going to be in a position to say we can relax.” While showing that even this pandemic was controlled by mass vaccination and containment, Smallpox 2002 — Silent Weapon was based upon a far less reassuring script. The programme was all the more effective because it was largely completed before the events of 11 September last year, rather than in response to them. If it has reminded public health and public authorities graphically of a terrible disease, then it will have done much good.