Posted on 10/17/2001 4:21:30 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Anthrax anxiety surged in South Florida on Tuesday as two more people were hospitalized and tested for anthrax in Broward County and a letter sent to a Planned Parenthood office in Martin County tested positive for anthrax in an initial screening.
The letter -- one of 15 similar letters sent to Planned Parenthood clinics in Florida and at least 91 nationwide -- was sent to a lab in Miami for further testing. Police field-tested it with positive results but cautioned that the initial tests sometimes give false positives. Results from more conclusive tests are expected Thursday.
As health officials repeatedly called for calm Tuesday and postal authorities staunchly maintained the mails are safe, Gov. Jeb Bush flew to Boca Raton -- where the deadly germ was first detected two weeks ago at tabloid publishing house American Media Inc. -- to issue a warning against anthrax hoaxes.
``If the perpetrators are caught, they are going to be prosecuted,'' he said. ``We will find you and when we do, we will do all we can to send you to prison for 15 years.''
Still, the alarms continued:
In Martin County, police intercepted the Planned Parenthood letter at a local post office, alerted because it fit the description of other letters containing a powdery substance sent to clinics.
Like the other letters, it contained powder and had a return address of the U.S. Secret Service in Atlanta. Police described it as a rambling anti-abortion letter with references to ``Army of God.''
A commercially available anthrax test was used on the substance, with a positive reading. But Joe Lyons, assistant police chief in Stuart, cautioned Tuesday night that the tests can be unreliable. The manufacturer of the test kits claims 95 percent reliability.
Ex-intern Jordan Arizmendi, who briefly came under FBI suspicion because of an unusual farewell e-mail he sent co-workers, checked into Holy Cross on Sunday with pneumonia-like symptoms.
Bob Nichols, spokesman for Florida Atlantic University where Arizmendi is a senior, confirmed the student is being tested. Results are expected Wednesday, Nichols said.
Hank Arizmendi, the student's father, said nasal swab tests on his son had come back negative for anthrax. More sophisticated blood tests and cultures art due back today.
Though the student's internship at AMI ended Aug. 17, Jordan went back to the AMI building to visit colleagues in mid-September, his father said.
``But Jordan was never in the mailroom, and he's doing better already,'' Hank Arizmendi said. ``We hope we'll have him home tomorrow.''
The lesions each had a black center and were draining fluid, said Jeanne Eckes, the clinical director of trauma services at the hospital. ``The symptoms are consistent with a certain type of anthrax.''
The boy, whose identity was not released and had no known connection to AMI, showed no other symptoms of the illness. He did not recall coming into contact with suspicious packages or powder, Eckes said.
Meanwhile, AMI officials announced that they will not return to the three-story Boca Raton office building where the spores were first detected.
American Media CEO and President David Pecker said his employees will not go back to work there, even if officials give it a clean bill of health.
Though most employees were willing to return to the building, Pecker decided against it, ``out of respect for the handful'' of workers who won't ever feel safe there again, a company spokeswoman said.
More than 300 AMI employees, who are being tested for anthrax a second time this week, met with state and federal health officials and the FBI on Tuesday in an information session.
Workers said they learned:
Mike Hanrahan, 62, a reporter at The National Enquirer, said the meeting, while helpful, left workers wondering.
``The FBI is wearing two pairs of boots and protective clothing when they go in the building -- yet they tell us we're OK,'' Hanrahan said. ``It makes you feel uneasy.'' What they're saying and doing is not consistent.''
And at the Boca Raton post office where more anthrax spores were detected Monday, postal officials said an overnight cleaning by the Environmental Protection Agency had removed the contamination.
``Our customers do not have to be concerned,'' said Ellen Bohde, customer relations coordinator in Boca Raton. ``The mail is safe to handle.''
But that didn't stop dozens of Boca residents from calling elected officials with questions about mail safety.
``The quantity of spores was so isolated and so minuscule that even if they were all in one envelope it wouldn't matter,'' said state Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.
People that kill unborn babies by partially delivering them and pithing them are likewise terrorists and those that harbor them are likewise guilty. They will, hopefully, pay the piper in the next life.
Hopefully, this is a disinformation/diversionary tactic on the part of the "terrorists". BUT, the pattern doesn't look good at this stage. If it is a right wing wacko, the damage to conservatism will be incalculable.
