Posted on 12/01/2001 11:15:24 AM PST by t-shirt
UConn spores positive; Army plans more tests
By MICHAEL P. MAYKO
Saturday, December 01, 2001
Two vials seized from the refrigerator of a University of Connecticut graduate student have tested positive for anthrax.
Michael J. Wolf, who heads FBI operations in Connecticut, said that additional tests on the bacteria will be performed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases Laboratories at Fort Dietrich, Md.
Wolf said the purpose of those tests will be to determine if the samples match the deadly anthrax spores being sent through the mail. That strain is being referred to as the "Ames strain."
Ames is the strain responsible for the five deaths including that of Ottilie Lundgren, the 94-year-old Oxford woman who died Nov. 21 at Derby's Griffin Hospital of inhalation anthrax.
The UConn vials were seized by the FBI from the personal refrigerator of Tomas Foral, a graduate student at the school's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Foral was ordered by the school to destroy the vials found in a rusty, silver can but kept at least two of what may have been as many as seven vials.
Delcie Thibault, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said prosecutors are still reviewing whether to charge Foral with any wrongdoing.
The anthrax was taken from a cow that had died of the disease some four decades ago.
Wolf said the samples themselves did not pose a direct safety threat because they had to be processed. The bacteria was contained in a blood medium and had not been processed into a powder form.
Tests of the area near the refrigerator came up negative for anthrax.
Since the finding, every college and university in Connecticut has been asked to document what biological agents they have in their laboratories.
Michael P. Mayko, who covers regional issues, can be reached at 330-6286.
Mmayko@ctpost.com
"The UConn vials were seized by the FBI from the personal refrigerator of Tomas Foral"
--from story
Right. I'll pray for the FBI to continue their effort to track down the source(s) of the biological agent that MURDERED innocent people. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. I'll pray every personal refrigerator of every wannabe bio-terrorist is raided with EXTREME prejudice. BIG TIME.
OK, so what links does this guy have to Greenpeace, ASPCA or ELF?
Is the VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY about to unravel?
A Scientist's Mystery ($25,000 Reward)("FBI Refused To Get Involved"In Investigation-Why?)
Behind In The Biowar (Anthrax Expert Disappearance Mystery, Death of Another Top Expert,etc
Accused Group Traded Despite US Terror Fears (+LinksMultiple Govt'Prior Knowledge Threads)
Ames Strain Of Anthrax Limited to Few(5)Labs (VeryFew People Have Access ExpertsOnly)
Scientists Decode Anthrax 'Fingerprint' (Update:Stories On The Should-Be Pakistani Anthrax Suspects)
Freeper Research on the Anthrax Perp
Taking a Germ Bullet
Biological Germ Warfare Testing on American Soldiers
Anthrax Scare Gives UN Pact a Fresh Edge (Globalism Empowered By Terrorism)
Group [Greenpeace Germany] Says U.S. Expert Believed Behind Anthrax Attacks
-------------------------------------------------
One to really think about:
Open US roads for Mexican trucks (Only Random Checks!! Imagine:Terrorists,Illegals,UnsafeTrucks!)
Tomas Foral - Czech?
COLE: My notes. Observations. Clues.
RAILLY: Clues? What kind of clues?
COLE: A secret army. The Army of The Twelve Monkeys. I've told you about them. They spread the virus. That's why we have to get to Philadelphia. I have to find them -- it's my assignment.
RAILLY: What will you do...when you find this... secret army?
COLE: I just have to locate the virus in its original form before it mutates. So scientists can come back and study it and find a cure. So that those of us who survived can go back to the surface of the earth.
---------------------------------------------------
JEFFREY: You know what "crazy" is? "crazy" is "majority rules". Take germs for example.
COLE: Germs?!
JEFFREY: In the 18th century there was no such thing! Nobody'd ever imagined such a thing -- no sane person anyway. Along comes this doctor...Semmelweiss, I think. He tries to convince people... other doctors mostly...that there are these teeny tiny invisible "bad things" called germs that get into your body and make you...sick!
He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy...crazy? Teeny tiny invisible whaddayou call 'em?..."germs"!
