Epidemiologic Surveillance for Investigating Chemical or Biological Warfare and for Improving Human Health

Peter Barss makes a compelling case both for the value of epidemiology in investigating suspected use of chemical, biological, or toxin warfare (CBTW), and for consistency in epidemiologic procedures. Since John Snow in the nineteenth century, “armed only with [his] five senses and [his] notebook,” carried out his pioneering epidemiologic investigations to determine the source of the cholera epidemic then raging in London, the value of epidemiology for analyzing incidents of unexpected illness or death, in whatever context they occur, has been demonstrated many times over. Despite this, as Barss convincingly shows, the routine practice of field epidemiology is still often not fully or properly utilized in investigating alleged CBTW.