I know CDC employees in DC/Baltimore who have told me hundreds of postal employees in the DC-area tested positive for anthrax antibodies. Basically every postal worker in the DC area was dosed with Cipro after the letters were found. I assume the same was true for the NYC employees who came into contact.
I also know that hundreds of employees at a prominent NYC media outlet recieved Cipro.
I believe thousands were infected with the anthrax and the Feds didn't even try to number those who tested positive for antibodies.
To the poster who claimed only Russia had anthrax like this - er, no, it's garden variety Ames strain. Any government could have cultured it, including Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, and a number of nongovernmental bodies - such as al Queda or Hezbollah - could have done it as well.
The anthrax mailing is what it appears to be - an act of Islamist terror, possibly connected to the 9-11 attacks, possible not, but certainly inspired by the same hateful ideology.
Do you know if these folks who tested positive for anthrax antibodies are still testing positive???
That might really help.
Testing positive for antibodies means that you were exposed but did not contract the disease as your immune system overwhelmed the invaders.
A strange thing happened during the accidental release of anthrax from the Russian facility in 1980??? The very young appeared to have some resistance. The mechanism of this resistance is yet to be explained.