Posted on 11/24/2001 12:50:38 PM PST by t-shirt
Take note the the FBI is not making it a priority to investigate the disappearance of one of the top experts in the world on biological germs, outbreaks and attacks.
Please read all the stories I will be posting on this thread. I could not post them at the time because of the large number of words.
November 24, 2001 Posted: 04:22:00 AM PST
By DIANE SCARPONI, Associated Press
OXFORD, Conn. (AP) - Investigators were pessimistic that a quick explanation would be found for the mysterious anthrax death of an elderly Connecticut woman earlier this week. Preliminary testing of her house and nearby post offices showed no signs of the bacteria.
Gov. John G. Rowland said more testing was under way but the lack of a definite source for the anthrax, while a relief for postal workers, has been frustrating for investigators.
"This is not a perfect science, and perhaps there's other venues that need to be investigated," Rowland said Friday.
Federal investigators have fanned out across the rural southwest Connecticut community, testing the few places that 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren visited during the last years of her life. Relatives and neighbors have said she rarely left home except to visit the library, the beauty parlor, doctors' offices and her church.
Agents gathered environmental samples by vacuum at the Immanuel Lutheran Church. At the Nu-Look Hair Salon, an agent with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention swabbed surfaces and took samples from the ceiling air duct.
Three government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators also were seeking a soil sample from an Oxford coffee shop frequented by the victim. The tests came after residents mentioned vague recollections of an anthrax outbreak more than 50 years ago in livestock at a farm near the coffee shop.
Officials said the sample was precautionary and they had not yet found records of such an outbreak.
Lundgren died of the inhaled form of anthrax Wednesday, becoming the fifth fatality since the nation's anthrax scare began in early October. The CDC said the strain that killed her was similar to strains found in other recent cases.
Of the previous deaths, three have been tied by investigators to tainted mail sent to news organizations or members of Congress. The other mystery is the Oct. 31 death of Kathy Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital worker in New York City.
Only 18 cases of natural inhalation anthrax have been recorded in the past 100 years, so the Connecticut case is "most likely the result of a criminal act," said Lisa Swenarski, a CDC spokeswoman.
Swenarski also said the agency should know sometime this weekend if anthrax found in a letter sent from Switzerland to Chile is from the same strain as the anthrax found in letters in Washington and New York. The letter was received last week by a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago, the Chilean Health Ministry said.
"If it is the same strain that we found in these other incidents, we'll know that we are probably dealing with another attack," Swenarski said.
In Connecticut, the governor said hospitals have been asked to review the deaths of patients who had flu-like symptoms since Sept. 11 to see whether any anthrax deaths might have gone unnoticed.
"We're going to look at those who were deceased and what their diagnosis was," Yale-New Haven Hospital spokeswoman Louise Dambry said. "They asked us to look at people particularly with pneumonia symptoms."
On Friday, Dr. Eric Mast of the CDC attended a meeting with about 200 Oxford residents to address their concerns about the anthrax case in their town.
Mast said it was unlikely that cross-contaminated mail could infect large numbers of people. If it could, he said, many more anthrax cases would have been uncovered in recent weeks.
Five fatal inhalation anthrax cases have been reported since tainted letters first appeared earlier this fall.
"That is reassuring that if cross-contamination is a risk, it's a very small risk," Mast said.
Sacramento City Journal
Friday, November 23, 2001
You would be quarantined and your property could be seized or destroyed by the government if you came down with smallpox as a result of a terrorist attack under a bill expected to be submitted to the state Assembly by Keith Richman, R-Sun Valley. And even if you stayed healthy, the state could force you to be vaccinated and receive treatment under Richman's proposal.
"This is going to be a very controversial bill," Richman says. "It's potentially in conflict with civil liberties."
The lawmaker, the only physician in the Assembly, says coping with a smallpox or similar public health emergency should override Constitutional liberties.
He points out that smallpox is a highly communicable disease with a 30 percent death rate. While it was eradicated from the face of the Earth as a disease 30 years ago, microbes remain in laboratories around the world.
"In a time of a public health emergency for something like a bioterrorist attack with smallpox, there are a number of potential valuable public health steps which may need to be taken. These include quarantining, commandeering property and sharing of medical records," Richman says.
He says his proposal is based on theories of Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University's law school which are being used for a federal model backed by the Bush administration.
Spokesmen for the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Chamber of Commerce told the Sacramento Bee newspaper that they had not seen Mr. Richman's legislation but planned to examine it closely.
