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CDC tests show no bioengineering of anthrax; spores similar to ones that infect animals
Oregonian ^ | 10/25/01

Posted on 10/25/2001 1:38:00 PM PDT by SAMWolf

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Genetic testing shows the bacteria in the anthrax-by-mail attacks have not been bioengineered and are quite similar to natural strains that sicken animals, federal health officials said Thursday.

"These strains cannot be distinguished from other anthrax isolates that are known to have caused disease in barnyard animals" in the United States and Europe, said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While CDC says the anthrax so far is susceptible to penicillin, preliminary tests suggest it also may contain an early signal of developing penicillin resistance. Thus CDC said Thursday that patients with inhaled anthrax should not be treated with penicillin alone.

But from an investigative viewpoint, that discovery "is entirely consistent with the natural biology of the organism," Gerberding said. In nature, anthrax strains often show that chemical signal.

"We have absolutely no evidence to suggest these isolates have been genetically altered or engineered in any way," she added. "We're quite relieved that their susceptibility profile looks like what we would expect from a naturally occurring strain."

So far, the CDC hasn't finished genetic tests on anthrax spores recovered from the Washington postal facility where two workers have died and two others become infected with inhaled anthrax. Those tests are important to help determine whether the anthrax came from the same batch as the bacteria in letters mailed to Florida, New York and a Senate office.

Then there's the nation's other antibiotic resistance worry -- that some 10,000 people now are taking Cipro while CDC figures out whether they were exposed to anthrax and thus are at risk. All of that Cipro use, infectious disease specialists worry, could cause everyday bacteria to mutate so that Cipro won't be useful against other infections.

The CDC won't be able to detect if that's happening right away, Gerberding said, "but I would be surprised if it was a zero impact."


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anthrax; cdc
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Truly, I think the government is trying to stack marbles here, trying to keep the public from turning into a lynch mob prematurely - at least until they are finished with Afghanistan and are in a position to go after Iraq. I would be doing the same thing, if I were in their shoes

The reasons I believe this may be the case:

Weapons grade anthrax manufactured by Russia and U.S. would be antibiotic resistant, Iraq’s would not.

A Japanese photographer w/satellite gear was arrested in Afghanistan

Chechnya now wants to negotiate an agreement with Russia - the rebels are connected directly to Osama

Other terror groups are folding or negotiating

Israel is backing off from its retaliation

Saudi is pointing to Iraq regarding 9/11 and biochems

Iraq hiding its biochems recently

Iraq blaming us for anthraxing them and ourselves

Strange coffins reported in Pakistan

Reports in China and Japan - unconfirmed - of Osama's and Omar's demise

Conflicting statements yesterday ... Pentagon: that the war will be ongoing ... Powell: it'll be a few days

Change in public statements on Daschle's anthrax - from weapons grade to garden variety (back and forth)

Lack of known progress in the Trenton, NJ investigation. Promise to act quickly when the bill is signed.

Huge military buildup in the middle east - would cost a ton to move them back home, rebuild readiness and send then back again - so perhaps we are holding them there for the next engagement

Reports of shipments to Israel and Jordan (questionable source)

Panicky denial (for no reason) by Taleban ambassador to Pakistan that Osama is dead

Rumsfeld today saying that they may never get Osama (like he's already dead perhaps.)

Just my two cents...

41 posted on 10/25/2001 2:14:30 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Clinton's a rapist
"...they just have to figure out whether to point the finger at Saddam, attack him, and take the casualties, or sweep the whole thing under the rug and let him be."

Pretty much the way I see it too ...it could also be that they don't want public pressure to mount against Iraq too soon as they are not strategically positioned to attack Iraq at this point ...or they don't want to signal to Iraq what their intentions are (or both).

42 posted on 10/25/2001 2:17:08 PM PDT by Ozymandias Ghost
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To: choicenotecho
I think you've hit something with Ridge. Am I the only one who thinks he should have remained the governor of PA? He hasn't impressed me thus far.


He does seem to smile a lot. I guess that is to reassure us.

