Not to cuase an anthrax panic but........

[newsperson999]

ok. Before you flame me...lets discuss this..
2 postal workers are dead(and at different locations) 2 more confirmed with inhalation anthrax...maybe 9 more cases..it takes 8,000 or more spores to get sick from anthrax..
Well they didn't open the mail there they just sorted it, yet still somehow all that anthrax must have goten into the air...
The scary thing is this. How many spores got onto mail that went ot the general public?!!!
This may be much bigger then we are lead to believe. Or it may not. Please put your 2 cents in.

[ScholarWarrior]

Not yet, anyway.
These postal workers would have had the largest concentrations next to the delivery area.
The next shoe has yet to drop, methinks.

[Dog Gone]

Apparently, a spore or two won't do it. Something like 12,000 are required.

[Diogenesis]

Wake up. This was here before, and now we are now alert.

Things are therefore safer. Also, penicillin widely available works.

The terrorists are being killed and rounded up daily.

Therefore there is no reason to panic.

[michaelje]

"The next shoe has yet to drop, methinks. "

I concur.

[Moridin]

I agree with you. I am surprised that our govt hasn't pursued the handling of mail as a possible source of contamination. Heck, if you have a letter containing anthrax and throw it in a bin and throw a few over it, it will compress some of the antrax out onto the other letters. Since when is a letter sealed air tight?....

[Steven W.]

use common sense to figure out what happened - the envelopes were not sealed, just taped, and, thus, the processing machines squeeze the envelopes and blow materials around to dislodge stuck particles. It's already been suggested that they change the machines to have powerful vacuums instead of blowers, which obviously compounded the problem.

[WyldKard]

I've heard that this letter was apparently PACKED to the gills with finely-milled anthrax goodness. If that's true, that means you'd get a lot of "pullballing" and mushrooming from the letter whenever it got squeezed.

Just to put some things in perspective, more people probably died from car accidents in the time it took me to type this than people have died from anthrax, let alone have confirmed exposure.

[DWSUWF]

I'm guessing those high speed sorting machines occasionally swallow a piece of mail. And I'm assuming that a letter with a wad of loose powder in it would be a prime candidate to get shredded.

They clean the machines with compressed air, to blow out the accumulated debris, and Bingo! millions of anthrax spores in the air in a relatively confined space.

It's going to get worse.

[eFudd]

More people will die today from slipping in their bathtub than will die of Anthrax.

More people will win the lotto today than will die from Anthrax.

Worrying about Anthrax is a waste of time.

Hillory will do, and has done more damage to this country than Anthrax.

If you must worry, then worry about Hillary.

[RGVTx]

I saw an expert on Fox News yesterday say how many spores it takes for inhalation of anthrax to cause illness. It was a large amount, but the number escapes me now. He followed by saying that amount would fit on the head of a pin. So it a large amount of spores, but would be almost undetectable by eyesight.

[2nd Amendment Enforcer]

You're right, newsie. We're dealing with the unknown here. We must guard against overreation, to be sure, but it equally important that we must not be naive. Just take the necessary and rational precautions, and then get on with our lives with as much dignity as we can muster. We are at (total) war, and this point can't be emphasized enough. There will be casualties on our side, and possibly lots of them.

[ambrose]

No need to be alarmed. The government will take care of you and keep you safe. Move along.

[teletech]

[2nd Amendment Enforcer]

It just takes one small sniff to inhale 12,000 spores.

[Texaggie79]

I wonder, if you were to lace a letter with airborne type anthrax spores, how long do they last? Perhaps they would be most deadly at first, which would be at the post office, then slowly deteriorate being significantly harmless after several days in the mail.

Any doctors, or biologists out there know?

[djf]

coupla hundred thousand people dead last year from heart disease... 40,000 dead on the roads... average year lightning deaths in United States: 93

[gopgirl]

I see your point, this has been woundering in the back of my mind. It is starting to get dangerous, maybe we have only seen the beginning of this stuff. They said it can stay in a person for a long time without any symptoms. When you hear the experts talk about anthrax on tv, you kinda feel better, but then I think to myself, did these experts actually use this stuff on people way back when? Did they get it to the best quality? Who knows, only time will tell... BUT... WE HAVE TO STAND TALL!