Posted on 10/06/2001 11:52:59 AM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
LANTANA, Fla. (AP) - Relatives of a Florida man who contracted a fatal case of anthrax are being given antibiotics as a precaution and the man's co-workers have been tested and cleared, health authorities said Saturday.
Investigators are awaiting test results from soil and other specimens as they try to learn how 63-year-old Bob Stevens contracted the rare and extremely lethal inhaled form of the disease. He died Friday.
More than 50 health and law enforcement officials have fanned out across Palm Beach County to track his movements over the past two months and look for other possible cases.
"We have a long chronology of common activities we need to pursue," state epidemiologist Dr. Steven Wiersma said Saturday. "We don't have any really hot leads at this time."
No other cases of anthrax have been reported in the area. Wiersma said several of Stevens' co-workers at the supermarket tabloid The Sun have been tested, but results were negative. Also, as a precaution, close family members are being treated with antibiotics.
Officials have said there is no evidence that Stevens was the victim of terrorism. Wiersma said tests of Stevens' blood further confirmed that belief because the anthrax in the sample responded to penicillin. Anthrax developed by some countries as a biological weapon could be resistant to the antibiotic, he said.
The Sept. 11 hijackings have put many people on edge about a bioterrorism threat.
Officials believe Stevens contracted anthrax naturally in Florida. The disease can be contracted from farm animals or soil, though the bacterium is not normally found among wildlife or livestock in the state. Stevens was described as an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing and gardening.
Officials are also investigating in North Carolina, where Stevens visited last month, but said the disease also is rare among animals in that state.
Investigators have cast a wide net in their search in Florida.
County medical examiners are looking over any unexplained deaths, but have not found any cases connected to anthrax. Veterinarians have been told to be on alert for animals who might have the disease, but none have turned up.
Investigators also are visiting restaurants, parks and other locations he frequented or even visited casually, Wiersma said.
Samples have been sent to labs in Miami or Jacksonville or to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Results could take days.
Only 18 inhalation cases in the United States were documented in the 20th century, the most recent in 1976 in California. The last anthrax case in Florida was in 1974, according to the state health department.
Stevens lived on the same street in this quiet West Palm Beach suburb for 23 years. He and his wife raised their four children, now adults, and British-born Stevens - who became a U.S. citizen - raised his American flag on holidays.
As word of his death spread through the community Friday evening, a worker at a nearly nursery school stopped by his home to drop off cards made by preschool children.
Stevens loved fishing, neighbors said, and would take his next-door-neighbor's 10-year-old boy fishing twice a month.
"It just seems like a horrible dream that you can't wake up from," said neighbor Mary Crandell, whose granddaughter had taken drawing lessons from Stevens for years.
"She's really outgoing and I contribute that to him," Crandell said. "He always had time for her."
AP-ES-10-06-01 1429EDT
Yup. That's what I understood.
I have heard that the resistance to smallpox is only good for 10 years after innoculation, so according to another poster we still have some resistance, albeit not much to the virus.
I know for a fact, though, that a few men and women in the armed forces, gave up their careers in lieu of taking the Anthrax shot. It's a crap shoot, I guess.
I would still like to see the people focused on supply and demand. The news networks are broadcasting 100% probability, or I wouldn't be alarmed.
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...Page 6 -
...List of Staff = PHOTO ASSISTANTS - *Bob Stevens, Roz Suss (*now dead from ANTHRAX)
...Page 28 -
...Photo of a sneering JANET RENO superimposed on a burning WACO Compound with a heading 'RENO ordered the attack on David Koresh's Waco compound' as part of the 'LIBERTY & JUSTICE' Column where "Feuding columnists John and Liberty Justice agree to disagree on everything under the SUN"
QUOTE:
THE NEWS that JANET RENO wants the job as governor of sunny Florida has our cranky columnist John Justice under a cloud.
.."That woman disgraced the office of U.S. attorney general," rages John, "and she's killed more Americans than any serial killer."
...Of course John's wife Liberty disagrees, pointing out that RENO was the first female attorney general in history, paving the way for the other women to crash through the Washington boy's club glass ceiling.
...JOHN: Liberty, I've been sitting here thinking about JANET RENO running for Florida governor and the thought terrifies me.
...LIBERTY: Why should it? She's a very capable lady.
...JOHN: Capable? Tell that to the 82 misguided souls who were burned to death in Waco on her orders.
...LIBERTY: Miss RENO took full responsibility for the tragic accident. That shows courage.
...JOHN: Accident! SHE SENT IN THE TANKS! And when we're on the subject, she ordered in the sharpshooters at Ruby Ridge and even the most rabidly left wing Clintonistas cried foul at that one.
...LIBERTY: John, you're Monday morning quarterbacking. Miss RENO had to make those decisions very quickly and she later stood by them.
...JOHN: The kidnapping of little ELIAN GONZALEZ at gunpoint from his respectable, hard-working relatives was another quick decision, I suppose. Now the boy is being used as a political pawn by that bearded communist bum Fidel Castro.
...LIBERTY: John, JANET RENO has proved herself to be a strong, capable leader and she'll make a great Florida governor. She's concerned about education and the environment, and that alone puts her streets ahead of Jeb Bush.
...JOHN: When the votes are counted, JANET RENO won't be governor, no matter how much our socialist press wants her to be. The American public isn't stupid. We aren't about to forget that she's the architect of 82 deaths.
...LIBERTY: Well, John, JANET RENO is getting my vote. She's the right woman for the job.
............................................
The National ENQUIRER as been dead-on correct this year in it's exposing ..-Friend of the "It ain't my Fault" CLINTONS-.. JESSE JACKSON's Love Child being carried by his Mistress in the Oval Office while JACKSON was "Counseling" an impeached President CLINTON's Sexual Misbehaviors ...as well as in its Investigative Reporting the Sexual and worse Misbehaviors of Congressman GARY CONDIT.
It's time Keep yours Eyes and Ears open BIG TIME, Folks.
I think that Atta's attempts to get information about crop dusters means he already had the germ agent. He simply needed to figure out how to spread it.
JAMA Consensus Statement - Anthrax as a Biological Weapon
It's a *bit* lengthy, but worth a browse, IMO.
From what I have read "responding" (temporarily of coarse) is one of the symptoms.
I cannot believe the audacity of Liberty to make such a statement. Obviously she has no shame or regard for the laws.
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