"It is a very difficult subject and will require an open discussion and debate to get to the right balance," Richman says. "When you're faced with a serious problem that potentially can kill 30 percent of the population we need to have these discussions before that occurs."
And he adds, "this is the type of bill we would all hope would never be used."
'Everything was absolutely normal,' says puzzled wife
November 23, 2001
Julie Smyth
National Post
"Eventually, he would have won [a Nobel Prize]," a colleague said of Harvard biochemist Don Wiley, who has been missing for a week.
A world-renowned Harvard University professor who was considered for the Nobel Prize for his work with deadly viruses has gone missing after attending a scientific meeting in Memphis, Tenn.
Don Wiley, a biochemist at the university's Howard Hughes Medical Institute, disappeared last Friday after having dinner with members from an advisory board of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the city. Police found his rental car on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, a five-minute drive from the hotel through the city's downtown, at 4 a.m., four hours after the advisory board meeting.
The car had a full tank of gas and the keys were in the ignition.
Colleagues, family members and police have no idea what happened to Mr. Wiley. They said his disappearance was uncharacteristic -- he was known to let people know his whereabouts even if he went out jogging.
Police said there were no obvious signs of foul play, although they have not ruled out the possibility. There is no evidence his credit cards have been used since he disappeared. Police have also not eliminated a possible suicide or accident and are searching the river for his body. They have been checking video surveillance cameras in the city and are trying to retrace his last known steps.
Dr. William Evans, a member of the advisory board that was meeting with Mr. Wiley, told a Tennessee newspaper: "Don was always the life of the party in terms of any kind of conversation." He added Mr. Wiley was in his usual good mood when he went missing.
The 57-year-old is one of the most highly regarded scientists in his field and has taught at Harvard since receiving his doctorate there in 1971. He is known for building the first model of the structures of influenza and human cells that allow the disease to cause infection.
Cliff Richardson, a virologist in the department of medical biophysics at the Ontario Cancer Institute said Mr. Wiley is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of biochemistry.
"Eventually he would have won [a Nobel Prize]. He has done very, very important work," he said.
Katrin Valgeirsdottir, Mr. Wiley's wife, said yesterday from her Cambridge, Mass., home she is extremely worried and has no clues as to what happened to her husband. The couple have two children, aged six and 10. Mr. Wiley also has two children, aged 26 and 34, from an earlier marriage. Ms. Valgeirsdottir last spoke to her husband a couple of days before he went missing. "He seemed fine and everything was absolutely normal. I have no idea what happened -- none whatsoever."
She was planning on flying to meet him on the day police found his abandoned car.
By WOLFGANG SAXON
November 23, 2001
New York Times
r. Vladimir Pasechnik, a senior Soviet biologist whose defection in 1989 alerted Western intelligence to the scope of Moscow's clandestine efforts to adapt germs and viruses for military use, died on Wednesday in Wiltshire, England. He was 64 and lived in a nearby village.
The cause was a stroke, said Dr. Christopher J. Davis of Great Falls, Va., formerly in British intelligence.
It was Dr. Pasechnik who provided a first glimpse of Biopreparat, a network of secret laboratories, each focused on a deadly agent. His revelations were confirmed in 1992 with the defection to the United States of Dr. Ken Alibek, the No. 2 scientist for the program.
The picture that emerged was of a system of centers scattered chiefly around European Russia. There, a small army of scientists and technicians were developing potential biological weapons like anthrax, Ebola, Marburg virus, plague, Q fever and smallpox.
Dr. Pasechnik was in charge of one known as the Institute of Ultra Pure Biochemical Preparations in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad. Once in England, he told interviewers that he had no inkling that his work violated the 1972 treaty under which the United States and the Soviet Union were to halt such activities.
Once revealed, the Soviet government insisted that the research was intended to defend against acts of biological warfare by an enemy and that the program had been stopped, two claims doubted by Western intelligence.
Dr. Pasechnik defected on an official trip to the West, but little was known about his background until early 1993 when the British government permitted him to speak.
He said he had become "disgusted" with the biological weapons program, which had been denied by Presidents Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris N. Yeltsin, or had been hidden from them. Dr. Pasechnik said he defected in an effort to help stop it. (His own laboratory had been working on a strain of plague.)
James Adams, in his 1994 book "The New Spies," described Dr. Pasechnik as "one of the brightest stars at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute." A native of Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, he graduated in physics at the top of his class.
