18 Cases of Inhalation Anthrax Questioned
Crime/Corruption
Source: AP Vanity
Published: 10-6-2001 Author: blackbag
Posted on 10/6/01 1:35 PM Pacific by blackbag
Concerning Breaking Ap Article titled
"Anthrax Case Puzzles Investigators - No Other Cases Found, Source Remains a Mystery " Question for freepers and others, If the following statement as reported by the state health department is true, then how can we explain Russel Welch ?
Who as some may remember, he was reported as an "Inhalation Anthrax" victim of the Mena/Dixie Mob fame.
AP QUOTE
"Only 18 inhalation cases in the United States were documented in the 20th century, the most recent in 1976 in California. The last anthrax case in Florida was in 1974, according to the state health department." RUSSELL WELCH: A Arkansas state police detective. Welch developed a 35-volume, 3,000 page archive on drug and money laundering operations at Mena. His investigation was so compromised that a high state police official even let one of the targets of the probe look through the file. At one point, Welch was sprayed in the face with poison, later identified by the Center for Disease Control as military grade anthrax. Wonder if this was one the 18 recorded cases mentioned earlier? This was written about in 1996. I believe it occurred in the late 80's which is much later then the last case occuring 1976 as reported in AP. Dose anyone here still have contact with LD ? Can someone contact and confirm this with him ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read what you like and ignore the rest. My flame suit is on and secured.
1 posted on 10/6/01 1:35 PM Pacific by blackbag
It took Welch a while to digest what the doctor had told him. Welch knew that in his business if you couldn't document something and/or corroborate it somehow, then it never happened. The next day, in the hospital room, the doctor told Debbie Welch, that they believed her husband had military anthrax and they were going to treat him for it. The doctor also told Debbie that Russell was very sick now and it was going to get worse before it was over, because the disease was going to have to run its course. She was right. The following day Arkansas State Police Investigator Andy Wiley was in Welch's room and heard the doctor repeat the diagnosis. This time Welch told the doctor that he read about an outbreak of anthrax in some cattle in southeastern Arkansas a couple of weeks earlier. The doctor told Welch and his visitors that the warfare biological agent is not the same as the cow disease. She shook her finger in Welch's face and said emphatically, "No, somebody did this to you. Somebody sprayed you in the face." She described how the infectious agent is carried in canisters. She said, "This is the same stuff that Saddam Hussein was going to use on our troops." Investigator Wiley wrote down the names of Welch's medication and later confirmed that he was, in fact, being treated for anthrax. Other state police officers went to the hospital room, periodically, to help Debbie Welch, who stayed in the private room with her husband day and night for the entire 14 days that Welch was hospitalized. Investigator Charles Lambert and Investigator Bobby Walker were among those that heard the doctor discuss Welch's circumstances and the anthrax.
The treatment was very effective against the anthrax but had severe side effects. Welch suffered a partial kidney failure. The doctor said it was a calculated risk that she had to take when she decided to treat him for anthrax. Welch was a weight lifter and stayed in good shape. The doctor told him that if it hadn't been for that the chances are that he still might not have survived the disease. The doctor also credited his physical conditioning when he gained back most of the 40 percent of his renal functions which had been lost due to the anthrax treatment.
After this incident, Welch spent time trying to figure out how he could have gotten the anthrax. One possibility, he finally concluded, was through envelopes carrying padding material in which the infectious agent, Bacillus anthracis, can be transmitted. The Arkansas State Police used these for a while to mail microcassette tapes containing investigator's dictation. Welch's padded envelopes were returned to him with the tops torn off. When he complained to the secretary, Kim McBride, in Hope, Arkansas, she told him that the padded envelopes were not torn when she mailed them. Welch told his supervisor, Lt. Finis Duvall. Rather than do an investigation to find out who was tampering with official state police mail, some of which was sensitive, Lt. Duvall just said, "Well, I'll be damn... wonder who's doing that."
Last Fall a news team from a British television program called "The Big Story" traveled through Mena. The anchor for the show told Welch that he had worked for three years in South Africa. He said that sending biological warfare agents through the mail was a commonly used weapon during a particular ongoing war in that part of the world. After Welch got out of the hospital he never again received any torn envelopes.
Welch was discharged from the hospital on October 8, 1991. From there on, Welch's career in the State Police never was the same. He suffered harassment, transfers, unwarranted criticism, and public hearings of his performance. His superiors in the state police were concerned that he was answering questions from the press now that Bill Clinton was seeking the presidency. At one point he was interrogated about whether or not he was writing a book. After nineteen years of honorable service, solving difficult cases, being requested by victims and their families in other parts of the state to be assigned to their investigations, Welch was being humiliated like an enlistee in military bootcamp. All of this was being done at the hands of men appointed by Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker. An honest cop just trying to do his job, Welch finally left the State Police on January 16, 1996. After 20 years on the force, he left a poor and disillusioned man.
Even though Welch and Duncan sent boxes of evidence to Lawrence Walsh in Washington, Walsh never showed any interest in Mena at all.