Steve Bonta

Steve Bonta maintains in the following viewpoint that the risk posed by germ warfare has been exaggerated by those interested in implementing draconion state and federal policies designed to contain a possible outbreak of smallpox or anthrax. He contends that although biological warfare was used successfully in earlier centuries, such an attack would fail against a modern society with good sanitation and advanced medicine. Bonta points to the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001—which infected only a handful of people—as a demonstration of the limitations of germ warfare. Bonta is a contributing editor for the New American, a conservative weekly newsmagazine.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What did the original draft of the MEHPA authorize, as reported by Bonta?
2. According to the author...