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Just said on MSNBC tv...

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Answers

Just caught the end part of it and was PO'd because when the y ask for questions, CNN went to commercial break! Nothing said after that. I was taping CNN, so will look at the tape later tonight. If I heard right (not for sure mind you), they spoke of more then one in the hospital being tested and where asking the publics help finding other people who had been in that building.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Anyone else get more info? Was it on another channel, other then CNN?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Synopsis:

Sec. of Health said was very proud of coalition of different Fed., State & Local agencies plus volunteers from all over working on this case.

Very tight-lipped, didn't allow many questions to be asked.

DID MENTION: Still looking for a few employees who haven't checked in yet. Asked people who had info to call 1-800 #!

MSNBC Commentator said that FBI is now running the show, Health & Human Svcs. only providing "face" cover...

From the subtle way clues were given, it's a terrorist attack and they're now treating it as a crime scene!

They would refused to talk about the origin of the anthrax...

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Now wondering how many others have contracted airborn type anthrax, time will tell.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

How's this for a scenario. All available vaccine is used up calming a very localized area of the country. Then the real deal starts...

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Now that's a chilling thought.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Brooks,

Dude, you gotta quit thinking like a terrorist! You are really messing up my stomach. ;-)

Actually, a terrifyingly probable scenario...

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Sorry, I fell asleep--you know how that goes. I did pretty well today tho0ugh. Here's the latest.

Monday October 8, 10:11 PM

Anthrax a perfect biological weapon

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deadly and hard to diagnose until it is too late for the victim, anthrax makes a nearly perfect biological weapon, experts say.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the cases of a Florida man who died of inhaled anthrax last week and a colleague who had inhaled some of the spores, and may treat the case as a criminal investigation, U.S. Attorney-general John Ashcroft says.

Experts said on Monday they could think of no natural explanation for men who worked in a newspaper office to become infected with the spores, which are known to kill up to 89 percent of patients who are not treated.

"It is unheard of that you would find spores in a building like this," Theresa Koehler, an anthrax expert at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, said in a telephone interview. "In a textile mill or where people are processing animals, that is one thing. But this is another."

Anthrax has long been known as a disease of farm animals. The most common human victims used to be wool workers.

And in its most common form -- cutaneous or a skin infection -- it is not especially deadly.

But the bacteria that cause anthrax can form spores, which are one of nature's ways of getting a small organism through tough times. Spores can survive being ground up, dried, buried or sprayed around, coming back to active life when they get to a nice, warm, wet place, such as inside a human nose.

These spores could be sprayed by something like a crop-dusting aircraft, or released by a home-made aerosol, which makes them useful for use in a biological attack.

"Today, at least 17 nations are believed to have offensive biological weapons programs," the American Medical Association (AMA) says in a statement on anthrax. "Iraq has acknowledged producing and weaponizing anthrax."

It would be difficult to know an attack had taken place until after people started to get sick.

"An anthrax aerosol would be odorless and invisible following release and would have the potential to travel many miles (kilometres) before disseminating," the AMA said. People who stayed indoors would be just as likely to become infected.

One accident, in 1979 at a military lab in Sverdlosk in the then-Soviet Union, showed how deadly anthrax spores can be. At least 79 people became ill and 68 of them died.

"In Sverdlovsk, cases occurred from 2 to 43 days after exposure," the AMA said. In monkeys, live spores have been found in the lymph nodes 100 days after exposure.

An expert committee at the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated in 1970 that if someone released 110 pounds (50 kg) of anthrax over a big city of 5 million people, 250,000 people would get sick and 100,000 would die if they were not treated.

How fast symptoms develop depends on the dose, Koehler said.

"People who that get a huge dose get sick right away," Koehler said. She said it takes 8,000 to 10,000 spores to cause an infection.

And the infection starts out looking like plain old flu. "Although anthrax starts out with flu-like symptoms, it rapidly progresses to severe illnesses, including pneumonia and meningitis," the U.S. centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says in its statement on anthrax.

By the time symptoms show up, the patient is very likely to die. But if officials determine that someone has been exposed, quick use of antibiotics can save them.

"CDC has an emergency supply of antibiotics readily available for distribution. If the investigation of the cause of this illness indicated that you need antibiotics, your state and local health department will notify you and your physician and will assure you receive the drugs," the CDC said.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Anthrax source said to be natural

By Sanjay Bhatt, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 7, 2001

WEST PALM BEACH -- The deadly germ that killed a 63-year-old Lantana man is found in nature and is not a genetically engineered hybrid resistant to penicillin, officials said Saturday.

Coupled with the lack of new anthrax cases, the finding further weakened the theory that Robert Stevens was the victim of terrorists who were intent on massive casualties, like those on Sept. 11. Stevens, who officials say died from inhaling anthrax spores, was cremated Saturday after an autopsy, during which more specimens were taken and shipped overnight to laboratories at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials have ruled out anthrax in three other cases that concerned them, at least two of whom worked in the same Boca Raton building as Stevens -- Martha Moffett of Lake Worth and an unidentified Miami-Dade County man in his late 60s. These two were hospitalized, tested for anthrax and turned out to have pneumonia, officials said.

Although a person infected with anthrax is not contagious, close family members of Stevens are receiving the oral treatment for anthrax, ciproflaxacin, as a precaution, said Steven Wiersma, the state's top epidemiologist.

"We have no additional cases," he said. Later, he added, "We don't believe there is a risk to people. We have no recommendations for personal protection."

Stevens' diagnosis on Thursday -- the first U.S. case of inhalational anthrax in nearly a quarter century -- fueled intense speculation about a bioterrorist incident. Most of the suspected hijackers in Sept. 11's attacks spent time in Palm Beach County. One of them, Mohamed Atta, flew planes on Aug. 16, 17 and 20 from the Lantana airport, less than a mile from Stevens' home, and looked at crop-dusters at a Belle Glade airport in the days before the attacks.

The coincidence of suspected terrorists living in Palm Beach County was too much for Dr. Frederick Southwick, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Florida's Shands Health Center. He thinks someone released anthrax in the area.

"The airborne version . . . that's just impossible," Southwick said Saturday. "Somebody has got to be putting it in the air.

"There wouldn't be any other way to have that in Florida or the nation except through terrorists."

He said that's because: Cattle in the United States are vaccinated against anthrax; a very large source of anthrax would be needed to cause an inhalation infection such as Stevens'; Stevens lived near the airport; and his infection is an extremely rare medical event.

But Dr. Jim James, director of the Miami-Dade County Health Department, dismissed such theories. "I would not make a statement like that with all the evidence we have to date."

Wiersma said the investigation could drag on for days, and it could be weeks or months before scientists deliver any conclusive findings. The absence of other cases and Stevens' death make the germs' source harder to track down.

"We don't have any really hot leads at this time," Wiersma said.

Scientists used high-tech genetic tools to conclude the specimen from Stevens was naturally occurring, Wiersma said. Stevens is believed to have contracted the infection locally, not in North Carolina, where he had recently visited.

Medical examiners in both states are reviewing cases of "unexplained deaths," including those marked by overwhelming sepsis, Wiersma said. But he said anthrax cases are distinctive and would have been hard to miss.

Disease detectives are flagging marginal cases now because they are casting a wide net for symptoms that could suggest anthrax.

In the case of Martha L. Moffett, she was already running a temperature when she heard Thursday on the radio that Stevens had been diagnosed with anthrax. Both worked at the Boca Raton headquarters of American Media, the company that publishes the supermarket tabloids The Sun and The National Enquirer.

A librarian for the Enquirer for more than 20 years, Moffett called the office at once and was told to go the hospital. On Saturday, she was back home after three days at JFK Medical Center.

"I had something entirely different. I'm glad to say that what I have is pneumonia," Moffett said. "It was kind of terrifying before I knew what I had because I was really very ill. . . . I had not understood what a fearful thing anthrax is until now."

Moffett did have some symptoms of the deadly disease -- high fever, nausea -- but doctors also discovered she didn't have other symptoms, such as stiff neck and shoulders. She also never lost consciousness, as Stevens did soon after being admitted.

Moffett said investigators asked her "thousands of questions" during her hospital stay.

Moffett said she didn't know Stevens but that he probably visited American Media's library where she worked.

"You have bizarre thoughts. We've been doing some critical stories on (Osama) bin Laden and you can't help but wonder if it was one of his followers," Moffett said. "Everything points to this just being a one-time bizarre coincidence."

The Miami-Dade County man in his late 60s who also worked in American Media's building was hospitalized at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, James said.

The man, whose identity hasn't been released, had symptoms of pneumonia but was tested for anthrax as a precaution, James said. If the man has anthrax, specimens from him should grow rapidly in a petri culture, as they did with Stevens, but workers haven't seen anything yet, he said.

