Posted on 10/23/2001 6:44:41 PM PDT by Aquinasfan
Suggestions on how to decontaminate mail range from microwaving to household irons. In a laboratory setting, bacteria and bacterial spores are routinely killed with bleach, or by exposure to extremely high heat in what is called an autoclave.
But many experts agree that there is very little, if anything, you can do to kill bacteria short of destroying your mail.
"Steam irons are not going to get you where you need to be," said Dr. John Clements of Tulane University in New Orleans.
Can Irradiation Kill Anthrax?
There is a technology that certain companies believe will kill anthrax — irradiation.
Titan Corp. suggests its irradiation technology, currently used to kill harmful bacteria in foods such as meats, eggs and fresh produce, could be used to kill anthrax. The item in question is bombarded with electrons that kill bacteria. When asked if use against anthrax was feasible, Clements said, "In theory, you could because radiation kills [anthrax] spores."
The company estimates that it would cost approximately one penny per letter to decontaminate mail. It added that irradiation works on everything except electronics, which could be damaged by the process.
Another company, Aramsco, is offering a decontamination service using gamma rays. It is sending out mail from clients to be irradiated by an anonymous company that normally uses the process on food.
"Anthrax is very easy to kill with irradiation," said Aramsco President Dave Naylor.
How It Works
In Titan's irradiation technology, ordinary electricity is used to create a beam of electrons. These electrons are accelerated and "shot" at the item to be sterilized. The beam that is generated is capable of penetrating the target up to a depth of 1 foot.
If the object being decontaminated is larger, X-rays can be used. The same electron beam is directed at a metal target, which generates X-rays. The X-rays are then capable of penetrating up to several feet.
Both the electron beam and the X-rays have the effect of breaking up the DNA of the bacteria almost instantly. This causes immediate death in most cases, and those bacteria that survive are incapable of multiplying.
"Whether it's a package of medical equipment, or a package of hamburger, or whether it's an envelope with anthrax in it, it kills the bacteria inside," said Titan CEO Gene Ray. The material sent out by Aramsco is exposed to a cobalt source that generates gamma rays. Cobalt is a radioactive substance that emits gamma rays, which are high-energy waves that are often used to treat cancer, and sterilize food. A More Familiar Form of Irradiation Might Work Lambda Technologies in North Carolina believes that microwaves can kill the anthrax bacteria. The process would involve exposing mail to microwaves in large industrial sized machines.
These machines are not like your microwave at home. These machines use what is known as variable frequency microwave technology. This allows them to tune the machine to obtain the most efficient killing. The technology also eliminates arching, or sparks, that form when metal is put in conventional microwave ovens.
According to Howard Reisner, an immunologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it has been reported by several sources that microwaves can kill bacteria and bacterial spores.
Is it Safe?
Many people are concerned about safety when they hear the term irradiation. One fear is that the food itself will become radioactive. According to the Food and Drug Administration, "Irradiation does not make foods radioactive, just as an airport luggage scanner does not make luggage radioactive."
Another concern that people express is that irradiation will mutate bacteria, and create even more harmful forms. "There is no evidence that mutants that may be produced by irradiation are any more virulent than the parent microorganism; in fact, the opposite is more likely to be the case," according to the FDA.
This is all I need to read. No more bills for a few months...
Yeah, I can just picture some PO'd postal guy running around
with a radio-active wand.
At least bullets don't make your hair fall out.
From the article above. I hope the irradiation equipment comes on line soon. It's supposed to increase the cost of a letter by one cent.
Not technically possible. It will take years just to get the permits for this equipment, let alone to build it. And I am not convinced that it will work against Antrax spores.
From a CNN interview:
GUILLEMIN: 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.Jeanne Guillemin is a medical anthropologist, and a Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow at MIT's Security Studies Program. In 1992, she was part of a team that investigated a suspicious anthrax epidemic that took place in 1979 in the former USSR. She is an affiliate of the Harvard-Sussex Program, which is involved with the elimination of chemical and biological weapons.
The amount of radiation typically given to kill bacteria in food is not sufficient for spores.
Doses of radiation used industrially to process foods are stated in terms of "D-value" or the dose that will kill 90% of the target organisms. Since the killing is logarithmic, 2D will kill 99%, 3D will kill 99.9% 4D will kill 99.99%, etc. It is not uncommon to give a "4D" dose. E.coli O157 has a D-value of 0.3 kiloGray.(1 Gray=100 rad) The usual dose given to food is 1.2kiloGy (4D).
According to CDC data on food irradiation, the D-value for sporulated (spore form) bacteria in general (not anthrax specifically) is 2.8 kilogray. The 4D dose would be 11.2 kiloGy. I do not know if anyone has actually done dose/response curves for anthrax spores specifically. I have seen doses mentioned as high as 50 kiloGy (5 million rad). As you can see, this is over 40 times the dose needed to eradicate E.Coli. I don't know anything about the typical throughput time for commercial food irradiators, but with a radiation source with a fixed output like gamma radiation (with small daily decrease due to radioactive decay) it will take approximately 40 times as long to achieve these types of doses.
(Paging Physicist to see if any key scientific points have been overlooked.)
Don't try this at home kids.
The solution??? Take your mail with you to the tanning salon.
I'm no physicist, but isn't sunshine itself a form of radiation? Why isn't it possible to artificially replicate this form of radiation and thus kill the spores? Just wondering.
The company had already been getting lots of government contracts to irradiate food and I'm hoping that they'll get a lot more now to irradiate the mail! Private mail carriers like FedEx will probably want to use their services also.
This may still be a good stock to invest in even at $20. a share.
Gamma radiation is more energetic than sunlight, therefore some dose will kill anything. The comparision with food irradiation makes perfect sense. You don't want the food cooked or affected in any noticable way, so the dosage would be minimized. But we don't care if ordinary mail is cooked.
Packages containing food or electronic equipment are another matter.
There is a new book out that effectively debunks the environmentalist wacko claims. It is written by a "reformed" Green. :) There is a really good review of the book which I'm linking you to here, if you're interested:
"The Skeptical Environmetalist" by Bjorn Lomborg - HERE
BTTT
Even if this is true, we don't seem to be left with any alternatives. Otherwise, if the terrorists drop ten envelopes a day into the mail, they will have effectively ended the postal system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.