Posted on 10/31/2005 10:20:19 PM PST by nickcarraway
One of the Centers for Disease Control's top five biological terrorism agents, the tularemia bacteria, has been detected in air monitors in San Jose but public health officials do not believe it is the result of any type of terrorist attack.
The Francisella tularensis bacteria was found in an air-monitoring station in San Jose on Sunday morning. However, a subsequent test this morning at the same station found no evidence of the bacteria and no other stations in the area showed evidence of it, according to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department.
"It is likely that the positive test was due to a natural source in the environment," county Public Health Officer Dr. Marty Fenstersheib said. "We are conducting further tests, alerting the medical community and monitoring local health care facilities out of an abundance of caution."
This is the first time an air monitoring station in Northern California has detected a potential biohazard. A station in San Diego detected something last year, according to health department spokeswoman Joy Alexiou.
The location of the air-monitoring station, the number of air-monitoring stations in Santa Clara County and any further details about the detection are not being released for national security reasons, Alexiou said.
Tularemia is a disease of wild animals, especially rabbits, hares, beavers, muskrats and voles. It can cause severe illness or death in humans. Symptoms include chills, fever, headache, generalized body ache, cough, and chest pain or tightness. Occasionally it can cause pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. It cannot be transmitted person to person and is easily treated with antibiotics, according to county health officials.
The CDC's top bioterrorism agents include anthrax, bubonic plague, small pox, botulism and viral hemorrhagic fevers, Alexiou said.
ping
Uhm. What?
The same bacteria was detected by sensors in DC at the end of September.
Coincidence maybe but I received an e-mail with this information in it just a while ago:
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpoct30,0,986529.story?coll=all-news-hed&track=mostemailedlink
Army secret surfaces: Deadly chemicals at sea
Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped in oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat is still out there, and may be growing.
cont'd...
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpoct30,0,986529.story?coll=all-news-hed&track=mostemailedlink
California is one of the 11 States listed in the article.
But isn't it true, it's not normally found in the air?
Ping
Wasn't that during some demonstration?
Wasn't that during some demonstration?
Yes, one theory is that the demonstrators walking around somehow turned up some dust contaminated with natural tularemia bacteria. But not everyone believes this, particularly as the bacteria were detected at 6 widely-separated points. This is actually a good article describing the situation: link. (You have to watch an ad to get to the article.) Salon claims to have found some people who became sick with symptoms consistent with this disease.
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