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The catastrophic terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax mailings have sensitized the nation to acts of domestic terror. The confirmation of terrorist interest in weapons of mass destruction and the vulnerability of the United States to such attack have highlighted the potential that these weapons may be used as weapons of terror. The framework of weapons of mass destruction(WMD) includes chemical, biological, and toxin weapons…

Current popular attention being paid to the threat of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) use by terrorists may give the impression that this is a new phenomenon, but it is not. Most chemical and biological weapons themselves have a long history: the first chemical weapons were used in ancient Greece; biological weapons have been used in a wartime context since at least the Middle Ages.1Employed extensively in the first World War, notably in the use of mustard gas,chemical weapons have evolved very little in their technology since the midtwentieth century. Although recent technological advances in biological weapon shave been made, the vaccines and treatments available to deal with some of them have also advanced. Historically, most terrorist groups have avoided using CBW, inpart because they do not want to alienate their own constituencies, and in part because they have not had the technical expertise to turn them into effective weapons.2 Those CBW attacks that have occurred represent a small proportion of the total number of international terrorist incidents.3 CBW weapons have rarely been used by subnational groups…

In a request from the office of the Product Director for Test Equipment, Strategy, and Support (PD TESS) of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense in the Department of Defense (DOD), The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was asked to provide a report assessing the current and future needs for testing and evaluating biological standoff detection systems, the current test and evaluation (T&E) capabilities and to provide guidance on how to meet the future needs of this T&E mission.