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
As for smallpox, I did see one talking head on TV when asked about those of who had been vaccinated in our youth, the wonk said that he personally could not guarantee that that shot would provide complete protection, though he did that that it could certainly lessen the severity of any case contracted. The not providing complete protection was news to me. Hadn't heard that before or since. Maybe something to do with the virus mutating over the past few decades or something. Hope someone else looks into that aspect of things.
Might hurt the war effort I guess. Strange thing, I've been trying to find info whether or not ozone in low concentrations could kill the anthrax spores. I hit on some .gov sites that would seem to confirm it could, but for some reason "document can't be found".
I was thinking about the mail also or worse... products on shelves in our stores that are not tamper proof.
BTW:Buy the Israeli gas masks (or the new military issued ones) and plenty of change out cartriges and make sure you fit them well to small children and wear them 24/7.
Not warning shots, per se, but bin Laden employs a low tech, high-failure rate approach, rather like the new NASA strategy for planetary missions. Remember that the first attempt to take down the WTC towers, back in 1993, was a flop: the terrorists hope to topple both towers and spray cyanide gas all over lower Manhattan, killing 200,000 people, but instead both towers remained standing, the cyanide simply dispersed harmlessly, due to the explosion, and only six perished. Anthrax is a frightening weapon, but a hard one to deliver effectively. The crop dusters that Atta & crew were inquiring after would be a relatively poor delivery system, but probably something that bin Laden would be happy to work with in the interim. Of course, the fact that there has so far been only one case does not preclude other fatalities, but the lack of a rash of cases implies either that this was a test shot or accidental spillage, or that they didn't use a very effective delivery system.
I was thinking about the food angle first ...but would be problematic in that it would be hard to get everyone to eat the same type of item at the same time and harder still to contaminate vast numbers of food items throughout the country simultaneously. (Perhaps on a traditional holiday certain types of items might be targeted, I suppose (ie: Thanksgiving).
A mailing though could be done simultaneouly to lots of people and could involve an attractive offer or sample product that might even invite someone to smell it (fragrant powder, perfume etc).
I hate it when my mind works like this! (/paranoia)
Another reason not to snort cocain!
We need to look at this isolated case as a test. Again and again bin Laden's group have tested our resolve and our response -- the USS Cole, the WTC, the Pentagon, the downed flight in Pennsylvania. The operative word is test.
This man who died of anthrax lived a mile from where the terrorist demons were known to have been. There may well be more of them in that location. If they found a way to deliver anthrax to an isolated individual, it is not inconceivable that they would want to see what our response would be. How long would it take us to figure it out.
I do not expect our government to tell us the truth in these times. I expect them to try to calm us even when they appear ridiculous like Tommy Thompson. I expect to hear "isolated incident" a thousand times over.
We are fighting a monstrous evil that hates. This evil hates you. It hates me. It hates liberty. It hates life. And this evil has co-workers living in our midst whom we call terrorist or radical Islamic extremists or even servants of satan.
We who see things in spiritual terms know this to be the spiritual war of our lives. It requires prayer to the point of sweating blood.
Yet even I wonder about very practical things. Deportations. Sealing borders. Keeping foreign nationals from entering our country by air -- without exception. We appear to be doing very little to reduce the threat among us because we are afraid to upset Muslims or Arabs.
Fine. Deport every single non-US national living on our soil either as a tourist, student, green-carder, non-essential embassy and consular personnel, journalists ... you name it. If they aren't American, right now we need to clear them out.
I will turn the paranoia tags off as well so we will all be free from it.
< /paranoia >
Logically I believe we are wise in awaiting revenge as Bin Loon wants us scared but does he have nuke suitcases and more sick surprises. Phsy warfare is very much an issue and it is a different type of war.
I agree with you, but in a different way.
Perhaps this was set up as a test by the network to check out the lethality of the existing spores and delivery method before a full bore attack is made.
In this case, both the deadliness of the available anthrax and effectiveness of whatever delivery system was used may have been proven to somebody's satisfaction. As there seems to be no indication the victim knew he was attacked or infected, it makes this event all the more scary. He may have been an unknowing guinea pig for an anthrax beta test. After all, why play such a big hand if you don't know the stuff works the way it is supposed to the first time? Why go to all the trouble and exposure if for some reason the batch is not lethal?
This may have been a surreptitious attack done exclusively to check the deadliness of this batch of particular anthrax, which is now awaiting distribution through watever means. It is now proven sufficiently deadly to take the next step, whatever that may be. If it were, then the main batch is probably awaiting H-Hour in The Plan.
... /tin foil hat ...
Anthrax epidemic...
APPROVAL OF CIPRO® FOR USE AFTER EXPOSURE TO INHALATIONAL ANTHRAX
Unfortunately, if that is the delivery mechanism it is likely already discarded in a landfill somewhere.
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn´t a little tidbit in the manual about spreading toxins via workplace ducts and the like?
Well, loaded up the fam and took a little daytrip down to old Mexico..spent the tuition money on antibiotics. Don´t know if they would actually be worth a d*amn but it´s always fun to go down there and buy meds. Tried for some percodan..no such luck. LOL
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