Emerging Infectious Disease ISSN: 1080-6059

Collaboration Between Public Health and Law Enforcement: New Paradigms and Partnerships for Bioterrorism Planning and Response

Jay C. Butler*

, Mitchell L. Cohen*, Cindy R. Friedman*, Robert M. Scripp†, and Craig G. Watz†

Author affiliations: *Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; †Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., USA;

Differences in public health and law enforcement investigations

Characteristics	Public health	Law enforcement
Method of event recognition	Event detected through public health surveillance or calls from clinicians	Event announced by attacker or is evident
Challenges to event recognition	Few clinical syndromes that are clearly the result of bioterrorist attack; difficulty distinguishing between disease of natural origin and bioterrorism attack	Large number of hoaxes and noncredible threats not associated with an actual bioterrorist attack; delay in notification of possible event by public health; “copycat” threats or attacks (9)
Initial data collection	Hypothesis generation, “shoe-leather epidemiology”	Questioning of witnesses and suspects, follow-up of tips and intelligence information
Confirmatory data collection and analysis	Controlled epidemiologic studies	Collection and organization of evidence
Data validation	Presentation for scientific peer review	Indictment, arrest, and conviction
Goal of investigation	Effective disease prevention and control measures	Prevention and deterrence of future attacks