So cut to the 20th century! Last week in fact, right before I got dragged into this hellhole. I order a burger in this fast food joint. The waiter drops it on the floor. He picks it up, wipes it off, hands it to me...like it was all okay.
"What about the germs?" I say. He goes, "I don't believe in germs. Germs are just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soap!"
We thank all the local health departments in Connecticut for conducting surveillance for bird deaths and collecting dead crows...Meghan Tucker, Kimberly Holmes, and Tomas Foral for their work in veterinary diagnosis.
CDC - West Nile Virus Surveillance in Connecticut in 2000
Making It Easier To Host Prospective Students (letter from Foral).
--------------------------
Postal workers offered 2nd set of antibiotics
By GREG SHULAS
Saturday, December 01, 2001 Connecticut Post
gshulas@ctpost.com
After the detection Friday of a trace amount of anthrax spores on mail delivered to a Seymour home, about 1,150 postal workers are being offered a second round of anthrax-fighting antibiotics.
No Connecticut postal worker is known to have been infected by contaminated mail. But postal officials say they must take precautions.
"These are trying times. It is really amazing how postal workers have been handling this situation," said Jim Cari, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Connecticut.
Contaminated mail is the chief suspect in the Nov. 21 anthrax death of 94-year-old Oxford resident Ottilie Lundgren.
After Lundren was diagnosed with the disease last week, 1,150 postal workers at the Seymour Post Office and a Wallingford distribution center were offered a 10-day course of antibiotics. About 900 accepted the treatment. Workers who started that regimen Nov. 21 would have completed it Friday, but now may opt for another round.
Meanwhile, state health officials are awaiting results from the latest round of anthrax tests taken at the facilities in Seymour and Wallingford.
Officials suspect there's a connection between the anthrax that infected Lundgren and the traces of anthrax found on a letter Friday in Seymour.
Oxford mail is routed through the Seymour Post Office.
John M. Steele, the northeast coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service, said the Seymour letter is thought to have been in proximity to a tainted letter mailed to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy at a mail processing plant in Hamilton, N.J.
It's one of 300 letters that passed through the plant at that time, and the only one sent to the Naugatuck Valley area, officials said Friday.
The Seymour home where the anthrax trace was discovered is not on the same carrier route as Lundgren's home, Cari said. Information on how many addresses are served along that route was not available Friday, he said. A source in the U.S. Postal Service said the route probably covers between 300 to 500 residences in Seymour.
It remains unknown who sent the Seymour letter or from where. FBI Agent Lisa Bull said she was also unable to discuss the letter, but said there has been unspecified progress in the recent anthrax probe.
Seymour postal worker Lynn Darst said she believes the matter is being handled appropriately.
Since the anthrax problem began, Darst said she has been briefed regularly about the safety precautions postal workers should take.
"They are right on top of it every day," she said. "I am confident that it will be all over soon."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
................Yet this story below claims only one spore was found.....?????
Does anyone really think one single spore would infect someone????
Anthrax strikes again
By KEN DIXON
Lone spore tracked to Seymour home from N.J. mailing
By KEN DIXON
dixon.connpost@snet.net
HARTFORD -- State health officials Friday found a single anthrax spore on a letter sent to a Seymour family who lives about a mile from the home of an Oxford woman who died from the bacteria last week.
United States Postal Service investigators traced the tainted letter to one of 300 pieces of mail that had contact with an anthrax-contaminated letter sent to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont from Trenton, N.J., on Oct. 9.
The Seymour letter, sent to the family of John Farkas, at 88 Great Hill Road, was the only one that passed through the Naugatuck Valley region, postal officials said.
But additional letters from that batch of 300, tracked by ZIP code and computer analysis by postal investigators, may have been sent to other locations in Connecticut, officials announced late Friday afternoon.
The Seymour letter was the first confirmed cross-contamination from one of the anthrax-packed letters sent to the U.S. Senate.
"It was one colony, one spore," said Dr. Joxel Garcia, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, adding that tests on the Farkas family were negative and there's no reason to believe there was any infection spread by the letter.
"All our daughters are fine. All the people who visited our house are fine," Farkas told WICC-AM in Bridgeport. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with us."
Farkas said the family is "stressed out" by the media attention surrounding the case and is staying at a relative's home.
Gov. John G. Rowland said the apparent cross-contamination of mail did not pose a health threat.
