FBI Says Anthrax Found In Victims "NOT Naturally Occuring Strain" Of Disease (ie: Weaponized?)

MSNBC

[MindBender26]

Few details at this time.

This could be a very serious development. There is possibility, how strong no one knows at this point, that the "not naturally occuring" strain of anthrax is a "weaponized" form of the diease.

Weaponized means it was genetically modified in a labaoritory so as to have different charactarisics than natural form. Could have much longer incubation period, not respond to traditional antibiotics, have different means of transmittal, possibly human to human,etc.

PS. I am not an expert in bioweaponry, far from it. However, I strongly suggest everyone read "The Cobra Event." It is about 50% fiction, 50% real, and very informative.

PS, If you have allready read the book, both the Pacific tests and "Reach Deep" are real events and organizations.

This is still a very developing story.

[Loopy]

GMA (amd other threads here)reported that the "Intern Lead" is bogus. The guy wrote the email. But he REALLY was talking about a surprise. It seems he left a bunch of bagels and cream cheese for the coworkers on the day he finished his internship. Reports I have seen and read clear him.

[mr spike]

Prepare Yourself....For Our National Nightmare Has Begun..........

[marshmallow]

Folks, there is something strange going on here.

Despite the panic, there is still only one confirmed case of anthrax. That has not changed since last week. This is not consistent, at least in my mind, with the sort of mass murder that terrorists enjoy. Furthermore, anthrax is relatively non-contagious, which means its usefulness as a bioweapon is somewhat limited compared to say, smallpox.

On the other hand, the keyboard contamination and the spores detected in the nasal passage of the second (but still healthy) individual, indicate that this is not a sporadic case. Rather, it seems mischievous but targeted to a specific site or individual(s).

All of the above, combined with the outbreak of home-grown, nut-job instigated incidents since 9/11, incline me to believe that this may be a domestic source.

[Politically Correct]

You have Freepmail.....PC

[Iwo Jima]

Government is making matters much worse than need be when it speaks in such ambiguous terms as "not a naturally-occurring source" and then leaves it to folks like us to try to decipher and debate what that means.

Clearly, our government does not think they we can handle the truth and therefore it is O.K. to lie to us for our own good. The first time that Bob Stevens' illness was reported, they should have said "We don't know what to make of this, but it concerns us and raises many questions which demand an answer. We will leave no stone unturned in our investigation of this development and will let the American public know what the facts are just as soon we know them." Instead, they said that they KNEW that it was an isolated, naturally occurring event, and that there was nothing to investigate or worry about. And they didn't investigate until the second exposure (of Mr. Stevens' co-worker) was shoved under their nose.

Now they have had to eat those words, but the newly used words are still unsatisfactory. We need to be told that the evidence is clear that someone has a stock of anthrax and is attempting to spread it. They should say if the strain is one which can occur in nature, but that these exposures did not naturally occur. On the other hand, they need to say if the strain had to have been produced in a laboratory and if so what this strain is and what that means.

They need to state quite clearly that someone intentionally did this, that it was an act of homocide -- indeed, murder and attempted murder -- and that it was not done by just any disgruntled nut case because a person like that wouldn't have access to anthrax or the knowledge of how to disperse it.

Now they are saying on the news that it this not an act of terrorism because only one person died and so few instances of exposure were confirmed. That is so infuriating and is just more of the same old B.S.

An act of terrorism is not defined by how successful it is or the scale on which it is carried out. Whoever did this must be presumed to have intended to inflict terror on people. Terror can be caused by acts which cause one or three or ten people to die of anthrax every month or so.

Nothing at all is accomplished by our government lying to us and not telling us what they know about what is going on.

[1Old Pro]

Saddam Hussein/Iraq is the only rougue Muslim nation with this capability as far as I can see.

Well, this is why not having U.S. inspectors in IRAQ is a big problem allowd to occur under......Clintoon.

