By Stephen La Rocque
Washington File staff writer

Washington -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Republican of Tennessee) says he believes the United States will ultimately be victorious in its fight against terrorism but cautions that globalization has brought the threat of biological terrorism closer to U.S. shores.

In remarks on the Senate floor June 11, Frist reflected on how exotic diseases have made their way to the United States and into the news.

Frist, who is a doctor, noted how several years ago "people did not know what West Nile virus was," and how "several months ago we did not know what SARS was, and several days ago we did not know what monkeypox was."

Some health officials believe that the outbreak of monkeypox may be "the tip of a growing problem of infectious diseases being brought into the country through the importation of exotic animals," he added.

Globalization "has brought us much closer to the threat of natural disease as well as disease used potentially as an instrument of terror," Frist said.

The lawmaker predicted the United States will continue to see emerging infections appear.

"Equally alarming is this whole arena of bioterrorism, the use of microbes, viruses, bacteria ... as biological weapons to threaten others," he said.

Frist noted that the Senate itself has been attacked with anthrax.

The Senate has the task of responding to and preparing for both naturally occurring infections and any attempt by terrorists "to use these biological agents as weapons of mass destruction," according to Frist.

The Senate leader said that President Bush "has set the United States, with the help of our allies, along a proper course to ultimately win the war on terror."

"We have disrupted terrorist networks," frozen their financial assets, removed terrorist leaders, and arrested more than 3,000 individual terrorists worldwide, he said.

"We have toppled two of the world's most notorious terrorist regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq with decisive victories," the senator added.

Frist stressed that the United States and its allies "must not allow other countries to pursue biological weapons programs."

"We know the risk of smallpox," he said. "We know one gram of botulinum toxin, if aerosolized, has the potential for taking the lives of a million and a half people."

Frist urged fellow lawmakers to take "our enemies seriously," for through globalization, "they are closer than ever."