Florida man dies from anthrax - Search is on for source and other possible causes

A Palm Beach County man died Friday from inhaled anthrax, but health officials continued to assure an anxious state that he was stricken with an isolated case of the deadly disease -- increasingly feared as a bioterrorism weapon -- though how he contracted it remains a mystery.

``I don't want to give anyone the slightest inkling that we know what caused this,'' said Steven Wiersma, the state's chief epidemiologist. ``We're looking at any possible physical way this could have happened.''

A day after Robert Stevens' condition became public, doctors in South Florida and at several hospitals across the country received orders or decided on their own to reexamine certain cases, this time looking for traces of inhalational anthrax, a strain of the disease that is nearly always fatal.

Even as health officials urged calm in Florida, they aggressively pursued doctors' reports of possible new cases -- including a 75-year-old Miami-Dade resident -- all of which had proved false on Friday, said Wiersma.

``Three cases have gotten our attention and we feel very comfortable that they are not anthrax. . . . We had several leads that were highly suspicious that we've ruled out,'' he said, adding that ``each passing hour that we don't turn up a new case . . . is very good news.''

Wiersma said an alliance of investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the state Health Department and the Palm Beach County Health Department had ``cast a very wide net.''

By lunchtime Friday, investigators were inspecting Stevens' Lantana home behind crime-scene tape. In the back of the investigators' Ford Explorer: plastic coolers filled with supplies, boxes of latex gloves and a small manual, Emergency Response to Terrorism Job Aid.

The six investigators working at the Stevens house were one of three teams officials said had been deployed to investigate the case. One team planned to trace Stevens' travels, habits and lifestyle over the last 60 days -- considered the maximum incubation time for anthrax.

The other investigative teams began poring through South Florida hospital records and medical examiner records across the state, looking for suspicious symptoms or unexplained deaths since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11.

Several of the suspected terrorists trained as pilots in South Florida and lived within 10 miles of the Stevens home.

Officials acknowledged Friday they were in uncharted territory, responding to the anthrax case with unprecedented investigative scope as concern over bioterrorism has surged following the attacks.

Palm Beach County Health Department spokesman Tim O'Connor, stationed for most of the day at the county's emergency operations center, said even experienced investigators are feeling challenged by the Stevens case.

Inhalational anthrax in people -- caused by breathing anthrax spores in the air -- is extremely rare nationwide. Only 18 inhalational cases were documented in the United States in the 20th Century.

A less serious form of anthrax, caused by skin contact with anthrax spores and usually resulting in skin lesions that can be treated with penicillin, was last reported in the state in 1974. The same form was reported in Texas earlier this year.

The skin disease is usually contracted by people who work with infected farm animals. Anthrax has not appeared in Florida livestock for half a century.

In addition to state and local investigators, the CDC has dispatched 12 staffers to work on the investigation in Florida.

After 2 1/2 hours at the Stevens house, investigators hauled away several large red biohazard bags, the type hospitals use for medical waste. They drove off just as a crowd of schoolchildren ran up the block from their afternoon bus stop.

The investigators told Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies who joined them at the house that they were there to collect samples and unspecified items. Wiersma, the epidemiologist, later said the investigators likely took for testing items such as fertilizer containers and pesticide sprayers.

The investigators carried electronic monitoring devices and black duffel bags into the home. Their only visible protection was the latex gloves. They did not wear protective suits or masks.

They combed through the house and its attached storage room, then moved to Stevens' prized vegetable garden in the side yard. One investigator appeared to be taking measurements of the air with a hand-held device. Another collected samples of the garden soil and went through two compost piles.

Next they moved to a white Saturn in the driveway. First they checked under the hood, then they spent about 15 minutes inside the car.

They left without comment, and a Palm Beach sheriff's deputy removed the crime-scene tape that had been strung around the house before most of the people who live in the working-class neighborhood returned home from work. A private security firm patrolled outside the house Thursday and Friday.