He specialized in the study of polymers for biological uses at the Institute of High Molecular Compounds in St. Petersburg. His interest, Mr. Adams wrote, was in developing new antibiotics and methods to treat diseases without known cures.
At age 37, Dr. Pasechnik was invited to start his own institute, Mr. Adams wrote, with an unlimited budget to buy equipment in the West and recruit the best staff available. The laboratory he created was part of the countrywide Biopreparat.
He later reported that the institute, with a staff of 400, did research on modifying cruise missiles to spread germs. Flying low to foil early-warning systems, the robot craft were intended to spray clouds of aerosolized pathogens over unsuspecting enemies.
Dr. Pasechnik said his team succeeded in producing an aerosolized plague microbe that could survive outside the laboratory.
Increasingly distressed, Dr. Pasechnik had begun to plan his defection in 1988, he but had never been permitted to travel abroad, Mr. Adams wrote. Meanwhile, Western intelligence agencies had been poring over bits and pieces of information for years, trying to assess the state of Soviet efforts in his field.
Dr. Pasechnik got his chance to travel in the summer of 1989. He volunteered to wrap up a pending deal with a French maker of chemical laboratory equipment. In recognition of past performance, he was allowed to travel to Toulouse to sign the contracts.
Instead, he called the British Embassy in Paris.
November 21, 2001
MEMPHIS (AP) — Authorities continued yesterday to search for a missing Harvard University biologist whose abandoned rental car was discovered last week on an Interstate 40 bridge spanning the Mississippi River.
Dr. Don C. Wiley, 57, was in Memphis attending the annual meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The board met last Wednesday and Thursday.
Wiley's car was discovered on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge about 4 a.m. Friday. Police said the key was still in the ignition and the car had a full tank of gas.
''We just don't know where he is right at the moment,'' Memphis Police Inspector Matt McCann said Monday. ''There is no indication of foul play that we can determine at this point.''
McCain said Wiley, a Harvard biochemistry and biophysics professor, is ''known throughout the world in his field.''
''For him to suddenly disappear like this is of great concern to us. We're putting in a lot of man-hours trying to locate him,'' McCann said.
In 1999, Wiley and Dr. Jack Strominger of Harvard won the Japan Prize for their discoveries of how the immune system protects humans from infections.
November 24, 2001 Posted: 1:22 PM EST (1822 GMT)
OXFORD, Connecticut (CNN) -- Family and friends of an elderly Connecticut widow who died of anthrax gathered Saturday to say their final farewells, as investigators continued to try to solve the baffling mystery of how she contracted the deadly illness.
The funeral for Ottilie Lundgren, 94, who died Wednesday, was held Saturday at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Oxford. At the family's request, the service was closed to the media.
Lundgren was the latest in a string of 18 confirmed anthrax infections, resulting in five deaths. Tests showed that the anthrax that killed her was indistinguishable from the anthrax in the other cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
But unlike most of the other victims -- in Florida, New Jersey, New York City and Washington, D.C. -- she had no apparent connection to the U.S. Postal Service, government offices or media outlets that have received or processed anthrax-laden letters.
Only one of the other victims -- Kathy Nguyen, a New York City hospital worker who died October 31 -- had a similar lack of connection to the letters. Lundgren's infection is even more mysterious because she lived alone in rural Connecticut, had a limited schedule and didn't travel much.
Investigators are painstakingly reconstructing the last weeks of Lundgren's life, looking for the source of the anthrax contamination. They have taken environmental samples at a hair salon frequented by Lundgren, as well as Oxford's town hall, library and a local diner.
Among the scenarios being investigated is that she might have been infected through contaminated mail. But Lundgren's home and about two-weeks-worth of mail found inside have so far tested negative for anthrax, as did tests on a post office and postal distribution center that handled her mail.
About 400 people in the Oxford area -- including 350 postal workers and people who might have had contact with Lundgren -- have also tested negative for exposure to anthrax, Gov. John Rowland said Friday.
FBI agents working on the Lundgren case are also comparing notes with agents investigating Nguyen's death, trying to see if there might be any links between the two women. So far, however, no links have been found, said Lisa Bull, an FBI agent in New Haven.
On Friday night, about 200 people in the Oxford area attended a town meeting at a junior high school in Seymour. Officials from the CDC and state and local health agencies answered questions from worried residents, discussing the potentially deadly bacteria and symptoms of infection.
In another anthrax-related development, the CDC confirmed Friday that a white powdery substance found in a letter sent to a children's hospital in Santiago, Chile, was anthrax. The letter had a Florida return address but was actually postmarked in Zurich, Switzerland, according to the Chilean Health Ministry.
