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.
Somebody needs to get a grip on some basic logic here.
The Army of God is as counterproductive to the pro-life movement as Fred Phelps is to the anti-homosexual movement.
And the quote from Clayton Waagner, who just made the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list: I'm an abortionist-bomber, that's what I do.
Clayton Waagner
gomemphis.com
October 10, 2001 A.D.
YIKES!
No kidding, huh?
Cognitive dissonance.
It ain't just for breakfast anymore.
What makes this article most significant today--nearly two years after the incidents occurred--is the fact that the Atlanta Journal/Constitution is doing everything in its power to prevent people from learning about this incident. The AJC has demanded that Neal Horsley remove the quoted article from his Web site and they have removed the article from their online archives. The kind of censorship being exercised here is exactly the kind of censorship that occurred in Nazi Germany before the fascists came to total power.
Why is it I always see 2020x100 defending the abortion industry on FR threads? Interesting mission you're on there 2o2o. Whom do you work for? Do you consider killing the unborn the modern way to deal with population, perhaps races also? Margaret Sanger did! Is she your idol? Are you our modern eugenics voice? Yes, there's profit in them thar fetal carcasses, ain't thar!
It looks like the police did investigate (no results given in the article) and it did get some press coverage.
I haven't got a clue as to who did this--what were the results of the police/postal inspector's investigation? If they don't know--and I haven't seen anything in print about any arrests in this case--I surely don't know. Do you? But anyone who sends a threat through the mail, or mails faux or real anthrax should be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Just with the current situation, unless there's definitive evidence that says this person or this group is a suspect, it could have come from anyone. As the cops say, "everyone's a suspect," and that's how they investigate, or should investigate.
BTW, Horsely did the same bonehead stunt someone did at the Green Bay Police Department yesterday: rather than putting down the envelope and calling the police, he took the envelope with the suspicious powder to the police department. The GBPD ended up quarantining their lobby until the hazmat team could do their magic and clean up & clear the place.
I am proudly and unapologetically Pro-Life and a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Our Church along with all churches who recognize that there one God must obey His commands under pains of eternal hell. One of these commands is: Thou not shall kill.
So -- being a Roman Catholic Pro-Life mother, I cannot condone killing any other human life in the womb or outside the womb.
Hate is not in God's vocabulary nor mine.
1. The preliminary test mentioned in the article merely tests for the presence of bacteria. The shoes on your feet would light up the testing chemical like nobody's business.
2. Planned Parenthood and NARAL are made up of a bunch of Dr. Deaths and mentally and ethically unbalanced baby killers. These people can be expected to do and say anything, particularly to get free advertising. They do this stuff every time some public disaster pops up. Always remember, if Planned Parenthood said it, it's probably a lie.
3. Right to Life advocates have better and more important things to do than to try and scare the Planned Parenthood and NARAL "demons from Hell". Further, the supposed anti-abortionists out there who take aim at and kill these people, do take aim at them and kill them. They don't mess around trying to scare them.
All of the REAL deliveries of anthax appear to have a common element - namely the anthrax comes out of a single batch. Secondly, the envelopes were loaded and then addressed thus leading to some peculiarities (slants, sizes changes) as the writer/printer tried to maintain proper shape and size. That tells me the guy writing the addresses might not even have been literate in English, but was copying a list! Some reports indicate that the ink in his pen demonstrates that he used a $500 pen - definitely not the sort of thing your typical Right to Lifer has in his pocket - but maybe your typical abortionist does?!?!?!~~~~~Maybe that crazy doctor out there in Wichita who wears his gun while he kills babies did it. Has his MO anyway, eh?!
With today's report of a staffer at FOX having been infected with anthrax, it looks more and more like the attack was on TV media and not on "left wing" media - besides, all our lil' buddies over there in the VLWC (vast left wing conspiracy) have been instructing that the media - particularly TV - were not liberal anyway - just our imagination.
The photojournalist for AMI was more than likely a "personal target". His wife was the landlady for a couple of the terrorists. More than likely these are the two guys who drive to Atlanta and dropped 3 or 4 letters in the mail for delivery in Kenya and Fox, right? For whatever reason, maybe a conflict with her, they decided to kill him.
In a few weeks we'll have the complete low-down available on all the REAL anthrax attacks - where each and every letter originated, where they went, when they were delivered, and why things did not proceed in the straightforward manner the public believes mail must take. It doesn't go that way at all - believe me - mail goes in ways that surprise the heck out of ancient, highly experienced mail flow analysts.
Still and all, I think we have enough information on this latest fake ploy by Planned Parenthood to prosecute them the next time they try it, if not this time. Time will tell.
Failure to acknowledge the reality of the situation identifies you as a partisan for Planned Parenthood or its friends.
It also indicates that you, personally, know a lot more about those letters than you let on, else you would have slacked off on the propaganda.
It is well known that insiders will continue to follow the party line long after it is viable. That has been the situation since yesterday afternoon. Your continuance in this matter makes you suspect.
So, cut it out or give yourself up to the FBI. Take your pick.
Not only did I post when the contents of the envelopes was still in doubt, I was responding to a post *winking* at the idea that poison had been sent by the public mails to a target that pleased the author.
By Thursday Noon it had been demonstrated that NONE of the envelopes in question contained anthrax. Before Thursday Noon it had been demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of the envelopes in question did not contain anthrax.
The people in Planned Parenthood who carried off this hoax knew all along that none of the envelopes ever contained anthrax and that no tests were necessary.
They were doing this BS right at the time we needed all the national resources necessary to deal with REAL anthrax attacks.
I would hope they get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
In reality, PP has NEVER been subjected to any kind of attack with anthrax.
There have been a number of hoaxes that they most likely perpetrated, but not a single spore has ever been demonstrated to have been sent to them or their friends.
What is most distressing in the debate you are having with the other fellow there is that you know this, and he knows it too, and I know it.
PP has not faced a single real instance - not one!
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