In the first hour, registered nurse Joyce Riley shared information on anthrax inoculations being given to military personnel. Riley says we have troops that are sick from the Gulf War and they have not found the reason for their illness. She argues that this vaccination will not necessarily help anything – they still don’t know if anthrax in the cause of the sickness.
Author of "The Hot Zone," Richard Preston, featured in hours 2-4, discussed issues and extreme dangers of Ebola and similar viruses, and the possibility of biowarfare using these pathogens. He talked about a test that shows airborne diseases caught by monkeys do not always affect humans. While he was researching biological terrorism, he discovered that the US army is greatly concerned about Ebola as it can be made into a powder and released into the air.
Bioterrorism could be invisible. There is a possibility that it could be completely undetectable until it’s too late, he warned. Preston explains how anthrax works – you can disperse it into the air with something the size of a hairspray bottle. It comes on like the common cold – it's very hard to diagnose, he detailed. By day three, you actually start feeling better until you eventually die from anthrax pneumonia.