Posted on 10/17/2001 7:47:05 AM PDT by maquiladora
Anthrax may be in the Senate ventilation system, according to a Senate speaker.
More than 20 staff working for one of America's most powerful politicians have already been contaminated by powder sent in a letter.
US government sources said the anthrax powder sent to Senator Tom Daschle's Capitol Hill office was weapons-grade, and thus almost certainly produced by experts.
Preliminary tests on the powder sent to Mr Daschle, leader of the US Senate, indicated it had been refined for easy airborne dispersal, the sources said.
And, as a purified form ideal for use as a chemical weapon, it was also more likely the powder was produced in a military laboratory.
Weapons-grade anthrax must be clinically refined to a specific size, making it small enough to be sprayed efficiently, but not so small as to be immediately exhaled by its targets. Larger particles land on the skin and produce a less dangerous form of anthrax infection.
Anthrax is not contagious and a person must come into direct contact with the bacterium to be infected.
Hundreds of people working in the Senate have been taking precautionary antibiotics. And security officials closed an entire wing of the eight-storey Senate office building as testing continued.
Mr Daschle said the letter sent to his office contained "a very potent form of anthrax that clearly was produced by someone who knew what he or she was doing".
Anthrax powder has also been sent to NBC Nightly News anchorman Tom Brokaw in New York. The powder infected his assistant, Erin O'Connor, 38.
The Daschle and Brokaw letters were written by a nearly identical hand and were both posted from Trenton, New Jersey, on September 18. They both contained anti-American, anti-Israeli and pro-Islamic statements.
One man has already been killed after contracting the disease at a newspaper office in Boca Raton in Florida.
If this stuff is as refined and sprayable as would seem to be indicated by the report.....they are just playing with us for now.
If they have sprayable stuff, they could do some different and interesting things....
Or so maybe we are to be lead to believe???
I'm a bit worried about tomorrow, the 18th. This is the day that the group, who bombed the embassies in Africa, gets sentenced.
Remember that the letter that was received by the NY Times reporter said something about "in 4 weeks", and that letter was postmarked on Sept. 18. Tomorrow is 4 weeks from then...
Well, yes and no.
Pulmonary anthrax is VERY rare. Most doctors (such as myself) have never seen it. When cases have developed in the past, the patients ALWAYS had symptoms before they were diagnosed and treated. Based on that experience, it appears that if the antibiotics are not started until the patient is "sick" (i.e. shows flu-like symptoms or respiratory failure), then, in fact the mortality rate is extraordinarily high--perhaps almost 100%. If treatment is started immediately--i.e., when the suspected exposure occurs, therefore prior to the development of symptoms, it appears that the mortality is much lower. This is based on the natural history of the disease, which requires several days for the spores to "germinate" (grow) and produce toxins in the lung and bloodstream.
In other words, it depends what you mean by "timely."
As an aside, I agree that much of the reporting of this has been substandard and uninformed. However, the response of the government has been disappointing, as well. While anthrax occurs naturally, it is not endemic in hooved animals or soil east of the Mississippi. For Tommy Thompson to suggest that drinking from a stream in North Carolina, or hanging out in the Florida swamps, could cause a case of pulmonary anthrax, was uninformed and irresponsible.
JMHO, UMMV, MOUSE
If left untreated, yeah. But given the fact that people are now being blasted with antibiotics the moment they find some talcum powder on an airplane, it's not likely that many people who have been exposed to airborne anthrax are going to remain untreated for very long.
So far, we seem to be doing a great job of identifying actual exposures within hours of their occurrence, and rushing antibiotics to everyone who was within a hundred yards of the place. As a result, it's unlikely that many people are even going to get sick, much less die.
Irradiate all mail. Sterilize the $hit out of it. We have the technology.
You heard it first, right here on FreeRepublic.
Keeping my fingers crossed!
I agree wholeheartedly, and when I tried to get a petition going on another thread for deportation I was told I had sunk to a new low. When are people going to get their heads out of their a---
Just an observation from a Freeper.
g
Sunshine destroys anthrax spores, but very little else does. Heat doesn't, radiation doesn't. It's resistant to explosives. That's precisely the reason why anthrax was developed as a weapon, because it's tough, whereas most bacteria and viruses are fragile.
One of the unintended benefits of the current crisis, is that in the past congressional staff and their elected officials always seemed to want to ignore email and only really count, hand written hardcopy. I think a lot of staff will want to encourage the sending of "virus/bacteria" free electronic mail as opposed to the type that can make one sick.
Back on thread, I hope that very high Gamma or beta radiation serilization equipment is installed in major postal facilities and at major government buildings as it would bring this to a conclusion pretty quickly.
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