Re: currency spend analysis vs. disease

fred wrote:

> I live
> very close to the first post office to have been identified as the source
> of the Anthrax virus a few years back, our mail was delivered in sealed
> plastic bags with a note suggesting we not open it ...

That doesn't sound awfully useful -- if you couldn't actually open your 
mail, surely the post office might as well have incinerated it?

> I don't even want to think of the results should a
> terrorist group get the idea of using money to spread a bio terrorist
> attack, could make money a very unpopular thing very quickly!

It would have to be a bug that could survive outside the body for a long 
time, like anthrax, and someone would need to get a substantial dose in 
order to become sick.  It is thought that people need to inhale 
10,000-20,000 spores in order to catch respiratory anthrax, for example.

If someone actually added an infectious agent to a banknote, I think it 
might not be possible to make it come off at the right rate.  It would 
either remain stuck on forever, or it would quickly become dislodged, 
making the note safe again.

In Britain we had a very strange terrorist plot.  This allegedly 
involved the manufacture of ricin, which was then going to be smeared on 
doorhandles and things.  All but one of the defendants were eventually 
acquitted, and no ricin was ever manufactured, so I'm not sure exactly 
what was going on if anything.  However, the plot wouldn't have worked, 
ricin isn't toxic enough.  People would have picked up a nasty greasy 
substance from doorhandles, washed their hands, and all the ricin would 
have gone down the plughole.

Pete