While the federal government has devoted "billions in taxpayer dollars" to prepare the US for the possibility of a bioterrorist attack, the nation's emergency and trauma care systems remain unprepared for the possibility of a terrorist attack using explosives or a biological threat such as SARS or avian flu, Arthur Kellerman, professor and chair of emergency medicine at the... Emory University School of Medicine, writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. According to Kellerman, "International terrorism's weapon of choice is explosives," yet there is "not one [federally funded public health preparedness center] focused on civilian injuries from explosives," compared with 17 such centers for the "less-likely threat" of "biological and other exotic weapons of mass destruction." He adds that "underfunded emergency rooms and trauma centers" across the U.S. "lack sufficient beds to meet their daily mission, much less absorb large numbers of victims from a terrorist attack," yet the federal government has earmarked only $3.5 million to trauma systems planning, Kellerman writes.