Starting Tuesday, Boston’s public health agency will begin tracking every sniffle, cough, and stomachache that comes into the city’s emergency rooms, hoping that unusual patterns of routine symptoms would provide an early alert of acts of bioterrorism or major outbreaks of disease. The hunt for unexpected clusters of illness is a cornerstone of the effort to detect episodes of biological or chemical poisoning, a concern that arose again yesterday as federal officials confirmed they have information that Al Qaeda is plotting a terrorist attack in the United States that could occur this summer. The early warning system will also allow doctors and publichealth authorities to identify the arrival of less-sinister outbreaks of illness, ranging from epidemics of flu to stomach ailments spawned by rotten food. Full Story
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