For the smuggler of weapons, explosives or drugs, technology presents a formidable barrier. Sensors can help locate contraband inside luggage or in traces on a traveler's documents or clothes.
But biological agents, such as the anthrax spores that have killed up to five people in the US and sickened others in past weeks, are much tougher to detect.
A recent government study found that no single machine can detect all known biological weapons, which can be lethal in extremely tiny amounts. Nor is there a device -- such as the scanners used on mail and luggage -- that can uncover spores or bacteria hidden inside a sealed package.
"The magic X-ray is extremely challenging," said Page Stoutland, a counterterrorism expert at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore Lab.
"Most of us put that in the `too hard to do' category."
Even so, a few manufacturers of pathogen detectors have seen their sales -- and company stock prices -- jump in recent days, following the targeted mailings of packages bearing suspicious powder.
Most detectors being sold are useful for a single task: checking samples gathered for evidence of a pathogen.
Two of the machines can detect pathogens in about 20 minutes by immersing the DNA of suspicious substances in a chemical bath designed to identify a specific agent. The technique employed is called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction.
"We're seeing an onslaught of inquiries, requests for quotes, people asking us `How fast can I get one?'" said Kim Woodhouse of Idaho Technology, manufacturer of the Rapid, a US$60,000 pathogen detector that resembles a portable record player.
Since its 1998 introduction, the Rapid has been purchased by the US Customs Service, the Department of Agriculture and all military service branches, as well as a dozen foreign governments, Woodhouse said.
This month, the Salt Lake City company has already taken orders for hundreds of machines and discussed purchases with the US Postal Inspection Service, private companies and other federal agencies.
Another manufacturer, Sunnyvale, California-based Cepheid, has seen a parallel increase in interest.
Cepheid's customers include the Centers for Disease Control and the US Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, said Cathy Smith, the chief financial officer.
A handheld pathogen scanner, the size of a brick, could be on the market in a few months. Livermore labs licensed the technology to develop the US$15,000 sensor to Baltimore-based Environmental Technologies Group, said Stoutland.
Bruker Daltonics Inc of Massachusetts, a life sciences company whose sensors are part of the Army's current field detection system, has sold sophisticated scanners to city authorities in New York and Tokyo for civil defense or environmental monitoring.
Tokyo officials purchased several of Bruker's US$10,000 air monitoring devices for their subway system after the 1995 Sarin chemical attack mounted by a cult that left 12 dead, said company vice president John Wronka.
One researcher said the best civilian protection against biological weapons is a well-oiled public health system, not a five- to six-figure machine.
"They ought to be careful before they throw money down that rat hole," said Eric Croddy, a weapons proliferation researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "It makes sense to protect the troops. There's a reasonable chance they face a threat. For civilians like you and me, I don't think anybody could justify it."
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