Thomas A. Glass and Monica Schoch-Spana

About the author: Thomas A. Glass and Monica Schoch-Spana both belong to Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Glass works for the school's Center on Aging and Health and Department of Epidemiology, and Schoch-Spana works for the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.

Bioterrorism policy discussions have tended to assume that nonprofessional citizens will be a passive factor or an actual impediment in the response to an attack, but this probably will not be the case. Planners should see mass panic as both rare and preventable and should make the public an active partner in proposed response schemes. Individuals and groups providing at-home care are likely to provide important augmentation of hospital care. The chances that...