“The nation’s main defense against biological terrorism — a $1-billion network of air samplers in cities across the country — cannot be counted on to detect an attack, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The BioWatch system, introduced with fanfare by President George W. Bush in 2003, has exasperated public health officials with numerous false alarms, stemming from its inability to distinguish between harmless germs and the lethal pathogens that terrorists would be likely to unleash in an attack.”
Source: U.S. system to detect bio-terror can’t do the job, GAO finds – LA Times