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There is no antitoxin for anthrax, at least none that's so far been deemed safe for humans. I assume that a crash program is underway to develop one. Whether it will succeed is, of course, another question. There are lots of diseases which remain uncurable after decades of research and billions of dollars of expenditure. There is also the problem of delivering the treatment -- be it an antitoxin or a conventional antibiotic. For example, a dispersal on the NYC subway system would require the delivery of medical care to four million people in 24 hours or less, to have any chance at making a dent in the casualties.

I would really like to know if yesterday's public revelation that one of the 9-11 hijackers sought treatment for cutaneous anthrax is the result of an intentional tip from government sources, or whether it represents true investigative journalism by the NYT. If it's the former, then we might infer that the administration feels it has a handle on the threat, and that there is no further benefit to delaying an attack on Iraq. That would dovetail with the ramping up of anti-Iraq rhetoric, and the US and British government's recent warnings to Saddam that we are willing to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for attacks with non-nuclear WMD. On the other hand, this could just be an example of a journalist stepping off the reservation and doing some real digging around, in which case, unfortunately, no such optimistic inferences follow.

Certainly there is such a thing as anthrax antitoxin. It is produced in the normal way antitoxins are produced, by injecting an animal like a horse with the toxin in question. The method is currently used in China to produce anthrax antitoxin. This is precisely the same method the CDC uses to produce the botulin antitoxin that it has stockpiled.

Yes, some people can have a bad reaction to the antitoxin. They can get serum sickness. But that is better than certain or highly probable death.

Read Ken Alibek's Biohazard. He recounts one incident where one of his fellow workers was exposed to anthrax and appeared to be about to die (the anthrax was cutaneous, but it was on the man's neck, so that the swelling threatened to block his breathing.) As a last resort, the man was administered what Alibek calls "antiserum" (which I assume must be the antitoxin,) and that saved his life.