Christopher Ruddy
Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002

Nope. Impossible. That's the verdict of our officials in Washington.

"There's nothing that we've seen thus far to suggest this is any sort of bioterrorism," Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the AP. "Though it's not common that we see these outbreaks of this sort of magnitude, it's certainly not unheard of."

What's their proof?

They have none, really. Just their guess.

Last week I spoke with a very prominent Washington journalist, who suggested the cruise ship outbreaks may be a dry run by terrorists before they use more deadly viruses.

His surmise was made before another two ships, including Carnival's Fascination, returned to port carrying as many as 170 ill passengers.

The passengers on Fascination were hit with the Norwalk virus, a gastrointestinal virus that has been around for decades. But it has never seemed to target cruise ships as it has in the past several weeks.

So far, more than 1,000 passengers have been stricken by the virus while on cruise ships.

Holland America's The Amsterdam ship was struck several times with the virus. Decontamination has not seemed to work.

Disney has spent millions on its ship, the Magic, hoping to decontaminate it once and for all.

So far three ships have been hit hard (apparently others have had smaller outbreaks). All three ships were operated by different cruise lines and all sailed from different ports.

Still, the feds are firm in their conclusion. The Miami Herald reported that "CDC officials have said there is no evidence that the cruise ship outbreaks are the work of terrorists."

Still, they don't have any evidence that it isn't.

Let's not forget that this is the same CDC that that has yet to say boo about the West Nile virus, though scads of evidence points to terrorism.

Dr. Ken Alibek, former head of the Russian bioweapons program, thinks so. And so does Sen. Patrick Leahy, who recently said credible evidence points to West Nile as a test of our defenses to bioterrorism.

Sad to say, the American public is the last to know. The media won't carry any discussion of West Nile as a bioweapon. They practically censored any discussion of the snipers being Muslim terrorists. And now the cruise ship outbreaks.

Now is neither the time for censorship of important matter nor the time for hysteria. While we shouldn't jump to any conclusions about the Norwalk outbreaks, we should not immediately exclude terrorism.

How about keeping an open mind, following the evidence, asking good questions. Even if it isn't terrorism, why not use these outbreaks as a test to see what we can learn from them.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bioterrorism
Health Issues

Editor's note:
"Living Terrors: Surviving the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe"