In God We Trust
ANTHRAX Recap
Since a 94-year-old woman from Connecticut died from inhalation anthrax - the deadliest form of the disease, investigations uncovered the source. She becomes the fifth person in the United States to die from anthrax since September.
Authorities are discovered that Ottilie Lundgren, who lived in a small rural community and rarely went out, contracted the disease when she received mail that was sorted are precisely the same time as an anthrax letter in NJ. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed the case after she tested positive for the disease in five separate tests carried out by the local health authorities.
Letters that had anthrax have certain things in common. For example, look at the two here. Notice the lettering is very similar. Authorities are planning more investigations into the letters for this week.
There are some other important anthrax facts. The CNN graphic, below indicates the three ways that infections may occur.
A person may be infected if they inhale, touch or swallow anthrax spores.
Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis. The anthrax spore produces a toxin that can be fatal. The spores can spread by inhalation (the most fatal form), ingestion or contact with an abrasion on the skin.
Anthrax may infect humans and animals. It was used in World War I as a biological weapon. Germany, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Iraq and the former Soviet Union, are believed to have experimented with anthrax.
Several technologies are being used to kill pathogens in buildings or the mail. For an entire building, like the Hart Senate Office Building, the procedure is decontamination by chlorine dioxide gas. For hundreds or thousands of pieces of mail, irradiation is used. For objects like furniture a foam may be used.
The Washington Post published 'Learning as We Go Along' -- a riveting article about what medical people are learning from anthrax cases so far. The investigators are learning and the way of discovery is that reactions change with knowledge and experience. Anthrax isn't new but its use as a weapon is fairly new and its use a a terrorist weapon is bound to be surprising.
As investigators, scientists and law enforcement officials gain experience, there is reason to place higher confidence in the procedures that the investigators use. So far, the facts indicate that the CDC, FBI, and Homeland Security are taking effective precautions and that the law enforcement agencies and legal system are working to find anthrax terrorists and then bring them to justice. There certainly have been some mistakes, like not closing buildings at first when so little was known, like not testing postal workers when so little was known. These factors certainly add to the anxiety of anthrax.
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More: CNN published a brief history of anthrax
outbreaks and threats. |
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Anthrax mail and traces of anthrax have been found in Florida and in DC buildings, NY and NJ offices, in Russia and Pakistan. Anthrax spores have been discovered in the offices of our United States senators. Following the Daschle letter, investigators began suspecting that another letter may exist.
The letter to Senator Leahy,
who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was postmarked 9 October in
Trenton, NJ. Three other letters with anthrax inside have been found, all of them bearing similarities. Letters to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appear to be photocopies. The third letter went to Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota. All had block lettering. More than 30,000 Americans are using antibiotics to prevent possible anthrax symptoms, most as a precaution because they are somewhat likely to have had contact with anthrax. The anthrax attacks will cost the United States post office billions of dollars in lost trade and the implementation of a screening and sanitizing system. Losses so far exceed $350 million. The American consulate at
the Russian city of Yekaterinburg is the latest site to find FBI agents say they have built up a psychological and linguistic profile of the culprit. The FBI say he is probably an adult male who may have no more scientific knowledge than a lab technician. His equipment need not have cost more than $2,500 and he could have set it up in his garage, or in his attic. He is, agents believe, a loner, rational and methodical but "lacking the personal skills necessary to confront others". The United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Mexico made a joint statement, ministers in international cooperation, they say: "Terrorism, particularly bio-terrorism, is an international issue." |
The
three senators - Dianne Feinstein of California, Larry Craig of Idaho and Bob
Graham of Florida - all have offices in the same building as Senate majority
leader Tom Daschle, who received an anthrax-laced letter last month. They
searched DC in recent days for another anthrax-contaminated letter. Hunting
through unopened mail that has been under quarantine since postal workers were
diagnosed with inhaled anthrax, a letter was discovered yesterday in a batch of
segregated mail away from Congress.
Traces
of anthrax have been found in about a dozen senators' offices in the Hart Senate
Office Building across the street from the Capitol. That building remains closed
for cleaning with chlorine dioxide gas.
