33. Vesicant: Blister agent. Primary route of exposure is the skin (contact) but do put of vapors. Burn like blisters. There are two types of nuclear Primary complication with vesicant blisters is secondary infection. weapons: fission and fusion. DECONTAMINATIONis critical before ABCs are started Fission 34. What are biological WMD?: All existing nuclear weapons derive - 'most likely method of attack' some of their explosive energy from - Potential to be as destructive as nuclearweapons a nuclear fission reaction. Weapons - Methods: whose explosive output is *Put substances in food exclusively from fission reactions *Release virus via aersol are referred to as atomic bombs or - Difficult to detect/diagnose atom bombs. 35. What are chemical agents? Fusion - Non-explosive chemical agents that cause injury or death Fusion weapons produce a large - Typically disperse in a gaseous form through an aerosol delivery system proportion of energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion 36. What are explosives WMD? weapons are referred to as thermonuclear weapons or - High-yield conventional explosives have been the most common for large-scale hydrogen bombs. All such weapons terrorist attacks derive a significant portion of their - Not originally included in WMD, but have potential for widespread destruction energy from fission reactions which 37. What are nuclear WMD? are used to "trigger" fusion reactions. The primary pathologic - Most destructive but hardest to obtain effect of ionizing radiation causes - Potentially most lethal form damage to DNA. The common - Nuclear weapons and nuclear materialplentiful pathway of injury is radiation deposits energy into the electron 38. What are Radiological WMD?: Dirty bombs viewed as likely choice for orbitals of atoms in the biologic terrorist medium. - Dirty bombs are radioactive materials by way of a conventional explosivedevice - Could cause widespread contamination and spreadpanic - Effectiveness depends on magnitude of explosion and size/ type and half-life of radioactive material used - May be next most popular WMD of choice 84