[ChemistCat]

I'm with you, Marshmallow. In our population are nutcases who think it's fun to call in a bomb threat to a high school. These people are going to take advantage of this. We're going to see bags of powdered sugar flung about on train platforms by these same kinds of people--it's a way to get attention. Sad.

There are certain precautions level-headed individuals should be taking, but believing in unlinked threads that have NO authoritative source isn't one of them. I am currently enrolled in intro biochemistry and we're studying how DNA is artificially replicated in order to get sufficient quantities to sequence. These methods take a lot of time as the DNA must be incubated with the proper enzymes and marked nucleic acids in order to sequence them. The methods of isolating, sequencing and even recombining DNA are time-consuming (although surprisingly cheap--my prof told us that we can buy a ten-year supply of Phosphorus-32 to mark phosphodiesters on the desired nucleic acid for about twenty bucks! maybe he exaggerated?)

Basically, though, I don't believe that the FBI has any shortcuts when it comes to DNA analysis and you cannot examine the DNA of a deadly anthrax spore as cheaply as you can common E coli, either--you have to protect the techs, I'm sure. It takes time to get answers on this stuff, and I don't believe they've had enough time to conclude anything about the strains of anthrax that may be involved.

In short, I do not believe the story that is at the head of this thread, though I don't blame anyone for having posted it. I'm not a PhD candidate, just a very distracted undergrad, but I'm pretty widely read in other fields and I also know how real labwork goes because I've done it. Organic chemistry is especially messy and there are many sources of lab error, such as reactions that do not go to completion, measurement error, and equipment failure.

Panic over this and other anthrax threads is NOT justified. A little normal caution over suspicious packages and bathroom/public hygience IS.

[father_elijah]

I'm really beginning to hate Tuesdays.

Well said.
I think it might be good if Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopalian Americans declared every Tuesday a day of fasting and prayer. I imagine some Evangelicals and charismatics would agree with that idea too.

[Billthedrill]

An excellent point. Remember, this is one of those fields where the press simply cannot put a story out that does not contain at least one major error; you can't really simplify this stuff.

First, when the FBI said it wasn't a "naturally occurring strain" they probably meant that there was evidence that some sort of genetic manipulation had been done, indicating that it had, at some point, been in a laboratory. Whose, and where, is difficult to tell.

Second, there is a "natural" method of catching the disease if you happen to inhale the spores - this is "woolsorters' disease" and happens once in a very long time, say a decade or so. Twice in a week, and in the same location, is simply not believable as a coincidence. It is, of course, feasible that the patient could have sneezed the spores onto his keyboard, somewhat less feasible but still possible that his coworker could have picked it up that way as well. But the disease doesn't usually produce more spores inside the body, so it is more likely that they both picked it up from a common source.

It should be pointed out that we're not going to get an epidemic of anthrax out of this - the disease isn't particularly communicable in its pulmonary form. This is more like a poison...the problem is that the spores are durn near immortal and detoxification of an area they're released in is a very expensive process.

Smallpox is the other end of the spectrum - very communicable person-to-person, but not particularly communicable otherwise - the "infected blanket" stories that have been all over the 'net in the last week are pretty much just that, stories - one documented attempt was made to inflict the disease this way but it isn't too likely to have succeeded. Person-to-person, though, smallpox spreads like wildfire, and that could cause an epidemic, but won't poison an area as antrax spores would.

It isn't that difficult for an individual lab to produce augmented anthrax spores in small amounts - it is a "facultative anaerobe," meaning that only a tiny amount of oxygen in an otherwise oxygenless environment is necessary to induce sporulation in the bacterium. Ramping this up to industrial amounts is NOT easy, thankfully, due to the highly specific environmental conditions. Nearly any university-level lab could do the former; mostly only those at the national-asset level could do the latter. Hussein's people certainly could.

[Bigg Red]

Thanks for the update. (I was merely reporting what was said on tv, BTW.)

[Soul Citizen]

Speaking of Mothballs:

It is time to break out the ghost fleet!

