Posted on 10/04/2001 3:03:45 PM PDT by NautiNurse
Lantana man hospitalized with Anthrax
The Associated Press Thursday, October 4, 2001
TALLAHASSEE (AP) -- A 63-year-old businessman has been hospitalized in Palm Beach County with pulmonary anthrax, a highly lethal disease mentioned as a possible biological weapon. But
U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said Thursday there is no evidence this case was a result of terrorism.
‘‘This is an isolated case and it’s not contagious,’’ Thompson said at a White House news conference. He said such incidents are ‘‘rare, very rare.’’
Anthrax has been developed by some countries as a possible biological weapon. But the disease can be contracted naturally; the bacterial spores can be found in soil and are often carried by livestock.
Officials said the Florida victim is an avid outdoorsman. Thompson said the last U.S. case of anthrax was earlier this year in Texas. But that case was not pulmonary anthrax, in which the disease settles in the lungs.
The Lantana man, whose name was not released, checked into a hospital on Tuesday and it was initially believed he had meningitis, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said. But X-rays and other testing showed that it was pulmonary anthrax. The disease is treated with antibiotics. Brogan said the man had recently traveled to North Carolina and became ill shortly after he returned. The incubation period for the disease can be 60 days.
Tim O’Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach health department, said the case is ‘‘very likely’’ to be fatal. Anthrax is a spore-forming bacterium that is especially virulent if inhaled. The disease causes pneumonia. There is a vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease.
All forms are rare, but the most recent cases -- including ones in Texas and North Dakota -- have been so-called cutaneous cases resulting from handling animals.
During the 20th century, only 18 cases of inhaled anthrax have been reported in the United States, the most recent in 1976. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI are investigating.
The same government that shut down Bill Clinton's prison plasmapheresis program THREE times in the 80's for various infractions ... inmates selling the right to bleed, failure to destroy tainted plasma, drawing blood from infected prisoners, the works ... is going to level with you about anthrax?
You have a better chance of finding out what Gore had to say in his closed session address on Population Reduction.
During the 20th century, only 18 cases of inhaled anthrax have been reported in the United States, the most recent in 1976.. . .
The Miami Herald reported the anthrax patient's name is Robert Stevens. Miami Herald
By AMANDA RIDDLE
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A businessman has been hospitalized in Florida with inhalation anthrax, an extremely rare and lethal disease mentioned as a possible biological weapon. U.S. health officials said there was no evidence of terrorism but promised "a very intense investigation."
"There's no need for people to fear they are at risk, whether in Florida or North Carolina or elsewhere," said Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "There is absolutely no need for panic."
The unidentified, 63-year-old Lantana, Fla., man checked into a Lake Worth hospital on Tuesday after a visit to North Carolina and was reported to be gravely ill.
Anthrax has been developed by some countries as a possible biological weapon. But the disease can be contracted naturally; the bacterial spores can be found in soil and are often carried by livestock. Officials said the Florida victim is an avid outdoorsman.
The most recent previous U.S. case of anthrax was earlier this year in Texas. But that case was the skin form of the disease, not inhalation anthrax, an especially lethal and rare form in which the disease settles in the lungs.
"We will develop a very intense investigation of this case," Koplan said in an interview. "We are in a period of heightened risk and concern in this country. It's our responsibility to make sure people know what is going on and we control it as quickly as possible."
Koplin said CDC investigators had been dispatched to both Florida and North Carolina. The FBI is also investigating.
"We will be checking on a day-by-day basis where he was, what he did, where he stayed, and looking for risks," Koplan said.
But the CDC already has canvassed hospitals and health departments in those states and found no one else with similar symptoms, the CDC chief said.
"There's no person-to-person spread of this disease. Individuals in contact with this sick person wouldn't have caught it from him," Koplan said. "There is no evidence of other cases within the communities this gentleman has been in."
Koplan said the patient has no digestive symptoms that would indicate the anthrax came from drinking contaminated water, and no skin symptoms from direct contact with the germ. But as for the possibility that he got anthrax from deliberately contaminated air, Koplan said: "We are aggressively investigating this case."
Fears that terrorists may have been planning an airborne chemical or biological attack were raised last month when it learned that a group of Middle Eastern men -- including one of the hijackers in the attack on the World Trade Center -- had been asking a lot of questions about a crop-duster at an airfield in Belle Glade, which is about 40 miles inland from Lantana.
Because of those fears, the government grounded all crop-dusters across the country for a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The men who visited the Belle Glade airfield had asked employees of a fertilizer company about the range of the airplane, how much it could haul in chemicals, how difficult it was to fly and how much fuel it could carry.
In most cases, anthrax occurs as a result of skin contact with infected animals. Inhalation anthrax, which results from breathing the spores, is exceptionally rare. The last reported U.S. case was in 1976.
Koplin said the disease may actually be more common but goes undetected. The latest case may have come to health officials' attention only because of heightened concern about its use as a possible weapon of mass destruction.
"What might have been tossed off as an undetermined bacterium was sent on to a state lab, where people recently received training in detecting anthrax," he said. "It is a possible answer, which is an improved detection system."
Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious-disease specialist at JFK Memorial Hospital in Fort Worth, said the man was currently on a ventilator. "He's critically ill. Hopefully he'll respond to treatment," Bush said.
Anthrax causes pneumonia, and patients are treated with antibiotics. There is also a vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease, but it is available only to the military now.
During the 20th century, only 18 cases of inhaled anthrax have been reported in the United States, the most recent in 1976.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that President Bush had been notified of the anthrax case by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
He said the Health and Human Services Department has been working on plans for years in case of an outbreak, and "a series of protections have been put into place."
GET OUT NOW! That's where the recount took place, that's where the terrorists trained, that's where the crashed bus was headed, that's where the crop-duster went missing, that's where the anthrax broke out...
Whoa there...what exactly did this Dr say? Did he really say that we should see other cases pop up, or did he say that if this was the result of an attack we'd see more cases. If they fully expect to see more cases then I would be very concerned about this being an attack.
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