WIRE: 11/22/2001 1:00 am ET
Experts doubt lots of inhalation anthrax has gone unnoticed in past
The Associated Press
Before the spate of anthrax-by-mail cases began, inhalation anthrax was reported to be extremely rare in the United States. But the case of an elderly Connecticut woman is the second within a month without any apparent connection to the mail.
Could it be that inhalation anthrax was more common than everybody thought, and only appeared to be so rare because doctors were overlooking cases before anthrax hit the news?
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, called that unlikely at a briefing Wednesday. And in telephone interviews, bioterrorism experts agreed.
"The odd case, perhaps, could escape notice," said Dr. Greg Poland, an anthrax expert at the Mayo Clinic. "But any appreciable number, I couldn't believe it."
Before a Florida man was found to have inhalation anthrax last month, because of a tainted letter, only 18 cases of the disease had been reported in the past century in the United States. None had been reported since 1976. People have generally been infected through exposure to contaminated animal hides or hair.
Relatively few people would ever be exposed to a dangerous dose of anthrax spores in the first place, experts said. What is more, they said, a case of inhalation anthrax is dramatic and leaves its signature in chest X-rays and CT scans, in the bloody fluid that a needle withdraws from around the lungs, and in studies of the patient's blood.
In blood tests, a result positive for anthrax "would be like slapping you in the face with a hot poker. You don't have to look for it," said Dr. Craig Smith of the Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga.
The rapid decline of a person who dies a pneumonia-type death would ordinarily lead to an autopsy, Poland said. In that examination, inhalation anthrax "would be pretty hard to miss," he said.
Hmmm?
Anthrax Cases May Be
More Common Than Thought
Can inhalation anthrax occur from natural sources? Scientists say it's rare, but they're beginning to worry it might be less rare than they think.
The last recorded inhalation anthrax death in the United States occurred in 1976 — and inhaled anthrax was traced to only 18 fatalities over the last century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The anthrax organism afflicts cattle, sheep and goats, which can ingest it during grazing. If it forms into a spore, it can survive for decades — then spring to life inside living tissue.
Recent animal outbreaks have occurred west of the Mississippi River. In one case, veterinarians found surviving anthrax spores in goat meat in a Texas rancher's freezer.
"He was planning to barbecue it that weekend," said Prof. Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University, an anthrax expert. "If they hadn't caught it, he might well have become infected."
Because inhaled anthrax in humans is so rare, because it resembles pneumonia and because the elderly are more susceptible, anthrax deaths could easily occur without a doctor realizing it.
The CDC would never get a report, Hugh-Jones said. "There could well be cases out there they're missing."
Bob Port
Double Hmmmmm....?
I have long suspected that anthrax occurs naturally in weaponized form in envelopes without return addresses. This could have been happening since the time of Christ, actually. And little old ladies who are housebound are constantly drinking from streams and eating contaminated goat meat. /sarcasm
I think that this is the testing of another distribution method, since envelopes turned out to be rather a bust. I also think that it's not unlikely at all that the terrorists decided we'll panic more if people who are not prominent begin to get it. They have no scruples whatsoever, so I thank God today they obviously don't really have smallpox. (I bet that one was a close scrape.)