BREAKING : SECOND POSITIVE TEST FOR ANTHRAX : PBC

Telephone call and previous thread | 10/8/2001 | Centurion2000

[Centurion2000]

Previous article : Second Anthrax case in FL. CDC, FBI on scene. Bush notified

Second positive test for anthrax found.

Just spoke with the NEWS desk at WPEC NEWS 12 newsdesk ...

here is what they know. They HAVE CONFIRMED that the second individual has TESTED POSITIVE for Anthrax in a nasal swab test so that he has been exposed.

He is being treated with antibiotics

They are testing the building.

The number at the office is 1-800-310-WPEC. You can confirm it yourself by pressing option 2 at the prompt.

[ForGod'sSake]

...but anthrax is a lot different from that sort of thing.

I don't quite follow, but I was serious; I mean a REAL rat. From what I've read, it's a natural "strain", and the most plausable explanation is a "natural" one. Maybe a little wishful thinking on my part as well. Like the rest of us here, I don't really care to think about the repurcussions of another explanation.....

FGS

[alieno nomine]

A living nightmare for us all.

And we still hear the "Lefties" demonstrating for peaceful way to resolve this issue.
Heaven forbid we might hurt innocent people in Afghanistan...

[Clinton's a rapist]

they would pick this building because they had an 'in' and or it was vulnerable.

Janatorial staff, maybe?

[AmericanGurl]

As I stated, I'm new. I have been hanging around, watching and learning. Mostly learning.

[classygreeneyedblonde]

its ashganastan.lol

[LarryLied]

Basically what size building are we talking about here? One story or several stories tall?

Never paid it much attention but it is not small. Maybe the size of two Walmarts with several stories. Visible from I-95. Think they said 300 employees.

[Drastone]

Everything in my professional training, and common sense for that matter, says that this is not "isolated environmental exposure". Two cases among co-workers after no documented case in the US for 25 years.....doesn't take rocket science to say that this is terrorist activity. May open up W's opportunity to finally get rid of his father's nemesis.....

[Vicki]

Exactly what I thought. If I drove past the building, I would get tested.

[Helix]

Welcome newbie! Is this the post you were asking about?

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3bc0ec225506.htm#13

You can post a link directly to a specific post by right clicking on the number at the bottom left of the post and clicking copy shortcut. Then all of us impatient types don't have to scroll through the entire article. ;)

Hope this helps.

[Caipirabob]

The National Enquirer building is in the Broken Sound corporate park. It's just North NorthWest of Boca Raton Airport, like just South of Yamato Road and West of 1-95. there are many large companies, there, private and public. I used to work there a number of years back. Many of my friends work directly across the street from the National Enquirer building. Hell, I had a friend who left "The Sun" a few months ago. This is horrifying news.

[John Jamieson]

Home of the Lantana Christmas Tree, ever year. NE was started by smart MIT guy, but I can't remember his name.

[d4now]

Then maybe you should have posted it before LarryLied.

[Clinton's a rapist]

Of course, we don't know if they've already hit their real target(s) with this stuff yet. We'll probably find out in the next few days.

[Tree of Liberty]

Here's a map of the building's location.

[LarryLied]

So Larry, I guess your nickname is "LarryDidn'tLie."

Wish I had been. After the first few replies on the other thread, I began to doubt what I saw on TV. Neat that FR got this hours before AP. Or Drudge.

[mercy]

or building ingineer ..... elevator mechanic .... won't be hard to figure out. it's the guy that recently quit.

[Drastone]

Good point - this could have been a "test firing" before going for the real target....

[John Jamieson]

No need to be nasty, I was watching TV not FR. I was just confirming that it was probably real.

[Fabozz]

If, if these reports turn out to be what they appear to be, then this is literally a textbook bioterrorism scenario, one that the CDC has conducted execrises on: The closed environment of an office building is the perfect environment for anthrax. "Weaponized" anthrax is roughly 3 microns in diameter, too small to be caught by normal HVAC filters, so the spores would just keep recirculating for several days until they got inhaled or settled out. Distribution is trivially simple—in the textbook scenario, the terrorists (immunized against anthrax) are just visitors wandering through the building. They have big bags of anthrax spores hidden under their clothing, making them look slightly overweight (perfect camoflage in America, huh?). Whenever they walk near an AC intake, they squeeze the bags and out puffs an invisible cloud of death.

The bit about this not being genetically engineered anthrax is good news but doesn't change the situation. Iraq (and yes, we're now talking Iraq, not al-Qaeda) doesn't have the facilities to genetically engineer anthrax, but they sure as hell have the facilities to mass-produce weaponized anthrax. "Weaponized" just means "purified into high-potency live spores of a consistently fine size"; that's just plain old pharmaceutical engineering, something Iraq has plenty of capacity for. The CDC does not have a convenient test to determine whether a particular anthrax infection is from weaponized spores. They don't have a convenient genetic test, either—the way they know that this is not penicillin-resistant anthrax is that the first victim responded (briefly, insufficiently) to penicilln.

The textbooks project an infection rate in this scenario of about 50%. Pulmonary anthrax has an 85-95% fatality rate. If there are 300 workers in that building, and assuming the reports are correct, we're looking at about 130 funerals in Florida next week. More than bad enough, G_d knows, but not millions. Everyone remember that anthrax is not contagious—think of it more as a poison than a disease.

Still, I really, really hope that this is just media alarmism. Please G_d let it be media alarmism.

[habs4ever]

That doesn't quite jibe with the fact that so many were swept up so quickly after the attack.I don't disagree that there could be others out there, and this second outbreak has to be deliberate.The trail of these guys has to be recreated, and fast.