The Santiago letter is the first outside the United States to be confirmed as containing anthrax. Suspicious letters found in Bahamas, Kenya, Pakistan and Venezuela all tested negative for anthrax.
Thirteen people who were in the vicinity when the letter was opened have placed on a course of antibiotics, the Chilean health ministry said.
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Ottilie Lundgren's picture can be seen here:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/conditions/11/24/connecticut.anthrax/index.html
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 24, 2001
The same type of anthrax spores mailed last month to senators on Capitol Hill killed an elderly Connecticut widow this week, but early tests on her home showed no traces of the bacteria, officials said.
Tests of the mail, mailbox and garbage at 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren's home in rural Oxford, Conn., were negative for anthrax exposure, Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland said yesterday.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that the spores found in the woman's bloodstream are "indistinguishable" from those found in anthrax-laced letters mailed to U.S. Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick J. Leahy.
The anthrax spores found in those letters were manufactured and not naturally occurring, federal law enforcement authorities said. The finding rules out theories that Mrs. Lundgren contracted a naturally occurring form of the disease, but it has not helped federal investigators trace the bacteria's origin.
"We're continuing to reconstruct a picture of her life over the last 30 days," said FBI spokeswoman Lisa Bull.
Meanwhile, the CDC confirmed that a letter sent from Switzerland to Chile was tainted with anthrax spores.
The letter was sent to Dr. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago. Dr. Banfi, who opened the envelope, and 12 others nearby have tested negative for anthrax exposure but were being treated as a precaution, according to the Chilean Health Ministry.
Chilean officials said Dr. Banfi became suspicious because the letter was postmarked in Zurich but bore a Florida return address.
There have been several other reports of anthrax spores being found in mail worldwide, but most have turned out to be false.
In Connecticut, Mr. Rowland said tests have not detected any anthrax spores at the post office in Seymour, which handles mail for Oxford, or the processing center in Wallingford, which sorts mail for all of southern Connecticut. About 400 post offices in the region also have tested negative for anthrax exposure.
Mrs. Lundgren, a retired legal secretary, on Wednesday became the fifth U.S. fatality of inhalation anthrax, the most deadly form of the disease. Friends and relatives said she seldom left home, except to visit the library, a beauty parlor, doctor's office and her church.
Authorities said her death resembles that of Kathy T. Nguyen, a New York hospital worker who died last month. Three other persons who have died from the disease since Oct. 4 had direct contact with tainted mail at their workplaces.
In the District, Bill Burrus, president of the 360,000 member American Postal Workers Union, recommended his members refuse to work in buildings where any trace of anthrax spores remains.
The U.S. Postal Service has tested 279 facilities nationwide for anthrax exposure, 21 of which tested positive for "at least trace amounts of anthrax," said Postal Service spokesman Jerry Kreienkamp. All but two — the District's central mail-processing facility on Brentwood Road NE and a post office in Trenton, N.J. — have been cleaned and reopened, Mr. Kreienkamp said.
No postal employees have been allowed to work at the Brentwood Road and Trenton facilities, he said.
But Mr. Burrus said he became alarmed when anthrax-contaminated sorting equipment at a New York facility was cordoned off and cleaned while work continued in the rest of the building. Having postal workers wear masks and gloves while hazardous materials experts are doing cleanup nearby "is not sound medical procedure," he said.
Mr. Kreienkamp said that the cleaning took place "on a different" floor from the postal workers, and that the Postal Service "followed the recommendations of health experts." At least 20,000 postal workers have been given antibiotics.
Mr. Burrus said even after a facility has been cleaned, "testing is imperfect at best. If there is something on a wall or the lights and if it becomes airborne, there's a risk of exposure."
A postal manager at the Bladensburg Road post office in the District said the postal union would be going too far if it asks employees to not show up for work.
"The union has a right to do what they're doing; they're just trying to stick up for their guys," said Brian McCutchan, who manages the post office at 3178 Bladensburg Road NE. "But if a facility tested positive for anthrax and it's been cleaned out and tested again and there's no more anthrax there, I say go back to work. It's not like the Postal Service is trying to hide anything."
Mr. Kreienkamp said the delivery of an estimated 20 billion pieces of holiday mail will not be delayed by union resistance. "We know [the workers] are going to deliver this holiday season as they always have," he said.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
By Michael Rosenwald, Boston Globe Staff, 11/24/2001
ederal agents are closely monitoring the disappearance case of Harvard biology professor Don C. Wiley because of his research interests in a number of potentially deadly viruses, including Ebola, the FBI said yesterday in Memphis.
