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.
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong!
A 'human' can actually 'tolerate' 8,000 to 10,000 spores in his system - BEFORE his system is overtaken (overwhelmed) by Anthrax that is ...
See post #77 (per TomB) ...