Could irradiation kill anthrax? [yes!]

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.

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.

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.

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.

What do you think of this? [Link]

Non-Toxic Emulsion Foils Deadly Anthrax; Flu Virus Succumbs, Too

With the increasing involvement of U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf region, military authorities have become increasingly concerned about the threat that anthrax and other biological warfare agents pose to armed forces and civilian populations. Spores of the deadly bacteria anthrax are a major concern. How do you wash them off? What if you've inhaled them? Concentrated chlorine bleach and formaldehyde are known to kill anthrax spores, but they're also toxic to humans.

A mixture of water, soybean oil, Triton X 100 detergent and the solvent tri-n-butyl phosphate developed by the University of Michigan and Novavax, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Columbia, Maryland, seems to offer great promise in the anthrax wars. A milky-white emulsion of tiny lipid droplets suspended in solvent, it has been shown to be remarkably effective against anthrax and related bacteria as well as certain viruses.

In studies with rats and mice in the U-M School under the direction of James R. Baker, Jr., M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology, the mixture, known as BCTP, attacked anthrax spores and healed wounds caused by a closely related species of bacteria, cereus. (The letters BCTP stand for Bi-Component, Triton X-100 n-tributyl Phosphate.)

Baker describes the process as follows: "The tiny lipid droplets in BCTP fuse with anthrax spores, causing the spores to revert to their active bacterial state. During this process, takes 4-5 hours, the spore's tough outer membrane changes, allowing BCTP's solvent strip away the exterior membrane. The detergent then degrades the spores' interior contents. In scanning electron microscope images, the spores appear to explode." The rapid inactiva- tion of anthrax bacteria and spores combined with BCTP's low toxicity thus make the emulsion a promising candidate for use as a broad-spectrum, post-exposure decontamination agent.

In separate experiments, Baker and his staff have found that BCTP, when inserted into nasal passages of mice infected with live influenza A virus, and when incubated with canine kidney cells infected with the virus, greatly reduces viral antigen levels. "Our preliminary studies have shown that BTCP is a highly effective killing agent for the influenza virus both at the cellular level and in living animals," Baker says. "Equally important is that BCTP has no toxic effects on nasal or lung passages. It appears that if we treat the virus as it enters the nasal passages, we can prevent infection in mice.

The next step is to see whether we can administer BCTP and the virus separately and still prevent infection. The final step, of course, is to see whether it works in people." In future studies Baker plans to evaluate BCTP's effectiveness against inhaled anthrax spores as well as other bacteria and viruses.

The research is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Baker can be reached at jbakerjr@umich.edu

Don't you just love scientists when they start looking for off-the wall solutions!

P.S. I would like to do research on the application of Jim Beam or some other fine Burbon to small samples of virus & germs. First I would inject small cultures of virus and/or bacteria in to Jim Beam and examine how long it takes to kill the critters, then (depending upon the source and concentration and deadness of the critters) drink the final liquid so as to bio-filter it prior to recyling the liquids in the local sanitary sewer system.

You know, maybe we should use 100-year old Napolean Brandy to start with? (/sarcasm)

Seriously this stuff sounds interesting how the detergent and liquid create different forces on the virus and bacteria at a celular membrane level.

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