Take note the the FBI is not making it a priority to investigate the disappearance of one of the top experts in the world on biological germs, outbreaks and attacks.
Please read all the stories I will be posting on this thread. I could not post them at the time because of the large number of words.
November 24, 2001 Posted: 04:22:00 AM PST
By DIANE SCARPONI, Associated Press
OXFORD, Conn. (AP) - Investigators were pessimistic that a quick explanation would be found for the mysterious anthrax death of an elderly Connecticut woman earlier this week. Preliminary testing of her house and nearby post offices showed no signs of the bacteria.
Gov. John G. Rowland said more testing was under way but the lack of a definite source for the anthrax, while a relief for postal workers, has been frustrating for investigators.
"This is not a perfect science, and perhaps there's other venues that need to be investigated," Rowland said Friday.
Federal investigators have fanned out across the rural southwest Connecticut community, testing the few places that 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren visited during the last years of her life. Relatives and neighbors have said she rarely left home except to visit the library, the beauty parlor, doctors' offices and her church.
Agents gathered environmental samples by vacuum at the Immanuel Lutheran Church. At the Nu-Look Hair Salon, an agent with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention swabbed surfaces and took samples from the ceiling air duct.
Three government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators also were seeking a soil sample from an Oxford coffee shop frequented by the victim. The tests came after residents mentioned vague recollections of an anthrax outbreak more than 50 years ago in livestock at a farm near the coffee shop.
Officials said the sample was precautionary and they had not yet found records of such an outbreak.
Lundgren died of the inhaled form of anthrax Wednesday, becoming the fifth fatality since the nation's anthrax scare began in early October. The CDC said the strain that killed her was similar to strains found in other recent cases.
Of the previous deaths, three have been tied by investigators to tainted mail sent to news organizations or members of Congress. The other mystery is the Oct. 31 death of Kathy Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital worker in New York City.
Only 18 cases of natural inhalation anthrax have been recorded in the past 100 years, so the Connecticut case is "most likely the result of a criminal act," said Lisa Swenarski, a CDC spokeswoman.
Swenarski also said the agency should know sometime this weekend if anthrax found in a letter sent from Switzerland to Chile is from the same strain as the anthrax found in letters in Washington and New York. The letter was received last week by a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago, the Chilean Health Ministry said.
"If it is the same strain that we found in these other incidents, we'll know that we are probably dealing with another attack," Swenarski said.
In Connecticut, the governor said hospitals have been asked to review the deaths of patients who had flu-like symptoms since Sept. 11 to see whether any anthrax deaths might have gone unnoticed.
"We're going to look at those who were deceased and what their diagnosis was," Yale-New Haven Hospital spokeswoman Louise Dambry said. "They asked us to look at people particularly with pneumonia symptoms."
On Friday, Dr. Eric Mast of the CDC attended a meeting with about 200 Oxford residents to address their concerns about the anthrax case in their town.
Mast said it was unlikely that cross-contaminated mail could infect large numbers of people. If it could, he said, many more anthrax cases would have been uncovered in recent weeks.
Five fatal inhalation anthrax cases have been reported since tainted letters first appeared earlier this fall.
"That is reassuring that if cross-contamination is a risk, it's a very small risk," Mast said.
Project "Clear Vision"?
Would somebody please explain to me how you can supposedly get an INHALATIONAL disease by "DRINKING from a STREAM???"
Thompson has to have been Bush's WORST pick...