And then there was 9/11. Given the pitch of the risk discourse about the threat of a bioterrorist attack in the years and months leading up to September 2001, it is perhaps not surprising that the US authorities’ attention was initially focused elsewhere when a more low-tech, but equally stunning attack occurred. Just minutes after planes crashed into The World Trade Center, the National Guard was mobilized to test the air for biological or chemical agents (Sarasin, 2006). None were found, but within a week the anthrax letters had been posted and a new era had dawned, one in which the long anticipated but hypothetical threat of bioterrorism had become a ‘reality’.