As investigators have been scouring Palm Beach County for clues, they have taken items from stores.

On Friday, disease detectives dressed in "white jumpsuits" and masks took a stainless steel air filter from an air conditioning unit at the Fortune Cookie Oriental Supermarket on Forest Hill Boulevard near Congress Avenue, said owner David Chiang. They placed the filter in a black bag marked with a biohazard logo, he said.

Chiang said the team told him it was randomly testing stores in Palm Beach County, but he doesn't understand why they took his $135 filter.

"I'm working there 12 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "If anyone would catch those things (anthrax) it would be me."

A postal inspector also was on a team that visited American Media on Friday to rule out any possibility that anthrax was mailed to Stevens.

Martin Hugh-Jones, a Louisiana State University epidemiologist and anthrax expert, said the bacterium is extremely rare in Florida and the respiratory form of anthrax is even more rare anywhere.

"Where this guy got exposed is a real puzzlement," he said.

Aside from in a laboratory or tanning factory, Hugh-Jones said, it's conceivable a person could breathe in anthrax spores through contact with a large amount of imported wool or imported drum skins. Several importers in Palm Beach County contacted Saturday said they had not been called or visited by investigators.

It's not possible to inhale anthrax spores by disturbing anthrax-tainted soil or by running over an infected animal with a lawnmower, Hugh-Jones said.

He also scoffed at the idea of terrorism or foul play being involved.

Stevens' body was delivered to All County Funeral Home & Crematory in Lake Worth just before 5 p.m. Saturday. It's not clear yet what will be done with his ashes, the crematory's manager said.

Palm Beach Post staff writers George Bennett, Antigone Barton, John Pacenti and Michael Van Sickler, staff researcher Madeline Miller and correspondent A.P. Thompson contributed to this story.

sanjay_bhatt@pbpost.com

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Sciencenews.com

Chemical Neutralizes Anthrax Toxin

Nathan Seppa

Scientists have created a synthetic compound that disables the toxin that makes the bacterial disease anthrax so lethal. Meanwhile, another research team has discovered a gene that protects some mice against anthrax. These findings could lead to an antidote to the anthrax toxin and help clarify the mechanism by which it kills.

Whether the new compound can serve as an antitoxin in people remains unclear since the scientists have tested it only in rats, says R. John Collier of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Nevertheless, the concept of neutralizing anthrax toxin has appeal because the current treatments, which target the bacterium, and the vaccine now in use have drawbacks.

When a person inhales spores of Bacillus anthracis—the microbe that causes anthrax—they unleash three proteins that combine to form a toxin. This triad makes blood pressure plummet, causes hemorrhaging, and can lead to coma and death.

The proteins attack human cells as a team. One protein—protective antigen (PA)—binds to a receptor on the cell surface and is cleaved by enzymes there. The part of PA that remains stuck, called PA63, provides a docking site for the other anthrax proteins—lethal factor and edema factor. Once assembled, the toxin enables lethal factor to enter the cell. There, it chops up proteins, setting into motion the chain of events that leads to anthrax's symptoms, says Nicholas C. Duesbery of the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Since no drug in use at present disables the toxin, Collier and his colleagues set out to create such a compound. First, they identified a peptide, or partial protein, that bonds to PA63 in lab tests. Next, they linked together multiple copies of the peptide. In test tubes, this synthetic molecule, which they call polyvalent inhibitor (PVI), prevented the natural anthrax proteins from binding to PA63.

When injected into rats, PVI protected the animals against subsequent exposure to 10 times the normally lethal dose of anthrax toxin, the researchers report in the October Nature Biotechnology. Without PVI treatment, rats died within hours.

Antibiotics can kill B. anthracis but have no effect on the toxin already present in the body when symptoms appear, says Robert C. Liddington of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, Calif. The vaccine poses problems, too. It can cause side effects, and "it's hard to justify vaccinating a whole country against one particular agent of biological terrorism," he says.

Ideally, a toxin antidote would be mass-produced and kept in storage around the country, Collier says.

Researchers are currently charting the anthrax proteins' course in the body. In the Oct. 2 Current Biology, William F. Dietrich of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston and his colleagues report that certain variations of a gene called Kif1C, which encodes a protein that ushers other proteins around inside cells, protect mice from the effects of the anthrax toxin.

"We've got the PA63 molecular activity on one end and the disease on the other end. The Kif1C gene gives us some clues as to where to look in between," Duesbery says.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001



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