Wiley's whereabouts remained a mystery yesterday, a week after his car was found on a bridge over the Mississippi River. His family continued to insist that the noted biologist, whose papers explored the workings of some of the deadliest viruses in the world, would not have killed himself.
William Woerner, the acting assistant special agent in charge of the Memphis FBI office, said his agents became interested in the case after learning of Wiley's profession, then made their interest known to Memphis detectives.
''His line of work and field of expertise [are] what prompted our call to them,'' Woerner said, adding that his office was concerned ''given our state of affairs post-Sept. 11.''
Federal authorities are paying close attention to potential bioterrorist threats. The Ebola virus - about which Wiley was a national expert, along with HIV and influenza - is a hemorrhagic fever that causes the body's fluids to ooze out of tissues and orifices.
Ebola is highly contagious and lethal, killing between 50 and 90 percent of people infected in known outbreaks. There is no vaccine.
Wiley's wife, Katrin Valgeirsdottir, said that while she is baffled by her husband's disappearance, she did not think it was related to his work or papers, which can be found on his lab's Web site.
''That just doesn't seem plausible,'' Valgeirsdottir said. ''I mean, there are a lot of kooks out there, and I don't know for a fact that this wasn't the reason, but you'd have to have someone who read his Web site and decided they found something interesting.''
Woerner said he wasn't sure whether top FBI officials in Washington had been notified about Wiley, who has been missing since Nov. 16. ''It's very likely that Washington has been notified, but I can't confirm that,'' he said.
Memphis police have control over the investigation, Woerner said.
Lieutenant Walter Norris of the city's homicide squad refused to confirm whether detectives were considering Wiley's profession as a reason for his disappearance. ''We're checking anything that can be thought of,'' he said. ''Some things the FBI can help us on, so there is involvement there also.''
Norris said there were no developments in the case yesterday. Authorities continued to patrol, in boats and helicopters, the area of the Mississippi River where Wiley's rented car was found nearby early in the morning of Nov. 16.
Based on her daily communications with Memphis police about her husband's case, Valgeirsdottir said, she thinks investigators are focusing on the river. ''They've mentioned that maybe it was an accident, that he fell in, or that he jumped, but clearly they are focusing on the river as being the site to whatever happened,'' she said.
She recently learned that there was some small damage to the car, but said she did not know what it was. Memphis police refused to confirm or deny there was any damage.
Norris said missing-person cases are not unusual in and around the city. ''People come up missing all the time,'' he said, ''and a lot of times they turn up.''
If Wiley somehow wound up in the river and drowned, it could be weeks or even months before a body is found, Norris said.
Wiley has not been seen since about midnight on Nov. 16, when he attended a banquet with colleagues on the scientific advisory board of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital at The Peabody hotel in Memphis.
Police discovered his rented Mitsubishi Galant at 4 a.m. on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, which is a five-minute drive from the hotel. The car was pointed toward Arkansas, and police have said the car was probably there no longer than 15 minutes before an officer saw it, because a stopped vehicle would have backed up traffic on the two-lane bridge. There was no sign of a struggle.
''This whole thing,'' Valgeirsdottir said, ''just doesn't add up.''
Michael Rosenwald can be reached at mrosenwald@globe.com.
Richard Preston outlines bioterrorism threat in ISU speech
November 18, 2001 By TAMMY JOHNSON
of the Journal Star
NORMAL - Illinois State University President Victor Boschini had high praise for an author who visited the school last week.
"He's brilliant, he's funny and he scared the hell out of me," Boschini said.
Investigative journalist Richard Preston, author of "The Hot Zone" and "The Cobra Event: A Case Study in Biological Terrorism," both books on bioterrorism, warned students, faculty and administrators about the real threat of bioterrorism in the United States.
Preston's words may have failed to instill a real sense of fear in Americans a few months ago, but the large crowd remained dead silent Tuesday after he wrapped up the last of several true stories on deadly viruses.
While Preston focused largely on the global threat of smallpox, he also addressed questions about the latest anthrax scare.
He criticized the government for wasting time after the first anthrax outbreak. Lives were lost unnecessarily, he said, because officials assumed natural causes were behind the anthrax.
He also was "outraged" when "The Cobra Event," a 1997 novel on biological weapons and terrorism, failed to generate enough attention from government officials.