"No one who came into contact with the letter could have gotten anthrax," he said. "It was not really a lethal amount or enough to make anyone sick."
The governor said that health officials have advised him it is unlikely that any new illnesses will be traced to the Trenton Post office because the Oct. 9 mailing is beyond the 45-day-limit of the disease's incubation period for those who came in contact with the spores.
If inhaled, the spores can nest in the lung tissue and cause massive toxic reaction in the lymph nodes to create fatal pneumonia-like symptoms.
"As times goes on, the possibility of anybody contracting anthrax gets less and less," Rowland said. "People should open their mail and send their Christmas cards."
Garcia said the trace amount of anthrax was a single spore, which could range in size from one micro to five microns. A micron is one millionth of a meter.
However, officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a mid-afternoon teleconference from Atlanta, admitted they're not sure what the threshold exposure level is for the deadly inhaled form of the bacteria.
The CDC called it "highly unlikely," but conceivable that inhalational anthrax can be contracted from cross-contaminated letters.
While the death Nov. 21 of Ottilie Lundgren was from an anthrax infection, there has been no evidence of the bacteria found in her home, yard or other places she may have visited in the days the disease gestated inside her.
Rowland called it a coincidence that the letter from Trenton arrived at the home located across the street from the late Oscar Haines, 84, whose recent death from complications of heart disease and diabetes resulted in a state-ordered autopsy that searched unsuccessfully for the anthrax bacteria.
Unexplained deaths involving respiratory ailments have drawn statewide scrutiny as the mystery has deepened over Lundgren's death.
Jon Steele, Northeast regional coordinator for the Postal Service, said that the letter, described as either business or personal mail, was close to the Leahy letter during a 15-second period in a mail-sorting machine.
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a teleconference Friday afternoon, said there's no particular guideline or threshold for infection.
"We just don't know the number of spores it takes," said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the CDC, during a 45-minute teleconference call with reporters from throughout the nation.
He said that while the letter confirms the probable cross-contamination in the suburban Hamilton, N.J., postal facility, it doesn't change the focus of the probe into Lundgren's Nov. 21 death.
In all, about 700 tests have been made in connection with the baffling case. "While we may never be able to determine the exact way the Connecticut woman was exposed, we'll continue to pursue the mail," Koplan said. "Cross-contamination has a potential risk, albeit a low risk."
While the anthrax discovery may help in the long-term investigation, it does not shed much light on Lundgren's death, Koplan said.
Experiments with monkeys have shown that it takes 8,000 to 10,000 anthrax spores to cause death, but Lundgren's age and fragile health could have lowered that threshold.
"Does someone 94 have a less robust immune system? Probably," said Koplan. "And did this have a role? Probably."
Michael J. Wolf, who heads FBI operations in Connecticut, took issue with published criticisms charging his investigators have not aggressively pursued leads in the investigation into Lundgren's death.
"We've got 50 investigators and another 28 from CDC who have been working 16-18-hour days seven days a week on this," said Wolf.
"We've interviewed at least 70 people with whom Mrs. Lundgren had come into contact. We've taken over 1,000 samples from 25 different locations," Wolf said. "We've developed a game plan and we're following it. To say we aren't aggressively pursuing this couldn't be farther from the truth."
Monica Hand, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Washington, said the letter with the trace amount of anthrax on it was not sent to Haines.
She said the recipients of that letter are "well" and there is no evidence they were infected with anthrax.
Wolf said it is "highly probable" that the letter sent to Farkas was cross-contaminated by the Leahy letter. "But I can't say with absolute certainty it was."
Michael Mayko contributed to this story.
Ken Dixon, who covers the Capitol, can be reached at (860) 549-4670
'Tomas' is an unusual spelling here in the US.
By GREGORY B. HLADKY,
Special to The Bristol Press December 01, 2001
HARTFORD -- A single spore of inhalation anthrax has been found on a letter that was delivered to a Seymour home about a mile from where Connecticut's first fatal anthrax victim lived in Oxford, authorities said Friday. The trace of anthrax, which experts said was too small to pose any danger to the family that received it, was caused by cross-contamination at a New Jersey mail facility from a letter to U.S. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, that was loaded with deadly anthrax.
