- LONDON (Reuters) - As anthrax
fears sweep the United States and spread around the world, medical experts
said on Friday that the psychological damage to society could well be
greater
and longer lasting than any physical impact.
-
- Although ostensibly meant to endanger lives, chemical
and biological agents make unpredictable killers. But they are very
effective
in causing anxiety and social and economic mayhem.
-
- "Chemical and biological weapons are
quintessentially
weapons of terror," said Simon Wessely, a psychologist at Guy's,
King's
and St. Thomas' School of Medicine in London.
-
- "The real purpose of these weapons is to wreak
destruction
via psychological means -- by inducing fear, confusion, and uncertainty
in everyday life."
-
- Judging by the anthrax scares around the globe, the
persistent
images of spacesuit clad medics on television screens and cautious
assurances
uttered by shaken politicians to a jittery public, the psychological
effects
are already evident.
-
- "Even if the short-term consequences of an attack
with chemical or biological weapons turn out to be less than some of the
apocalyptic scenarios being aired by the media, the long-term disruptions
may be worse than anticipated," Wessely said in an editorial in the
British Medical Journal.
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- APOCALYPTIC SCENARIOS
-
- It is not clear if the anthrax-laced letters sent to
news organizations, politicians and others are linked to last month's
attacks
on New York and Washington, which the United States has blamed on the
Afghan-based
Islamic militant Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
-
- The incidents have triggered what Wessely and co-authors
Kenneth Craig Hyams of the Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web
sites)
in Washington and Robert Bartholomew of James Cook University in Australia
called "mass sociogenic illness" -- inappropriate reactions to
supposed threats that add to their impact.
-
- Two examples were the protective gear worn by officials
at every scare site and the suggestion of using detectors for chemical
warfare agents on the Washington subway system.
-
- "It is possible that these alarms will in practice
cause greater disruptions to transport systems than the attack itself,
given the high probability that such detectors may give false alarms,"
said Wessely.
-
- The doomsday scenarios envisioned by some experts may
be greatly exaggerated. But Wessely added that the long-term disruptions
to daily life could be worse than anticipated.
-
- "The general level of malaise, fear and anxiety
may remain high for years, exacerbating pre-existing psychiatric disorders
and further heightening risk of mass sociogenic illness," he said.
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