They could use a good symbolic pounding from the big sticks!!

[Letitring]

I just heard on MSNBC it is a bio-engineered strain. One problem, I think we are having with this is, the Fla. State Health Dept. Things have been such a mess with them involved. When the first case was diagnosed, it was as smooth as that guy in Virginia, last night. The specimen from the Patient went from the hospital lab, where it was first identified as anthrax, then to the State Lab, then to the CDC. All confirmed anthrax. NOW, since the Health Dept. got involved, we've had confusion, supreme. Messed up news conferences, which hadn't gotten any better by this morning. I just hope they aren't missing cases, mixing things up, etc. I wonder if this isn't why we can't get a clear picture of what is going on down there. It really should be cut and dried. PLUS, they look like they are hiding something. I'm thinking it is their own incompetence they are trying to hide. If so, it ain't working.

[Bigg Red]

Thanks for the update.

[Iwo Jima]

"spores are durn near immortal and detoxification of an area they're released in is a very expensive process."

This point bears repeating. It may be that the most significant, predictable result of this type of attack is to render the building very nearly useless. Would you go back into the American Media building at this point?

[testforecho]

No problem. I just thought it was important to make sure people had correct info.

[Iwo Jima]

I think that you are right. I and most folks can understand almost anything if it is explained correctly --understand it well enough to act upon that knowledge as we should. We can accept almost anything, too, if we think that we are being dealt with truthfully. "Just give it to me straight, Doc."

[browardchad]

Would you go back into the American Media building at this point?

Being a beleagured, American-born, Republican in South Florida, here's my theory:

Since it is difficult to cause widespread illness with anthrax without sophisticated machinery and precise weather conditions, this "envelope" (if that was the source) was sent out in hopes of spreading the disease to at least one person in a high-profile location. Since these tabloids are sold all over the US, and abroad, the American Media Building was the theater of choice.

Once that plan succeeded (and it may be the only viable spores these people have), it was, and will be, followed up by random mailing of "white powder," designed to create panic and inevitable mistrust of the government (who are supremely positioned for mistrust, after the last 8 years).

Psychological warfare, played to by the media which is ticked off about being left out of the war planning. They are angry at the government due to lack of information, and what better way to get revenge, knowingly or unknowingly, by pointing out that "the government's not telling us everything."

[Iwo Jima]

Your theory contains some uncommonly good common sense.

It may be that the terrorists explored "high tech/high kill" delivery methods, but they proved to be too expensive, too much trouble, and too unpredictable. But they are not too proud to go a "low tech/low kill" route. They can use trial and error to find something that works well enough. Nothing is considered a "failure."

Some things work as desired, some things don't, and some things work in a totally unexpected manner. And a "false alarm" can be considered just about as much a success as actually killing a few people.

One thing I don't agree with is that these may be the only viable spores that they have. I have to assume that anyone who can get one batch of the stuff can get more from the same source.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Arizmendi has spoken to FBI agents and campus police and left the Boca Raton campus with his father Monday, Nichols said. Arizmendi is a third-generation U.S. citizen of Spanish-Basque descent, Nichols said -- not "from a Middle Eastern country," as Newsweek reported on its Web site Monday.

And the Basque separatists did their own terrorist attack in Madrid yesterday. That is a big reason why Spain announced yesterday that they were even willing to send troops to help out. All of these terrorist groups are internetworked: Al Qaida, PLO, Hamas, Hezbola, KLA, ETA, IRA, Chechens, etc., etc. Check out the countries that are being most cooperative with us, and you will see that by and large they are the countries with the biggest terrorist problems of their own. They definitely see that there is something in this for them. These groups exchange resources and cooperate quite freely, and are quite willing to help each other on occasion. The media talking heads are always leaping to the conclusion that any suspect who is not a Muslim of middle-eastern background can't possibly have any connection to Al Qaida. I suggest that this may not in fact be a correct assumption.