Weapons of Mass Casualties and Terrorism Response Handbook (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Monograph)

The Weapons of Mass Casualties and Terrorism Response Handbook provides emergency personnel with information about potential terrorist weapons. Covering chemical agents, biological agents, radiation emergencies, electronic terrorism and directed energy weapons, and personal protection and decontamination, the Handbook provides a brief history, signs and symptoms, personal protective measures, and treatment modalities for the various topics. This is a book about mass casualties, not mass destruction. Although many lump chemicals and biological weapons with nuclear weapons and conventional terrorism as weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass casualties do not necessarily cause mass destruction as well. Instead of causing mass destruction, weapons of mass casualties cause fearsome casualties, society-paralyzing panic, and emergency situations that may overwhelm all available medical facilities and surviving providers, but these weapons may also be chosen particularly because they avoid any significant destruction of property.