These triple-wrapped cans contain samples of a powdery substance that tested positive for anthrax. The substance was found at a Fayetteville hotel in a sealed container about the size of a soda can.
Posted on 11/02/2001 10:56:33 AM PST by nctracy
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:55:41 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Container Found In Fayetteville Tests Positive For Anthrax
Only 20-30 Percent Of Positives Are Accurate
Julie Moos, Staff Writer
POSTED: 1:47 p.m. EST November 2, 2001
UPDATED: 2:40 p.m. EST November 2, 2001
FAYETTEVILLE, NC -- Around 9:30 a.m. Friday, a motel employee at StudioPlus Deluxe Studios found a sealed plastic container in a rest room. The employee thought it was suspicious, contacted his manager, and they called for emergency respose.
Haz-mat teams and firefighters did an initial test on the container and that test came back positive. Then, they did two more screenings and both of those tests came back positive for anthrax as well.
Initial field tests are not 100 percent accurate. In fact, officials say a positive test has only a 20-30 percent accuracy.
The 20 employees and guests of the hotel have been bused to another location where the health department is collecting their names, phone numbers, and medical histories. Officials will then determine whether to put them on antibiotics.
Sycamore Dairy Road, where the hotel is located, remains open, although the building has been evacuated and the ventilation system shut down.
Officials say even if the package did have anthrax on it, it is not contagious and there is no cause for Fayetteville residents to panic.
The police and SBI are investigating where the container came from and who it belongs to.
The material has been taken to a state lab for further testing, and those results are expected back in 72 hours.
WRAL-TV5 and WRAL.com will have the latest updates as they become available Click here for the article
Perhaps they thought it was suspect because they were already suspicious about the room's occupant(s).
"The deputy Director of North Carolina's Public Health lab, John Sheats, says the accuracy rate for the field tests Haz-Mat teams across the state are using is troubling. "They lack precision and they lack accuracy," he says. "That's why we recommend that you do lab work." Sheats says that some of the better tests have a 30 percent false positive rate and that some of the ones that are not quite as good have a 50-50 positivity rates.
I believe that means there is 30-50% chance the tests given so far are not accurate for there being anthrax here.
That's somewhat comforting - though not as great a comfort as what the original article seemed to indicate - which was a 70% chance of a false positive.
"In fact, officials say a positive test has only a 20-30 percent accuracy."
I am really tired - so I may not be reading this right - but if I read the linked info above - it says not that there is a 20-30 per cent chance the test is accurate - but a 30% chance the test is NOT accurate - for a good test / and a 50% chance the test is NOT accurate - for a mediocre field test.
Did I miss something?
Either way - we have to wait this maddening 72 hrs to find out what the doggone bacteria actually is! If it is Anthrax - well - the linked article said "people of Middle Eastern descent were at that hotel before this was found". One would hope that the authorities are tracking these "people of ME descent" NOW - and not waiting the 72 hrs to find out what this stuff really is. Is that profiling? Yes - too bad.
Will see what WRAL reports at 11 PM.
I'll bet you a thousand dollars it's Tide or Gain or something like that.
The locals and the media overreacted. Antibiotics should have been given unless a LAB result was positive.
Someone said something about Stevens -- he became ill while visiting NC, which pretty much indicated that he was infected before coming here which was borne out by finding the spores in his office.
Nothing to see here, folks, let's move along.
(pssst. Somebody call the rubber truck, we've got a live one here.)
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