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The Department of Defense spent considerable time and resources developing a plan to vaccinate its service members against the biological warfare agent, anthrax. While DoD formulated an initial public affairs plan including print, radio and television, it did not consider the Internet as a powerful means of communication.
As soon as the plan to inoculate all troops with this vaccine was announced, people from outside the military began putting material on the Internet that was contrary to the information disseminated by DoD. Unprepared for this cyber assault, DoD took months before posting important information on the Internet about the necessity to vaccinate against this relatively unheard-of biological killer called anthrax.