Posted on 10/17/2001 6:44:12 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 20 people in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office have tested positive for exposure to anthrax, sources said Wednesday.The tests were conducted after a letter sent to Daschle's office was found to contain a highly refined form of anthrax, suggesting it was produced by experts.
One official with direct knowledge of the test results said 22 Daschle staffers had tested positive for exposure to anthrax. All of them are taking the antibiotic Cipro. Another source said that more than 20 had tested positive. Both sources insisted on anonymity.
The FBI is investigating strong similarities in handwriting and style, including identical anti-American language, between the letter sent to Daschle in Washington and a letter with anthrax sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in New York.
Elsewhere in the country, four people are known to have contracted anthrax and nine others have tested positive for the bacteria.
Hundreds of people were tested Tuesday after the suspicious letter was opened in Daschle's office Monday. Nasal swabs were used on the staffers to see if there were any anthrax spores in their noses. A positive finding does not mean the person has the disease or will get the disease.
About 8,000 spores must be inhaled for a person to develop inhalation anthrax.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said about 200 people on Capitol Hill are taking Cipro because of the anthrax scare, including himself.
Lieberman, who has not tested positive for anthrax exposure, said during a CNN interview on Wednesday that his taking the antibiotic ``is probably unnecessary, but why not?''
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said of the anthrax scare: ``There's no question that right now we are in a period of the unknown.''
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
Barney Frank is a man?
On February 5, 1999, Jonnie Wise and Jack Abbot Grebe were sentenced to more than 24 years in prison each, followed by five years of supervised release, for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against a federal agent and his family. In June 1998 FBI Special Agents from the McAllen Resident Agency learned that Wise, Grebe, and Oliver Dean Emigh, alleged members of the violent secessionist group the Republic of Texas (ROT), had purchased materials for construction of an improvised weapon. The subjects claimed to have access to blood tainted with the AIDS virus and rabies, and the biological agent anthrax. The FBI received information indicating that the subjects were targeting a local court judge for attack with the device, precipitating their arrest on July 1, 1998. The trial of the three men began on October 19, 1998. On October 29, 1998, the jury found Wise and Grebe guilty of two counts of threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against a federal agent and his family. The jury acquitted Emigh.
In a few years we will all believe that white supremicists are the most powerful hate group in the world. We will believe that all bio and chem warfare originates within the US borders.
Our leftist media is so blindered by their own preconceptions (Dan Rather sees no bias in CBS etc) that they will pin the tail on any Donkey they deem appropriate.
Remember that when they issue you your national ID card.
He's the Majority Leader(the most powerful person) in the Senate, the upper house of Congress.
We've heard spinning Rats state the Senate strain was a "potent" Anthrax, but has that been confirmed by anyone who'd recognize the difference between natural and bioengineered Anthrax, such as Ft. Deitrich? I'd guess that wild anthrax spores would come in a bell curve of size ranges. A random few would be able to go airborne and enter the lungs and nose and could produce the symptom free positive nasal swabs being reported for most positives. With enough exposure and bad luck wild Anthrax can produce pulmonary anthrax, a.k.a. "Woolsorter's disease." After all, about 17 such cases happened in the last century, primarily in people working with contaminated hides and wool.
The number of outbreaks makes it obvious someone is delivering Anthrax with evil intent. Occam's razor suggests Iraqi or former USSR biowarfare links, but until reliable experts, i.e. someone other than Rat politico types, confirm this bug is unnatural we can't rule out that bin Laden's group did this alone or even that some other nutcase group is the cause. Ft. Deitrich should be able to decipher this quickly; whether they'll tell us the results is another question.
Piquaboy: To my knowledge, the first symptoms of inhalation anthrax don't appear until 2-6 days [or sometimes much longer] by which time it is too late. Some people who handled the powder reported a burning sensation in their hands; but it was never clear to me whether this was a property of antrhax, whatever else was in the powder, or just a panic reaction.
Read post #159. Please.
#166 is a goodie too. The terse tone is not for you, however.
Take care...
The first factor is the type or strain of the antrhax itself. The case in both Florida and NBC was the Ames strain, which was originally developed in Iowa in the 1950s. This is the "medical grade" antrhax used in research into vaccination and treament, and is one of the base strain which the military then tries to modify through genetic engineering or selective breeding. This discovery makes it utterly impossible that is "wild" anthrax. However, this particular strain is also the most widely spread of the man-made strains which is why it's more difficult to trace. The Daschle attack hasn't been ID'd yet, but there are reports that it is sensitive to pennicillin, which is consistent with the AMES strain, and would be unlikely to be a military strain.
The size of the anthrax also affecticts its lethality. I have not heard any reports on the size of Dascle's anthrax. Changing the size of the anthrax is partly biological and partly mechanical. It takes a bit of training and some expensive equipment; this is not something that you could do in a hotel room. I don't know how this process works but I've been told that anyone with a degree in biology would be able to figure it out.
The third case, and the other feature commonly called "militarization" makes the antrhax easier to inhale. In it's natural state, Antrhax [of any strain] tends to clump together, making it too large to be effective. There hasn't been any official word on whether Daschle's antrhax was treated in this way, but the simple fact that a large number of people were exposed from a single source makes a lot of people suspicious. The silver lining is that this process is the most difficult part of creating "weapons-grade" antrhax; just a few countries have been able to solve this problem and furthur, IF this anthrax has been treated this way, we will be able to tell which country it is from based on what solution was used.
A final note should be made about the amount of antrax. Most of the attacks have been made with "a powder containing anthrax." This attack was made with "a powder which was antrhax." So the terrorists used a much larger number of bacteria spores in this attack than they uesd in the others. Which says nothing about where it came from, but may indicate that they have a very large stockpile.
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