Instead, the book was paid lip service, he said. "At some important level, the government wasn't getting it."
"The Cobra Event" centers on a young doctor who works with a secret FBI team to stop bioterrorism in New York City.
Preston said his novel and the current anthrax situation have several parallels.
For example, the attacker in Preston's novel is a serial terrorist. Similarly, the FBI believes one person - likely someone with a scientific background - is responsible for mailing the anthrax.
Although the novel is fictional, it is backed by three years of research. Preston said he decided to turn the project into a novel when some of his most important FBI sources refused to talk unless they remained anonymous.
Preston's earlier book, "The Hot Zone," was a best-selling nonfiction book that eventually led to production of the movie "Outbreak."
"The Hot Zone" documents a natural outbreak of the Ebola virus near Washington, D.C., in 1989.
Preston said he wondered why the government knew so much about the deadly virus. He later learned the former Soviet Union had Ebola stored in missiles aimed at the United States.
But smallpox is a far greater threat, he said, and the former Soviet Union was thought to have large amounts of it as well.
North Korea, Iran and Iraq also have experimented with smallpox as a weapon, and Syria, Israel, India, China and Pakistan also may have researched the possibility of using it.
The highly contagious virus has a one-in-three fatality rate, Preston said, adding that one person with smallpox would constitute a global emergency.
To make matters worse, little of the vaccine is available, although there is a concerted effort to make more, he said.
Smallpox is expensive and difficult to use as a biological weapon, Preston said. Anthrax, on the other hand, is a good biological weapon because it's cheaper and requires less skill to make.
In addition, with the help of silica - a substance found in potato chips to keep them from getting soggy and sticking together - anthrax in its powder form dissipates into the air.
Despite his warnings, Preston left audience members with a few positive words and some suggestions for the future.
The United States has the most powerful biotechnology in the world and is working on technology that would instantly detect viruses such as smallpox and anthrax, he said.
More funding for such research and increased respect for public health officials would further protect Americans from bioterrorism.
He said the public health community needs additional money to better prepare itself for the emergence of diseases.
ISU freshmen Nicole Wenzel and Lauren Zajac said Preston's warnings put a bit of a scare into them, but not because of the recent anthrax cases. Instead, they are frightened by the idea that other countries may have stockpiles of the bacteria.
"I'm more scared of smallpox than anthrax because there isn't a cure and there are limited vaccines," Wenzel said.
David Williams, ISU associate vice president of Information and Technology, said Preston believes it's his mission to warn Americans about smallpox.
"And he's good about putting it into lay terms so it gets people's attention," he said.
http://www.cbs11tv.com/StoryDisplay.asp?StoryID=7056
BEAUMONT - An industrial waste incinerator in Port Arthur will destroy anthrax-impregnated material from terrorist mailings, the site manager said Tuesday.
Art Mathes, general manager of Onyx Environmental Services, said for a report in Wednesday's Beaumont En-terprise that the material is expected to arrive within two weeks. Mathes said the materials will be decontaminated before being shipped to Texas.
"Our facility has been contacted by several professional remediation companies acting on behalf of the U.S. government or private enterprise," Mathes said in a statement.
He declined to name the government agencies or companies.
Mathes said Onyx will accept and destroy the materials in the national interest. He did not say how much waste the facility will handle.
In a letter to U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, Mathes assured him that all applicable federal regulations will be followed.
Lampson said in a statement Tuesday that he wants President Bush to ensure the safety of the material before it is shipped to Jefferson County.
"We have seen missteps in the handling of anthrax-contaminated materials," Lampson said.
"I don't want to see another occur because we did not take the time to see this is done properly. We don't know what works and what doesn't. How can they assure us this material is decontaminated?"
Mathes said the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require all generators of hazardous wastes and debris to decontaminate the material before transportation.
"In accordance with our hazardous waste-handling policies, prior to shipment to our facility, these wastes will be treated with disinfecting solutions and procedures approved by the Centers for Disease Control that render them noninfectious," Mathes said.
"They pose no risk to our employees, the surrounding community or the environment."
He also said the U.S. Transportation Department requires that a licensed hazardous-waste carrier bring the material to Onyx's industrial rotary kiln on Texas 73 west of Port Arthur and south of Port Acres.
U.S. ready to order smallpox vaccine
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
By Rick Bowmer, AP
Tommy Thompson says a contract could be announced today.
