They don't always need to do something dramatic. But this forces us to spend a lot of time and attention on something that's fairly easy to do. You know, just get some anthrax and contaminate a letter and send it to whomever. Everybody becomes a potential target, at random. Indeed, it's this sense of randomness, and an innate fear of the unknown, that has managed to deeply unsettle so many Americans.
People have a natural, age-old aversion to poison.
And so I think it's completely understandable and natural that people respond this way. Ms. Stern says psychologists have identified 18 variables associated with biological weapons that tend to create a disproportionate sense of threat. Powder is by far the most effective way to distribute anthrax, according to experts, although there can be wide variation in what that powder looks like. But whether it's white or clear or brown and smelly, depends on how good the group has been in trying to purify it. This variation has made any and all granular substances suddenly seem like potential weapons to many Americans.