[TomB]

If this stuff is so potent and was obviously produced by a state, why didn't they bother to make it antibiotic resistant? If the process is that complicated, and they needed the right equipment and trained specialists, it would not have been too difficult to take the extra step and remove the one treatment that works.

[BearPaw1]

I saw a report on 20/20-Primetime about the Soviet release of anthrax in '79 and Diane Sawyer showed how much was released, about the size of teaspoon and it killed about many people plus animals for about 3-4 miles from the release site. So, if that little amount was so deadly, why is the anthrax we are experiencing not as deadly? The anthrax in FL and DC was of the small 1-5 microns. Why do they down play it? The way I think about it is, we just found out it was anthrax quick and have been able to get meds into our systems. If the Dr. in FL had not found it right away we may have had many more deaths.

[Boss_Jim_Gettys]

"If this stuff is so potent and was obviously produced by a state, why didn't they bother to make it antibiotic resistant?"

Making a bacteria resistant to antibiotics is not done by wishing it were so or using the right kind of milling equipment or by employing the proper drying conditions. This requires a whole different set of expertise which hopefully the Iraqis do not yet have.

On the positive side, researchers in the US are now able to determine exactly what confers antibiotic resistance to these "bugs" and are now trying to design antibiotics which will work when all others fail.

Of course we should do all we can to reign in these "greedy" pharma outfits before their research saves any more lives (/sarcasm).

[HoweverComma]

Making it antibiotic resistant might take more TIME than they want--because they'd basically have to expose it to a bunch of different antibiotics while cultivating it.

And then making it antibiotic resistant might degrade its lethality or its contagiousness--the mutations needed to make it less susceptible might change other characteristics.

[FITZ]

If this stuff is so potent and was obviously produced by a state, why didn't they bother to make it antibiotic resistant?

Maybe it was a state with a lot of money but not too much technical expertise.