Replies

Being 'exposed' to anthrax means that the anthrax bacterium (in this case in the spore form) has been introduced into a persons body, and the immune system has been activated. The person is infected. Implying that mere 'exposure' is rather inconsequential because the infected person haas not yet become symtomatic is, well, rather dumb.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. If you have been exposed to the b. anthracus spore, you do not necessarily have the disease. The two cases where the spores have been cultured from the nasal cavity are NOT clinical cases. For an anthrax infection to become clinical, a person must ingest at least 8,000-10,000 spores. If someone inhales less, they do not get the disease, but they will show some spore in the nasal mucosa.

Exposure to the spores does not mean you have the diesase.

I will check my references, but from memory I know that atmospheric concentrations of 10-15 spores per cubic meter was sufficient to achieve 90% infection rates in test animals. I can't imagine that with atmospheric densities in the range of 10 to 15 spores per cubic meter that the test animals were able to develop spore loadings above 8,000 spores per individual. They would have to have breathed 800 to 1500 cubic meters of air.

If I'm wrong on this, I will willingly concede.

"Exposure to the spores does not mean you have the diesase."

I don't think anyone knows (but we may find out) what percentage of people found with nasal anthrax bacteria or spores come down with respiratory, or pulmonary anthrax. There can be a delay of up to two months between exposure to the spores and the development of lethal anthrax infection, as was documented in the Sverdlovsk bioweaponized anthrax accident in Russia.

Unlike some bacteria which cause disease (Staph aureus, Neisseria meningitidis) there is no such thing as a chronic asymptomatic nasal carrier of anthrax.

But once you get pulmonary symptoms with anthrax, there is a very very high mortality rate, even with treatment...90%

Tests on monkeys performed during the Gulf war found that 10% of monkeys even given post exposure antibiotics to anthrax exposure died after completing 30 days of treatment. Only monkeys who got vaccine and antibiotics for 30 days all survived exposure. The effectiveness of the antibiotics as exposure prophylaxis decreased after 24 hours, and all of these people have gone far longer than that before detection of the exposure. How all this applies to humans is not yet clear...this is just what they found using monkeys.

This information can be found in a newly released book, Germs, by Judith Miller, Stephen Engleburg, and William Broad. It is a good book on biowarfare, (except for their Barf chapter aka chapter about how great and smart Bill Clinton was.)

Bottom line...if you have anthrax found in your nose, you are, for all intents and purposes, dead man walking without treatment. Therefore, finding anthrax in your nose means you have anthrax and must be treated for it. These folks will probably get Cipro for 60 days, and they are not out of the woods for at least a month based on animal data.