The Bush administration is poised to select one or more drug companies to manufacture millions of doses of smallpox vaccine to protect Americans from a potential reintroduction of the dreaded disease. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in an interview Tuesday that a contract could be announced as early as today to produce vaccine that adds to the current supply of 15.4 million doses. Enough doses would be produced "to have every man, woman and child, 288 million, with their name on it."
Routine smallpox vaccinations in the USA ceased in 1972, and the last case in the world occurred in 1978. But since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the deadly anthrax mailings, fears that the virus could be used as a weapon have prompted officials to boost vaccine stockpiles.
Smallpox is fatal in about 30% of cases. Lesions leave pitted scars on survivors.
Thompson said he can't disclose which vaccine manufacturers will be awarded contracts. Three major pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Baxter International with partner Acambis, have been in talks with the government. A fourth, American Home Products, withdrew from consideration last week.
Thompson defended the administration's recent decision to preserve the USA's cache of smallpox virus, which is at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The only other official repository for the virus is at a Russian facility in Siberia, but it is believed that clandestine stocks exist elsewhere.
Thompson said there is evidence that North Korea, Iraq and other countries may have smallpox stores that they have genetically modified to use as weapons.
"Some of the experts in the medical community believe we need to keep the virus so we can use (it) to develop a changed vaccine" against such new strains, he said.
In the wide-ranging interview, Thompson also outlined how the government would respond to a single case of smallpox. First, he said, the hospital would be quarantined, and a team of CDC epidemiologists would be sent in. Vaccine would be rushed to the region, and hospital workers and others would be vaccinated, forming a protective circle around the patient.
"That's how it was eradicated before," he said.
The vaccine can prevent the disease if given within 4 days of exposure, he said, "and we feel we could get that vaccine out there within hours if it's needed, once we have it in our supply."
In addition to contracting for new doses of vaccine, Thompson said preliminary tests suggest that it is possible to "distill the current supply by 5-to-1, giving us 77 million doses out of our current supply."
Those studies, under the direction of the National Institutes of Health, will be completed by early February.
Contributing: Steve Sternberg and Julie Appleby
Saturday, November 24, 2001
The Associated Press
HAMILTON -- It was down to the wire Friday for husband-to-be Thomas Cramer.
His wedding was just one day away, and the engagement ring for his fiancee was somewhere among the 10 truckloads of mail quarantined at the Hamilton Township postal facility after it was contaminated with anthrax.
On Friday, the post office delivered.
At a ceremony outside the Hamilton facility, Trenton Postmaster Joseph Sautello presented Cramer with the ring -- a gold band with a heart-shaped diamond and two smaller gems. Certified anthrax-free.
Cramer presented it to his fiancee.
"I love it," said Amanda Boone, 23.
"At least it's not going to look like I didn't get her a ring," Cramer said after kissing her.
Cramer, 30, bought the ring at a Hamilton jewelry store, then mailed it to his father in Ohio so Boone wouldn't find it. When Cramer was ready to give her the ring, his father mailed it back -- just in time for anthrax scares to shutter post offices around New Jersey.
"I wasn't sure how quickly they could decontaminate it and get it to me," he said.
Cramer said he told his betrothed about the ring, and even showed her the paperwork to prove he bought it. He approached postal inspectors in late October and asked for help in retrieving the ring.
Once the ring was located, it was sanitized and vacuumed to ensure there was no anthrax on it. Postal Inspector Tony Esposito said he had no worries about delivering it.
The other 500,000 pieces of mail at the Hamilton facility were irradiated last week to kill any possible anthrax bacteria and will be delivered next week. The ring was the first piece of mail delivered from the facility since it closed Oct. 18.
Cramer said the wedding would have still gone on without the ring -- complete with flowers, cake, and wedding bands.
Cramer said he was surprised by the amount of attention the incident has gotten, but that he's proud of his efforts: "I'm just glad I didn't cheap out and get a tiny chip."
Hardy Myers says self-treatments are hoaxes.
PETER WONG
Statesman Journal
November 24
Attorney General Hardy Myers is warning against Internet promoters of products that purport to offer protection against anthrax and other biological and chemical threats.
He said the products are hoaxes.
“Federal experts are aware of no scientific basis for any of the self-treatment alternatives being marketed on the Internet,” Myers said. “The best advice for Oregon consumers is to immediately consult a physician if they believe they may have been exposed to a biological agent.”
No cases of anthrax have turned up in Oregon or the West Coast. Five people have died and others sickened, all on the East Coast.
Myers and attorneys general in 29 other states took part in a coordinated search of Web sites with the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and California Department of Health Services.