Stevens, 63, was pronounced dead about 4 p.m. Friday at JFK Memorial Hospital in Atlantis, in Palm Beach County.

His passage was swift, beginning Sunday when he first felt poorly while driving from Charlotte to Durham, N.C., to visit his daughter's boyfriend at Duke University. The family drove back to their daughter's home in Charlotte the same afternoon.

Just a day or two earlier Stevens had felt well enough to hike in the mountains near Chimney Rock, outside Asheville.

By the time Stevens left Charlotte for Florida at 6 a.m. Monday, he felt so badly that his wife, Maureen, drove the entire 14-hour trip while Stevens stayed in the back seat.

Within hours of their return to Palm Beach County, they were heading to the hospital. Stevens was admitted about 2 a.m. Tuesday, initially able to speak with emergency room workers. He was no longer coherent when the hospital's infectious disease specialist, Dr. Larry Bush, took over the case.

Family members told medical workers Stevens had been confused, had a high fever and had been vomiting. By 8 a.m. he was on life support, breathing with the aid of a ventilator.

A state lab first found the anthrax bacteria Thursday, and the CDC confirmed the finding that afternoon.

There has been much speculation, but nothing close to proof, of how Stevens contracted anthrax. Some have even questioned whether Stevens might have encountered anthrax in his work as a photo editor for supermarket tabloids, several of which are published in Boca Raton.

Ron Haines, a photographer who works with Stevens, characterized his colleague as a desk-bound editor. ``It's a desk job,'' Haines said. ``He was sitting at his desk.''

And in North Carolina, officials have launched a similarly complex investigation of places Stevens visited. So far, they have discovered no signs of anthrax.

Late this week, investigators in Florida were able to individually rule out suspected additional cases ``on the order of hours,'' with assistance from a high-tech lab technique -- called PCR technology -- that they are using at a state-run medical lab in Miami-Dade, Wiersma said.

Researchers insert a genetic probe into either a blood sample, cerebral fluid or material collected from the lungs to search of evidence of anthrax DNA.

Wiersma said investigators have not ruled out that Stevens could have been a victim of terrorism. Other experts say the complicated case leaves plenty of room for that possibility.

Dr. Frederick Southwick, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Florida's College of Medicine, on Friday dismissed suggestions that Stevens might have contracted the disease while working in his garden.

Southwick said it would have been impossible for anyone to inhale anthrax spores through soil. Rather, he speculated, the spores must have been airborne by design.

``I honestly think that somebody released some anthrax,'' Southwick said. ``The fact that it's in the area near where the terrorists were living, and that it's the first case since 1974 -- that is too much.''

Southwick said it was also possible that Stevens could have forced anthrax spores airborne if he had handled an infected animal or animal product.

Herald staff writers Lila Arzua, Jennifer Babson, Lesley Clark, Daniel de Vise, Manny Garcia, David Green, David Kidwell, Sara Olkon and Peter Wallsten, and Herald researcher Elisabeth Donovan contributed to this report.

POSSIBLE TERRORISM
Southwick said it would have been impossible for anyone to inhale anthrax spores through soil. Rather, he speculated, the spores must have been airborne by design.
``I honestly think that somebody released some anthrax,'' Southwick said. ``The fact that it's in the area near where the terrorists were living, and that it's the first case since 1974 -- that is too much.''

I hope this hasn't been posted already. I did a search and didn't see it.

Unless a bunch more people (100's, 1000's) come down with the disease, seems to me this should considered an isolated case.

Thanks, Lorraine. Florida was home to the 911 terrorists and a man there dies from anthrax. I don't believe in coincidences. This was a test or an accidental release.

Southwick said it was also possible that Stevens could have forced anthrax spores airborne if he had handled an infected animal or animal product.
An infected animal or animal product -
- that open things up quite a bit.
I wonder if pets or wild neighborhood animals (squirrels, rabbits, racoons, etc) contribute to this?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.