43 posted on 10/25/2001 2:17:12 PM PDT by Gadsden1st
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To: choicenotecho
And to think he was Bush's first choice for VP
44 posted on 10/25/2001 2:20:35 PM PDT by swatter
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To: js1138
I am alarmed by the taking of anti-biotics without the certain knowledge that an infection is present because it can breed bacteria that is resistant to the anti-biotic. I'm not talking about anthrax......I'm talking about OTHER bacteria that is in the body of a patient taking the anti-biotic. I'm not sure what happens with the anthrax.....maybe some of that gets back into the invironment....maybe not. There could be TWO types of anthrax out there.....there may be more than one group sending the letters. One group may have a less dangerous type of anthrax.....like in Florida. The letter that was sent to Dashle's office seems to be milled and treated to float in air. In Florida......only people who came in close contact got infected. In the capital.....it really floated around. It may have been the same group of people tho. perhaps they sent the less dangerous version to Florida to lead us to believe it was not so dangerous.......and then sent the milled version later to the Capital to whack important people.....while we were thinking it was the less dangerous version. To get our guard down so to speak. If its the Ames version......it comes from the US... not Iraq or Russia.......BUT.......it would be ideal for Iraq to buy the Ames version and use it........throwing us off the trail. Now we have to prove Iraq got our Ames version and milled and treated that version. Thats what I think happened. Iraq will try and say.......hey....its your Ames version. It must be your right wing wacko types in the US.......our right wingers are not bright people.......they can't mill and refine stuff...... this takes really special equipment..... one thing for sure........some of this stuff is state made. Most probably in Iraq. Damn.
45 posted on 10/25/2001 2:21:28 PM PDT by BlackJack
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To: SAMWolf
The anthrax was not genetically modified, hence not "weaponized", but it did have a coating (Daschle letter) on it which allowed it float easily and this coating does NOT occur naturally.
46 posted on 10/25/2001 2:22:21 PM PDT by MaxwellWolf
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To: SAMWolf
The CDC has proven through this entire episode that they are a joke. God help us.
47 posted on 10/25/2001 2:22:35 PM PDT by shockjock
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To: Mr. Jeeves
This October 25 article in the Washington Post is very helpful in understanding some of the means used to identify the source of anthrax. I will quote almost all of eight of the twenty-four paragraphs in it, with my comments interspersed. I am _not_ a scientist so take my comments as opinion rather than fact. First here is the URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47864-2001Oct24.html

"The ongoing USAMRIID studies on the spores used in the U.S. attacks involve examinations using conventional microscopes and scanning electron microscopes, along with complex chemical analyses that are difficult to conduct even when the bacteria in question are not dangerous. [sentence omitted]

Results of those tests have not been made public beyond a simple description of how small the spore particles were in the Daschle letter. That particle size, 1 1/2 to 3 microns in diameter, said Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), is extremely small -- a first requirement for making "weapons grade" anthrax spores for warfare or terrorism."

The usual way anthrax spores are created is to first create a "wet" anthrax culture and then dry it (taking the lid off the jar is one way). The dehydration will cause the anthrax to form spores. But just how the spores are dried is critical to other matters, so drying them in the proper fashion is not easy.

Among other things, anthrax spores come in a great variety of sizes, but only spores of about one to five microns in diameter can cause pulmonary anthrax. The spores must be under five microns in size to be inhaled deep enough into the lungs to be infectious, but more than a micron across so they will adhere to the lungs.

Side note: anthrax spores of sizes under one micron and over five microns can cause cutaneous and intestinal anthrax. They just won't cause pulmonary anthrax.

What type of drying method is used to create anthrax spores from wet cultures can determine the "yield" of spores of the desired diameters, and how easy it is to treat them so the spores won't clump together in groups in excess of five microns in diameter.

These drying methods are one means of determining the country which created the spores, though that means is not exclusive. It is possible to create small amounts of spores with, for a given country, non-standard (relative to the most common method aka "production standard) drying methods, at greater expense, for experimentation and deception purposes.

And post-spore production techniques are commonly used to increase the number of spores of the desired diameters. Milling is a common method, but the milling methods are reputedly not something which can be done effectively without use of rare and expensive machines operated by skilled personnel. Improper milling can reputedly make the spores some to almost totally harmless, and certainly make them impossible to keep them from clumping together.

Getting back to the Post article:

"In the United States, that problem was solved by Bill Patrick, who developed the process at Fort Detrick as part of the U.S. biological weapons program that ended in 1969. The process is protected by at least five secret patents held by Patrick. It involved freeze drying and chemical processing and was achieved without having to grow vast quantities of spores or mill them to terribly small dimensions, Patrick and other experts said.
... [paragraph omitted]
The Russian program, which has been described in detail by Ken Alibek, who ran it for many years before moving to the United States to do biological research, required the production of much larger quantities of spores that were more heavily milled than the U.S. spores and used a different kind of freezing and coating process.

The Iraqi technique, uncovered by U.N. inspectors, was a novel one-step process that involved drying spores in the presence of aluminum-based clays or silica powders, said Richard Spertzel, who was part of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) team that was to uncover and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program after the Gulf War. [sentence omitted]

"If [U.S. investigators] can get a clue as to how the material in the Daschle letter was prepared, that might narrow the field," Spertzel said. "It may not pinpoint it, but it may narrow it."

I recall an earlier news story, whose URL someone posted a while ago on the Freep, where Spertzel said the Iraqi method of preparing the spores created a characteristic crystallization pattern which could be identified under a microscope.