There is no conservative litmus test re: fall on the sword support for Israel. Some, including the Falwell/Robertson's and other conservatives often take the approach of Israel, right or wrong. Others take a more balanced view and believe that while Israel is a closer ally than the Arab & Muslim states, that the interests of the US come first. Still others fall into the anti-Semitic category. The ADL is a sorry group to be sure but I don't think they would be involved in this.
UPDATE: FoxNews just said ~20 members of Daschles office test + for anthrax. Like I said yesterday, time to dust off the nukes. Hopefully we don't have to use them on our own nutcases.
By your reasoning we should kill these kids also in order to save them. Twisted.
This is exactly what the leftists want. They don't want foreign terrorists deported, they want the US government to control all dissent, they want spying done on citizens, they want the US turned into one big WACO. Planned Parenthood, Hillary and the rest would just as soon forget the Muslim terrorists and have all Americans silenced who would possibly oppose them.
They might be involved in it. They are unscrupulous and evil to the core. The ADL is the heart of liberalism in the USA.
Are you aware that the ADL keeps files on American citizens? They keep files on anyone they perceive to be their enemy. They spy on American citizens. Then they use this information to persecute people. For instance, they might discover a sexual indiscretion and blackmail the individual into obeying them. I think the ADL is capable of anything. Clinton may very well have learned his dirty tactics from some of his friends in the ADL.
For that matter, anyone can write The Army of God. Easy to finger these people that's for sure because they have unpopular opinions.
The Afghans do have a beef - the UN Population Fund using U.S. tax dollars is sending "reproductive health service products" which includes vaccum aspirators (also sent to the Bosnian women) to kill their unborn children. I consider that a serious motivation for the FBI to explore .
Before we start singling out, people ,we don't like, we better have the facts.
"By your reasoning we should kill these kids also in order to save them. Twisted.
Say it with me s l o w l y now:
Planned Parenthood in addition to health education, pre and post natal care help to provide
The problem is that Planned Parenthood also promotes the murder of babies.
Feldt's first reaction on seeing the televised images of men in protective suits sweeping through the newsrooms of ABC and NBC News and the US Senate office of majority leader Tom Daschle was relief. ''Now they get it,'' she thought. Her second reaction was anger. ''Of course, we're sorry that Tom Daschle and Tom Brokaw and their staffs have to suffer the fear we have suffered. But why is an assault on them any more horrible than an assault on a young woman who opens the mail at a women's health clinic in North Carolina?''
It might be interesting to know WHEN in mid-september he went back to visit! Was it on the eleventh? And what was the gist of his conversations?
But I do think we have to look at the number of deaths to abortionists (under 10) in the 27 years since Roe v Wade. The Buffalo abortionist's death has to be proven in a court of law first. The alleged killer of the Buffalo abortionist, James Kopp has insisted that he is innocent.We must wait to hear all the evidence and have it proven in a court of law.
We don't even know if Eric Rudolph did the crime he was accused of. We don't even know if he was pro-life.
So please let's have some perspective and stop malligning the most peaceful,unselfish movement this country has ever seen. Over 100,000 ordinary men and women have gone to jail to defend the Civil Rights of the silent , defenseless unborn American children.Hundreds of thousands turn out faithfully -- annually -- in the dead of winter and peacefully march to restore our unborn children rights in the Capitol.
Compare that with the number -- under 10 in 27 years -- with the number of defenseless unborn children who have lost their lives by our "Choice."
Every day in The United States of America about the same number of American children have their short lives terminated as lives lost in the World Trade Center catastrophe without any outrage, mention or a tear shed.
The "collateral" damage done to America's most unwanted is 42,000,000-50,000,000 for the past twenty-seven years!!
And the "collateral damage" done to the world because of our promotion of population control is astronomical!
May we today heed the words of warning that Pope John Paul II gave us in Denver in 1993.
America: Defend Life.
The dark horse is on the horizon.
How sad that we have ignored his message. How sad that we have those pro-aborts in Congress that want to remove the Vatican status at the UN.How sad that the Vatican has to allign itself with the Muslims to DEFEND LIFE and cannot rely on The United States of America who pledged in our Declaration of Independence to protect the Right to Llife of all our citizens including our future generations.
All that being said, they don't really have a cock in that pit, so I still don't believe they are involved. The risks to the ADL, Israel, and the left, if uncovered, would be incalculable from the other side.
I don't like PP and I am opposed to convenience abortions but one could perceive that you are establishing a linkage that implies it is okay to send anthrax to PP. Such attitudes from virulent anti-abortionists is equatable to bin-Laden terrorism. As a minimum, it is in poor taste to talk about PP abortion clinicism in conjunction with this "attack".
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