The search turned up more than 200 sites marketing products and therapies purporting to prevent, treat or cure anthrax, smallpox and other health hazards. The FTC has told 40 site operators to pull their information, which include marketing of biohazard test kits, mail sterilizers, gas masks and protective suits and homeopathic remedies.
In October, Myers’ consumer protection office took part with others in a narrower search focusing on Internet sales of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which is a recognized medical treatment for anthrax and skin rashes, and Cipro-related business opportunities.
Myers said people should be wary of Internet promotions of anthrax test kits, potions or pills, curative diets or magnetic, light or electrical devices. “The only known effective treatments for biological agents like anthrax or smallpox are approved prescription drugs and vaccines,” he said.
Peter Wong can be reached at (503) 399-6745
Saturday, November 24, 2001 David Lore
Dispatch Science Reporter
Ohio health officials are considering how to establish and enforce a mass quarantine in the event of a major biological attack or epidemic.
The problem is just one of several being studied by Gov. Bob Taft's Security Task Force for possible resolution in the state legislature next year, said Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor, chairwoman of the group.
Another priority is identifying and establishing round-the-clock communications links with critical industries that might be terrorist targets, she said.
State officials also want a statewide mutual-aid compact for the dispatch of fire and law-enforcement units from across Ohio in the event of an emergency that can't be handled by local authorities.
Ohio law now states that the state Health Department has "supreme authority in matters of quarantine.''
There's uncertainty, though, because the state hasn't had any experience with mass quarantines for more than half a century, said Jodi Govern, the Health Department's chief legal counsel.
"The problem everybody recognizes is 'How do you actually put a large quarantine into place?' '' she said. "How do you quarantine the city of Columbus or several rural counties? It would be very difficult.''
Antibiotics reduced the threat of epidemics in this country, but now health officials have to worry about mass casualties from a terrorist attack using infectious diseases such as smallpox or the plague.
Even a widespread flu epidemic can't be ruled out, she said. The worldwide influenza pandemic in 1918-1919, for example, killed about 19,000 Ohioans, including 1,177 soldiers at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe.
Govern and Dale Shipley, director of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, said state powers might have to be clarified as a mass quarantine likely would extend across political boundaries and involve restrictions on movement into or out of the infected area, or even the entire state.
Ohio law, Govern said, doesn't provide any guidance on how to enforce such a quarantine and what penalties could be imposed for breaking it or refusing vaccination.
Shipley said, "Under law, there's no doubt that Agriculture Director Fred Dailey can quarantine a herd, but Dr. Nick Baird at the Health Department doesn't exactly have the same authority.''
Medical issues aren't the only ones that will be put before the legislature next year because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax-laced letters.
"We need to look at all our critical systems and decide what to change,'' Shipley said.
At the governor's request, the Emergency Management Agency is compiling data on every conceivable terrorist target in the state, including utility plants, factories and other businesses critical to public well-being, he said.
"Our definition of critical assets is much different now, post-Sept.11,'' O'Connor said. "We're now looking at the enemy's ability to disrupt and destroy our homeland.''
The next step, which also could require legislation, is the establishment of a 24-hour emergency communications network linking plant operators to both state and local authorities.
In the past, disaster information has been passed up the line from local communities to state and federal agencies.
"Sept. 11 showed there was little ability to pass information down the chain,'' Shipley said. "The system is not set up now for me to inform people (at the local level) of a terrorist threat.''
State officials also cite the need for a statewide mutual-aid compact to direct the muster of firefighters, emergency medical care and law-enforcement agencies within Ohio in the event of a major disaster.
Today, there are only mutual-aid agreements between neighboring communities. The Ohio Fire Chiefs Association, however, is already working on a statewide plan for calling up firefighting units as needed.
Another immediate need is to make sure all first-responders have adequate equipment, whether they're firefighters, police officers, hazardous-materials crews or ambulance squads.
Ohio EMA expects to be able to distribute $5.4 million in federal anti-terrorism funds to local governments by early next year. The money is earmarked for protective clothing, decontamination units and communications gear for emergency forces.
The Ohio allocation comes from a $200 million U.S. Department of Justice program approved long before Sept. 11. Now Congress is debating multibillion dollar anti-terrorism packages for 2002.
"We're looking forward to the 2002 appropriations,'' Shipley said. "There's a lot of work that needs to be done.''
Project "Clear Vision"?
I can think of one way:
The terrorist rings her door bell and asks the old woman to sniff a new perfume ...
Boys and girls at the FBI - now you think up a way.
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