Summary: creation of anthrax powders which can cause pulmonary anthrax entails roughly the following steps (note that these are broken into arbitrary steps - as a practical matter they overlap some to a lot depending on the methods used):

1) Create "wet" anthrax cultures;

2) Make dry spores of the culture;

3) Treat the spores so as many as possible will be of the right size;

4) Turn the spores into powder;

5) Treat the spores so they won't clump together.

48 posted on 10/25/2001 2:22:51 PM PDT by Thud
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To: Mr. Jeeves
777 -- ching, ching, ching.
49 posted on 10/25/2001 2:24:07 PM PDT by Hemlock
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To: swatter
Weaponized and Bioengineered are not mutually exclusive. You can have one without the other.

Weaponized means the spores were modified by chemical process to disperse in the air and not clump together like they do in nature

bioengineered means the strain of anthrax has been engineered to be resistant to antibiotics.

Clear?

50 posted on 10/25/2001 2:24:35 PM PDT by jbstrick
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To: jbstrick
BUMP, BUMP, BUMP
51 posted on 10/25/2001 2:24:59 PM PDT by jbstrick
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To: Maringa
Its from the right wing.........ooops no......from the left.....an Antrax-a-Bomber.....noooo wait....Iraq....Atta had it in Florida...got it in Prague.....no waitttt.....its weapons grade.....noooo wrong its cow pasture grade....Got in Nevada.....oops wrong call...well maybe.....no it isn't..

TIME F*C*ING OUT!!!!

The only facts we know are:

1. A lot of people are getting it.

2. Nobody got it before 9-11.

3. The first place that got it was 1/2 mile from the Oasis at Delray Beach.

4. 2nd place that it eminated from was Trenton NJ.

OK...these 4 clues definitely should stem off some avenues of investigation and lead one to focus on the more promising ones. Why doesn't this appear to be happening, and if it is, WHY NOT TELL US EVERYTHING NOW!!!!

If this is what we are going to get from our Bureau of Homeland defense, let's nip it in the bud before we pour more money down that drain.

52 posted on 10/25/2001 2:26:00 PM PDT by L`enn
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To: Alamo-Girl
I heard a radio report while in the car this morning. It was Brian Ross (so I'm assuming an ABC radio affiliate, can't recall which one). Ross stated that the coating on the anthrax was the big deal. That the U.S., Russia, and Iraq could do it. But here's the punch line: that the U.S. had stopped processing anthrax like this in the 70's and we supposedly destroyed all the stored anthrax.

So unless the right-wingers the comPost's unnamed source mentioned have sat on this stuff for twenty years, I don't think that you're garden-variety right wing-nut is going to be cooking it up in his basement.

53 posted on 10/25/2001 2:26:22 PM PDT by mewzilla
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To: Mr. Jeeves
It's a red herring. The key, course, is not whether the anthrax is bio-engineered, but how it is processed for delivery.

BINGO!!!!!!

54 posted on 10/25/2001 2:28:48 PM PDT by Pericles
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To: Thud
Oh, and the "strain" and "bioengineering" of the wet anthrax _cultures_ has little to do with converting the wet cultures into weaponized spores.

Bioengineering means such things as genetic modification for resistance to antibiotics (military-grade), or use in research. The Ames strain is an example of a research strain.

Militarization and bioengineering determine what type of wet anthrax culture is used as the feed stock for spores. Weaponization refers to what is done with the spores after they are produced (milling, processing, keeping them from clumping, etc.)

So wet anthrax cultures, and even spores, can be produced in one country and then shipped to another country for processing into weaponized anthrax powder.

55 posted on 10/25/2001 2:29:14 PM PDT by Thud
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To: mewzilla
Excellent observation, mewzilla! Kudos!!!
56 posted on 10/25/2001 2:30:18 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: SAMWolf
So. Does this mean the f**king cows are placing anthrax into envelopes and mailing them?
57 posted on 10/25/2001 2:31:49 PM PDT by rstevens
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To: sourcery
Your# 39) ??Lists??
??North Korea??
??India??
??Pakistan??
??Germany??
??China??
??Ukraine??
??Ireland??
??Italy??
Pharmaceutical Production "labs"??
58 posted on 10/25/2001 2:32:03 PM PDT by maestro
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To: Alamo-Girl
Rumsfeld today saying that they may never get Osama (like he's already dead perhaps.)

My feeling too. The war in Afghanistan is not "ready" to be over yet. There is so much going on that we're not hearing about. That's fine with me, I trust this group.

59 posted on 10/25/2001 2:37:14 PM PDT by McGavin999
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To: Alamo-Girl
That is the best summary I have seen anywhere.
You do make some of the very best observations!

Got to bookmark this thread!

60 posted on 10/25/2001 2:41:56 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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