"Last December, UNDT announced that they have made their detection equipment available to the food service and hospitality industry in response to Al-Qaeda's threat to poison food and salad bars with ricin toxin.
According to officials, the Al-Qaeda group that built two toner-cartridge bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to blow up planes last October also has contemplated spreading poisons, such as ricin and cyanide, on salad bars and buffets at U.S. hotels and restaurants!
Susan Ford, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at St. John's University said that initially, the effect of ingesting poison in this manner could "look very much like food poisoning."
CBS also quoted former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff as saying that, based on this threat, it's important to tell public health officials that what looks like food poisoning could be the result of a terror attack.
UNDT CEO Jacques Tizabi stated, "As the world witnesses unrest in some very volatile regions in the Middle East and North Africa, there is a growing concern that weapons of mass destruction can be acquired by rogue regimes and terrorists and be used against the United States and its allies. Universal Detection Technology has grown its product portfolio to address all aspects of CBRNE threats with fast acting detection of such threats."
"We recently added Tularemia to the list of agents that our detection kits can rapidly identify in a sample. We plan to add more detection capabilities for agents such as Brucella and Pox soon as we anticipate the types of agents that might be utilized by terrorists," added Tizabi.
Tularemia is a serious infectious disease! According to IDPH.com, Tularemia, in aerosol form, is considered a possible bioterrorist agent. Persons who inhale an infectious aerosol would likely experience severe respiratory illness.
According to a report from San Jose, CA-based Global Industry Analysts (GIA), the potential for a bio-terrorism attack is the biggest single factor driving the growth of the global bio-terrorism detection equipment market.
The GIA has valued the 2012 bio-terror detection market at $1.02 billion!
That's Billion with a B...
