Doctor Says FBI, CDC Ignored ‘Possible Lead’ in Anthrax Investigation

A New Jersey doctor who wonders if he might have been the first person infected in the anthrax attack is still waiting for the FBI to talk to him about what he might know.

What makes his story potentially significant is that his symptoms appeared long before those who were infected by the letters mailed Sept. 30 — actually a week before the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

At the time he had a sore with a black scab, followed by what was diagnosed in a hospital as meningitis. In an interview with ABCNEWS' Good Morning America, Dr. Jerry Weisfogel said he may have had a brush with the anthrax attacker, but the government has ignored his story.

Four people have died, one person is in serious condition and 16 others are recovering from anthrax infection, while at least 37 others have been exposed to the spores.

The FBI says it is pursuing more than 1,000 leads, including at least 100 that have taken investigators overseas.

Weisfogel works in the town of Kendall Park, N.J., which is near Franklin Park, the town found on the return address of the anthrax-contaminated letter that was mailed to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

There's no Greendale school, which was given as the return address, but there is a Greenbrook school in Weisfogel's town, and it only goes to the fourth grade. The return address of the letter sent to Daschle said, "4th Grade, Greendale School."

"It obviously made me think that there may have been some local connection between where my office is, between what I had and wherever the perpetrators of the anthrax mailings are," Weisfogel said.

But Weisfogel said that, to his amazement, he had a hard time getting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get interested in his case. They told him his case appeared too early to be connected, even when he suggested that his could have been the first case.

"That's exactly what I said," Weisfogel said. "I said, 'You have Case 1 and Case 2 or Cluster 1 and Cluster 2. How do you know there was not a Cluster 0?'"

Weisfogel said he originally diagnosed his black scab as a spider bite, but now he wonders if his mistake might not have been the same misdiagnosis so commonly seen in anthrax cases.

What's more, he said, he wonders if the bioterrorist responsible for the letters might have been in his office. "Have I come across patients from countries who might be doing this? Yes," Weisfogel said.

Weisfogel admits that there is no proof that anyone he treated had any connection to the rash of anthrax-contaminated letters received by lawmakers and media companies, but said it is "a possible lead" in a case in which investigators seem to have almost no leads, other than a trail of anthrax infections and spores all going back to New Jersey.

On Thursday, after the CDC became aware that Weisfogel was telling his story to Good Morning America, the agency tested his blood for anthrax antibodies. He was told it could be weeks before the results of the tests are in.

Remember the DelRay Beach, Florida pharmacist who claimed to have talked to Atta and another hijacker when they came into his pharmacy with ailments last August? Mostly, we heard about Atta, who had red hands. But the other hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehhi, had symptoms of inhalation anthrax that would have required him to visit a doctor in his area. There are clues in the print media listed below that he did indeed visit a doctor for an antibiotic after the over-the-counter Robitussin that he bought from pharmacist Gregg Chatterton didn't work.

Can we trust that the FBI in Florida followed up on this?

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Facts on File World News Digest
October 19, 2001
Pg. 825A1

More Anthrax Cases Found as Public Criticism Rages Over U.S. Government's Slow Response

(snip)
Possible Terrorist Link Investigated

Investigators as of October 25 had not found any concrete links between bin Laden's organization and the anthrax mailings. In one line of inquiry, investigators had questioned pharmacists in areas where the hijackers in the September 11 terror attacks had lived in order to learn whether they had requested Cipro, an antibiotic treatment for anthrax. Investigators had found that two of the hijackers had visited a drug store in DelRay Beach, Florida, near their homes, it was reported October 22. Mohamed Atta, the alleged leader of the terrorist cell that organized the hijackings, had requested treatment for reddened, burning hands. The pharmacist had reportedly said that Atta had been rude and evasive when asked what happened to his hands. Another hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehhi, had visited the same pharmacy complaining of a bad cough.

The pharmacist also said that a man resembling Al-Shehhi had returned to have a prescription filled. However, Al-Shehhi's name was not found connected to any of the pharmacy's prescriptions, leading investigators to believe that he had used an alias. Investigators reportedly planned to search the pharmacy's recent Cipro prescriptions next.
(snip)

Did the FBI check the area physicians' offices? Al-Shehhi had to get that scrip from somewhere.

I'm assuming the scrip was for Cipro, but that's a big assumption based solely on the wording of this article.. By the time this article was written, everyone was going Cipro-crazy. Surely the FBI looked at ALL the pharmacy's records and not just for Cipro!

Even if Al-Shehhi gave a bogus name and paid cash at this as-yet unknown doctor's office, there may be additional clues in his file, especially if the doctor ordered lab work.

Here's another one:

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

U.S. News & World Report
November 5, 2001
NATION & WORLD; COVER STORY; Vol. 131 , No. 19; Pg. 16

Anthrax Nation

By Roger Simon; Jodie T. Allen; Chitra Ragavan; Kevin Whitelaw; Douglas Pasternak; David E. Kaplan; Kit R. Roane; Jeff Howe
(snip)
Last August, Gregg Chatterton, a pharmacist at Huber Healthmart Drugs in Delray Beach, Fla., says two men he later identified as Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, two of the September 11 suicide hijackers, wandered into his pharmacy. Chatterton approached the men to see if they needed any help and noticed Atta's hands were flaming red.
"Both hands were red from the wrist down," recalls Chatterton. "If you filled your sink with bleach and stuck your hands in there for six hours, they would come out red," he says, "and that is what they looked like."
Chatterton thought the two men might have been construction workers, who often get red, irritated hands, or perhaps Atta had been gardening and had an allergic reaction. "I asked [Atta] if he had done any gardening," says Chatterton, "and he was very rude and just pooh-poohed me. He said: 'I don't garden.' " Chatterton finally sold Atta a 1-ounce tube of "acid mantle," a medication that helps replenish your skin, says Chatterton.
Shehhi also bought a bottle of Robitussin for what Chatterton described as a hacking cough. Chatterton believes Atta's red hands were a result of frequent washing with bleach, perhaps, or some other chemical. Chatterton had seen many photographs of cutaneous anthrax when he served on the infectious control committee of several local hospitals. "It did not look like cutaneous anthrax," he says. Chatterton described the two men as "well dressed and well groomed" but very rude. "It was like meeting Hitler," he says of Atta.

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