Bioterrorism

The deliberate release or threatened release of a biological agent, such as a bacterium, virus or toxin, to cause illness, death, or widespread fear among a civilian population or to advance a political, religious or ideological aim, distinguished from the use of biological weapons in an armed conflict between states in that bioterrorism is generally carried out by a non-state actor, terrorist organization, or lone individual outside a declared war. The most significant documented case in the United States is the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, in which anthrax spores mailed to news media offices and two United States senators killed five people and infected seventeen others, prompting a substantial expansion of national public health emergency preparedness and biodefense programs in the years that followed, and the offense is generally prosecuted under a jurisdiction's terrorism or weapons of mass destruction statutes rather than as a standalone named crime.