Posted on 10/09/2001 3:25:12 AM PDT by OWK
I think inhaled anthrax is rare enough that two cases confined to the same geographical area in one week would constitute evidence of a concerted effort by human agency, particularly since the patients were not in jobs that would normally have exposure to animal products.Is this a true statement?
It's rare enough that the second case of anthrax was the equivilant of the second plane hitting the second tower....it removes all doubt.
Secondly, is it true that to be effective the spores need to be of a certain size, measured in microns, and not too large and not too small, in order to be effective as an offensive weapon? Concurrent to this question, is it true that one must inhale at least 2,500 spores as a threshold to achieve a fatal infection?
The spores themselves are all pretty much the same size but you can mix them with certain "carriers" so that the resulting "particle" is the most effective size to stay in the lung.
You don't have to do this but if you don't then you have to use more spores (higher concentrations) to be effective.
I have heard the number bandied about as 10,000 spores to produce infection.
Workers in wool factories often are exposed to airborn spores all day long without becoming sick because the total number/day is less than 1000.
Thirdly, does it take sophisticated technology to achieve a population of right sized spores beyond the oft repeated claim that a first year biology student could produce enough anthrax to kill hundreds of thousands of people?
It's not hard to grow, and with a little work make them transform into spores.
But now you have spores, most likely in a liquid media.
This is not an optimal form for dispersal, certainly not from a crop duster as the dropletts will in general just fall to the ground.
The next step is to clean and concentrate (moderately expensive equiptment) and then freeze or spray dry (expensive equiptment).
But who cares, Iraq has surely made bunches of this stuff and it would be trivially simple just to import it.
Lastly, do you believe that low tech delivery systems can actually comprise a severe threat to any large number of Americans in a particular environment, the most suggested being office buildings via HVAC systems?
To date, while it has been tried, it has not been effective.
Unfortanately sometimes something simple, but just unthought of to date, will work.
Terrorism is nothing more than very unpleasant surprises.
I think we are being manipulated less by our government and more by the terrorists in what I see going on. Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Thank you in advance for addressing these questions.
Don't think we are being manipulated by our government but they are certainly not above misleading us, frequently from incompetence";^)
Before June of this year it appeared as if matters could not get more depressing. But then they did when Uzbek government officials revealed that barrels of the anthrax bacteria had been buried on Vozrozhdeniye Island, situated in the Aral Sea, when Uzbekistan was part of the U.S.S.R.Congressional Research Service
U.S. scientists are also examining hazards at a Soviet-era CBW testing site on an island in the Aral Sea belonging to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Western media in mid-1999 reported the discovery of live anthrax spores at the site. Uzbekistan has acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans signatories from developing, producing, stockpiling, and using chemical weapons and pledges them to destroy such weapons and production sites.
Smallpox, because of its high case-fatality rates and transmissibility, now represents one of the most serious bioterrorist threats to the civilian population. Over the centuries, naturally occurring smallpox, with its case-fatality rate of 30 percent or more and its ability to spread in any climate and season, has been universally feared as the most devastating of all the infectious diseases.
I've done a lot of reading on these diseases and everything I remember reading showed that smallpox was quite deadly, but NOT 90 percent fatal. That's worse than anthrax. That being said, smallpox has killed more people than any other disease. It's nearly wiped out the total population of China several times in pre-Medival times.
Let me correct myself: that's Bubonic plague that's nearly wiped all pre-Medieval Chinese off the face of the planet. Smallpox has also played a part, being so communicable.
Let me correct myself: that's Bubonic plague that's nearly wiped all pre-Medieval Chinese off the face of the planet. Smallpox has also played a part, being so communicable.
Let me correct myself: that's Bubonic plague that's nearly wiped all pre-Medieval Chinese off the face of the planet. Smallpox has also played a part, being so communicable.
Let me correct myself: that's Bubonic plague that's nearly wiped all pre-Medieval Chinese off the face of the planet. Smallpox has also played a part, being so communicable.
I can't locate the article. I thought I bookmarked it, but apparently I didn't. Someone with more knowledge of searches may be able to find it if interested.
If true - and it's very likely to be true - then it's time to turn Iraq into one big sheet of glass.
Sorry guy, but Bush 41 did what he could at the time. Given the peacenics here and the precarious "coalition" he had for the gulf war, I think he did a great job. BTW, I would have loved to see our guys march down the main drag in Baghdad. I think you should be thanking Billary, et al, for not following up on the weapons inspections.
Even if they weren't linked, we still need to do something about Iraq. I hope that once the campaign against bin laden is finished, the American people don't lose the will to see it to it's conclusion and to deal with Iraq and any other countries that have been supporting terrorism (We all know Saddam has been seething for the past 10 years and would love to have some kind of revenge).
Yes. The odds are significantly against anything else.
Save for the military, unless that has also changed in recent years. My smallpox vaccine as a baby/child 'didn't take'. I missed out on the ugly scar, but I was actually glad to be vaccinated in the miltary, circa 1988. Everybody got one. At least the 'adult' scar is hardly noticeable. Hopefully we won't find out the hard way, the effectiveness of these 'lifetime' vaccines.
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