After a Shower of Anthrax, an Illness and a Mystery

New York Times ^ | 6/6/05 | Scott Shane

[TrebleRebel]

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - During the anthrax mail attacks in 2001, Bill Paliscak, a gung-ho, hockey-playing postal investigator who had missed 3 days of work in 11 years, removed a filthy filter above a mail-sorting machine to preserve it as evidence. Anthrax-laden dust showered down on him.

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David Scull for The New York Times Bill Paliscak cannot live at his home until an elevator is installed.

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Agence France-Presse Workers in October 2001 cleaned the Brentwood postal facility in Washington, where employees like Mr. Paliscak were exposed to anthrax. Four days later he began to feel feverish. Soon he was in intensive care. After spending the next three years in and out of the hospital, Mr. Paliscak, 41, now needs a wheelchair to move about, sleeps with a breathing device to get enough oxygen and takes dozens of pills a day.

-------------------------- After consulting with dozens of specialists across the country, his doctors at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore remain convinced that his anthrax exposure produced his disease, in part because exhaustive testing found no other cause. They believe his experience may hold scientific lessons about anthrax, which experts consider the likeliest weapon in future bioterrorist attacks.

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Anthrax experts asked about Mr. Paliscak's illness had varying views. Dr. Brachman, of Emory University, said he would not rule out anthrax as a cause, despite the test findings. Dr. Ken Alibek, a former Soviet bioweapons expert now at George Mason University, was more skeptical. "You cannot make the diagnosis without laboratory confirmation," Dr. Alibek said.

Both wondered whether Mr. Paliscak's illness might be a devastating reaction to some other substance on the filter, such as yeast or mold spores. But Mr. Paliscak's doctors said they could find no evidence for that possibility

[TruthNtegrity]

Your thinking is right on! Good work.

BA, did you read this?

[TrebleRebel]

Here's a much earlier story describing the CDC sending this guy into the building inadequately protected:

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/testingnotdetectanthrax.html
The mysterious case of William R. Paliscak Jr. raises the troubling possibility that officials may not have fully recognized the extent of the wave of anthrax cases linked to letters sent last fall by an unidentified bioterrorist.

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After the anthrax-laced letter addressed to Daschle was opened Oct. 15, postal officials began to try to track its path through the machinery. Because of his familiarity with the layout of machines at Brentwood, Paliscak was one of a team of postal inspectors and contractors who worked in the area over the next few days, Mihalko said.

Based on medical advice from the CDC, the workers wore gloves and paper face masks to protect themselves.

[TruthNtegrity]

This kind of ineptitude or "it's not in his bloodstream" given the tests that might not be conclusive, is the kind of thing that makes me nuts.

I almost died from a bloodstream infection that can't be tested for, either. But it's symptomology is specific, and the only way to make the diagnosis. I had to read up on it, go through 4 doctors to finally find one who "believed" in this disease, in order to be treated for it.

I feel for Bill Paliscak.

[TrebleRebel]

Paliscak's own doctors (from Johns Hopkins no less) seem utterly convinced that anthrax was to blame, in spite of no positive test. They are blaming no positive test simply on the antibiotics killing the bacteria - but by that time toxins had been produced by the bacteria and had done irrepairable damage. The CDC denial is for no other reason than they don't want the liability. They sent Paliscak into a building contaminated with weaponized anthrax and they made a grossly incorrect recommendation on the level of protection he needed.

[jpl]

What ever became of that scientist they were suspecting of being behind that antrhax attack?

That was a dry well brought on because the FBI, for some bizarre reason, made the mistake of listening to an underqualified ultra left-wing professor in New York State with a personal grudge and an axe to grind, and the media jumped on the bandwagon.

The poor guy is still in the process of trying to clear his name and get his life back, but "we screwed up" are three little words the government never really wants to have to say.

[Shermy]

Good to see Mr. Shane back on the anthrax story.

Mua, postal thread here.

[Peach]

I agree with you 100% re Hatfield, Battle Axe.

[neverdem]

"And wasn't there another case in NY, where they couldn't find where someone got it from?"

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol9no6/02-0668.htm

I remembered this case. I'm a veteran from where this lady came from, i.e. Vietnam, a native born New Yawker and still a current resident. IIRC, there was a story in the NY Times that suggested it was airborne anthrax that rode on the prevailing wind pattern from the Franklin Park, New Jersey Post Office over New York City.

[genefromjersey]

Interesting ! Most definitely Ames.

[Allan]

Bump

[Peach]

Hi, B.A. Thanks for the ping and remember my interest in this matter.

I'm afraid the link and science behind the article is over my head. But I'll continue to read all your comments about this with interest.

[Ichneumon]

but reading down into the middle of a scientific paper by a guy named Read, there is mention that what was in the envelopes was a 50/50% mixture of genotype 62 and genotype 62 with an inversion on the plasmid. Now I am an entomologist, not a geneticist, but from what they describe of the inversion, which is like a zipper being put in upside down, it is a little more complicated than I would want to believe occurred in nature.

Actually, DNA inversions of various kinds occur frequently and easily in nature.

The paper you're probably referring to is:

Comparative genome sequencing for discovery of novel polymorphisms in Bacillus anthracis, by Read TD, Salzberg SL, Pop M, Shumway M, Umayam L, Jiang L, Holtzapple E, Busch JD, Smith KL, Schupp JM, Solomon D, Keim P, Fraser CM

Abstract: Comparison of the whole-genome sequence of Bacillus anthracis isolated from a victim of a recent bioterrorist anthrax attack with a reference reveals 60 new markers that include single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), inserted or deleted sequences, and tandem repeats. Genome comparison detected four high-quality SNPs between the two sequenced B. anthracis chromosomes and seven differences among different preparations of the reference genome. These markers have been tested on a collection of anthrax isolates and were found to divide these samples into distinct families. These results demonstrate that genome-based analysis of microbial pathogens will provide a powerful new tool for investigation of infectious disease outbreaks.

I don't have access to the full text, but I see nothing in the abstract that raises any red flags about anything "unnatural" found in the anthrax genome, and if they had noticed anything of that kind, that would have been the sort of thing that they'd have headlined in the abstract.

If you have access to the text, could you post the relevant portion here -- the part concerning the inversion you felt might be "too complicated"?

[Wolfstar]

Do you remember that old woman in some state where there was no anthrax detected anywhere, yet she died of it?

Yes, Connecticut. She was the last known victim of the attacks. The other lady in New York worked at a hospital in Manhattan. Neither woman had any known contact with the anthrax letters, so eventually authorities said they thought it was from cross-contamination in the mail centers. However, they could never prove it whatsoever.

[FairOpinion]

Yes, thanks, those were they ones I was thinking about.