A U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman said authorities are now considering what to do about "approximately 240 additional letters destined for Connecticut ..that were in close proximity" to the anthrax-laden Leahy letter at the Hamilton, N.J., sorting facility. She said investigators may decide to track down and interview all the recipients of the potentially contaminated letters.
Jeffrey A. Copeland, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the current evidence suggests that that cross-contaminated mail remains "a potential risk but a low risk." He and other officials said there have been very few illnesses caused by such mail, but refused to rule out the possibility of new infections being discovered.
CDC officials said they are tracing other possibly cross-contaminated letters in other states and that tests in several areas, which they didn't identify, indicated traces of anthrax contamination from mail.
Copeland said there is no evidence yet that such cross--contaminated mail was responsible for the anthrax death of 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford. Tests at her home and places she frequented have all been negative for anthrax.
But investigators admit they don't yet have any clear leads in the mystery of Lundgren's death, but are not ruling out the possibility that Lundgren somehow died as a result of contaminated mail. Copeland said the intense investigation into the mystery is continuing.
"I think the significance is that, after all this search, a tremendous amount of search, there has at last been a trace of anthrax found on something, which is quite remarkable," said Dr. D.A. Henderson of the federal Office of Public Health Preparedness. "I don't think you can go much beyond that."
Gov. John G. Rowland said experts have informed him that "the possibility of getting sick or the possibility of death (from cross-contaminated mail) is considered quite small." He and CDC officials pointed out that the possibility of anthrax infection from mail contaminated on Oct. 9th by the Leahy letter becomes less and less as time passes.
Rowland urged Connecticut residents not to change their lives because of the very small possibility of cross-contaminated letters. "Don't be fearful of getting your mail," the governor said. "It's more dangerous to cross the street than it is to open your mail right now."
But Copeland told reporters that the increasing evidence of cross-contaminated mail understandably "makes people nervous." He acknowledged that experts don't really know how small a dose of inhalation anthrax it would take to kill a very elderly, infirm person or someone with an impaired immune system.
Confusion continued Friday over how many pieces of mail may have been cross contaminated by the Leahy letter when it went through the New Jersey mail facility, and how many of those may have come to Connecticut.
The controversial letter that was sent to the home of John Farkas on 88 Great Hill Road in Seymour was initially tested earlier this week and came up negative for anthrax. But more sophisticated tests revealed a single anthrax spore. Experts believe that it may take 8,000-10,000 inhalation anthrax spores to kill an average person, although those estimates are now under review.
Copeland said CDC experts simply "do not have adequate information" on how low a dose of anthrax could be dangerous.
- investigators became focused on the Farkas letter is that the family's next-door-neighbor, 85-year-old Oscar Haines, died in his home and his body was found on Nov. 21st. An autopsy found no indication that anthrax was the cause of Haines' death.
State Health Commissioner Joxel Garcia said nasal swabs taken from the Farkas family revealed no trace of anthrax exposure.
At a televised news conference with Gov. Rowland, U.S.P.S. Vice President Jon Steele repeatedly said that the Farkas letter was the only one that was traced to Connecticut from a batch of 300 that passed through a New Jersey sorting machine within 15 seconds of the Leahy letter.
But the governor's staff later issued a statement that: "So far, only one (possibly cross-contaminated) letter has been traced to the Oxford/Seymour vicinity. Gov. Rowland has been informed by law enforcement officials that additional letters may have been sent to other locations in Connecticut."
Paula McCarron, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Boston, said her agency and the FBI is now debating what to do about potentially contaminated mail that may have passed through the New Jersey sorting machine "in close proximity" to the Leahy letter.
According to McCarron, the postal service computer records indicate that about 240 pieces of potentially contaminated mail was destined for Connecticut. Officials said the sorting machine that handled the Leahy letter can process about 660 letter a minute, and the letters that came to Connecticut are only a portion of the total number being traced by federal authorities.
McCarron said investigators are considering tracking down all those potentially contaminated letters and interviewing all the people who might have received them.
CDC officials downplayed the significance of whether a letter was within that 15-second window during which the Leahy letter passed through the sorting machine. Copeland said many more letters, even some in neighboring machines, could have picked up traces of anthrax.
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