In this article from Sunday's New York Times, reviewer Gregg Easterbrook argues that by worrying about bioterrorism, the intelligent folks in the United States Government are probably overlooking more realistic and more dangerous conventional threats. It seems that this op-ed piece was inspired by annoyance.

While searching for de-icing crystals at his local hardware store, Easterbrook found himself in a lengthy queue characterized by people toting quantities of duct tape and sheet plastic. He muses that the people building homemade disaster chambers with these supplies have a far greater chance of perishing in a car accident enroute to the hardware store then they do in a bio-terrorism event. (The government likes referring to these kinds of things as "events".) Easterbrook summarizes the folly of building the bio-terror safe havens in the following manner: "By the time you knew to rush to your sealed room, you would either already be infected or the emergency would be over." And unless the terrorist have perfect weather for their bio-terrorism, he chances of you being among the infected are very small indeed.