Posted on 11/11/2001 12:54:50 PM PST by t-shirt
Death of Kathy Nguyen
A Frightening Mystery
Anthrax case stumps probers
By GREG B. SMITH in New York and BOB PORT in Washington
Daily News Staff Writers
fter thousands of nasal swabs, hundreds of subway posters and bacteria tests on every surface in sight, the biggest bioterror inquest in history cannot answer one frightening question.
How did a 61-year-old New York woman who worked in a hospital inhale a deadly breath of anthrax?
The case of Kathy Nguyen, a reclusive immigrant who left Vietnam to live in New York City decades ago and died of inhalation anthrax Oct. 31, has everybody stumped.
Doctors have checked her clothes, her mail at home, her mail at work, her employer's post office and the post office that serves her six-story brick co-op building in the Bronx.
Nothing. Negative. No anthrax.
The mail is still suspect — Nguyen worked as a supply clerk at Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital, a job that could have put her in proximity to incoming mail. However, like Sherlock Holmes, investigators are abandoning the conventional mail theory for more obscure conjectures that remain.
Few Solid Clues
Probers hope poster yield tips on Kathy Nguyen's death. Police, the FBI, the city Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must reconstruct Nguyen's life — and they are stuck with a bigger murder mystery than they ever imagined.
They have used her MetroCard to track her whereabouts — and twice last week CDC investigators said they wondered whether Nguyen might have had a brush with the anthrax terrorist himself.
"The possibility that this individual could have accidentally crossed paths with someone who's responsible for this outbreak is something that I'm sure the FBI is also pursuing," said the CDC's Dr. Julie Gerberding.
"This thing is not over until the criminals are caught," she said. "We need to remain vigilant and be on the lookout for new cases.
"Every stone is being overturned," Gerberding said.
Investigators must even consider whether Nguyen played a role in the wider anthrax attack itself. "That can be either as an innocent bystander or something going on, as someone who was an inadvertent participant in something," Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, the CDC's director, said last week.
Nguyen's sudden death itself complicates the effort, because authorities lost their best witness to whatever occurred.
Nguyen lived alone. She kept to herself. She took the No. 6 subway to work and went home with only occasional side trips. To pay bills, she apparently used post office money orders, not checks — but where did she buy them?
And while the recollections of co-workers and neighbors are helping draw the map of Nguyen's private world, the leads are vague.
Authorities were told Nguyen frequented a restaurant that served "Asian food."
"That limits it to several thousand restaurants in areas that she might have gone to," said Koplan.
"I am struck at how difficult it is to get the kind of detailed information we need," Koplan declared.
"It is an epidemiologist's worst nightmare," said Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the CDC's chief investigator in New York.
It was a fortnight ago today that Nguyen, who worked in the supply room in the basement of the hospital near Third Ave. and E. 64th St., went to the emergency room of nearby Lenox Hill Hospital complaining of severe muscle aches.
She had fatigue, chills, chest pain and eventually a blood-tinged cough and an elevated white blood cell count. Her body was at war with infection, but doctors diagnosed it as "atypical pneumonia," according to the CDC.
She would become unconscious and die before health officials could question her.
Where She Worked & Lived
Nguyen delivered supplies throughout Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat. CDC staffers traced her routes inside the building by interviewing hundreds of employees, and they tested for anthrax in every room that they determined she had visited since Oct. 11 — two weeks before her first symptoms.
They tested the mailroom beside her workspace. They discovered last week she'd frequented another room in the basement they'd missed. It was tested.
Everything came back negative.
They tested each room in her third-floor, one-bedroom apartment in a six-story brick co-op on Freeman St. in the Bronx. They tested every mail slot in the building. Negative.
They interviewed neighbors within a one-block radius, looking for anthrax symptoms. One, who claimed to have a strange lesion, turned up negative.
Because other confirmed cases in the anthrax attack have some link to mail, Ostroff said they tested "all of the relevant post offices that we're aware of that would send mail to where she worked, to where she lived."
That included the Boulevard post office on Southern Blvd., a few blocks west of her home, and the Lenox Hill post office, which serves Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat. Both came back negative.
They discovered that although Nguyen had a bank account, she did not seem to write checks from it. Instead, she relied on postal money orders.
Ostroff did not know at which post office Nguyen purchased them, and he said the usual paper trail most people generate was nearly nonexistent for Nguyen.
"She didn't do that," Ostroff said. "She has a minimal paper trail.
Colorful streamers and tokens of affection are left outside the Bronx apartment where Kathy Nguyen lived. "She led a very sedate existence. That's what makes it difficult. In some sense, you might say that makes it easier," he said. "She wasn't jetting all over the place. She wasn't visiting all over New York.
"On the other hand," Ostroff said, "she had so few daily contacts."
Investigators are focusing on the period from Oct. 15 through Oct. 22, when they believe she was exposed to anthrax.
"One of the most difficult things is to reconstruct where she was and what she was doing the seven to 14 days prior to her hospitalization," Ostroff said. "We've learned that this is going to take a lot of effort to piece together the different aspects of this woman's life, because she was a very private person."
Nguyen may have bought some of her money orders at a post office on E. 86th St. and Third Ave. near a restaurant where she was friendly with the owners, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Studying her monthly MetroCard, investigators learned she traveled the No. 6 train each day from the Whitlock St. stop in the South Bronx to the E. 68th St. station, four blocks north of Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat.
She also made stops at E. 86th St., where investigators believe she would regularly visit an Asian restaurant owned by friends. Last week they were still trying to pinpoint that restaurant.
Friends say Nguyen, as a favor to her restaurateur friends, regularly shopped in Chinatown for the specialty foods found in that neighborhood.
That sent investigators on a hunt through Chinatown, trying to nail down her regular stops. On Friday, city officials said they would begin testing subway stops on Nguyen's commute.
At her home in the Bronx beside the elevated No. 6 train, Nguyen used her real name — Xi Thi Nguyen — on the buzzer.
In the foyer, a sign posted by the city assures tenants that all anthrax tests in their building, "including mailboxes," came back negative.
Sealed the Door
On the black enamel door of Nguyen's apartment, the NYPD's 42nd Precinct placed an electric-green crime scene sticker to seal the entrance.
Red, pink, peach, yellow and white ribbons hang over a folding table outside the door with a green plastic Madonna and child, a brass crucifix and several memorial cards to Nguyen.
Underlying the Nguyen investigation is the paradox of anthrax bacteria itself.
Because all known to be connected to Nguyen began taking antibiotics as soon as possible, their blood became sterile, stopping in its tracks any other anthrax infection that might have surfaced to become a clue.
The case continues to challenge the CDC's knowledge of anthrax.
Theoretically, one anthrax spore is enough to start an infection. There are published estimates that as few as 10 spores can be lethal. A total of thousands — in fact, 10,000 spores or more — is considered the more likely lethal threshold.
Recent cases "really don't offer any opportunity to better clarify the number of anthrax spores that may be required for infection," the CDC's Dr. Bradley Perkins said.
"Defining that level and relating it to the occurrence of cutaneous and inhalational disease is something we're working very aggressively to try to do right now," he said.
Which leaves the city to keep wondering whether Nguyen's death was a fluke from anthrax already in the mail — or something different.
------------------
Body can counter anthrax
11/11/2001
Press-Enterprise
http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/responsetoterror/stories/1111/10013886_PE_NEWS_nfight11k.html
When it comes to contracting diseases like anthrax, everyone is not created equal.
Biologists say healthy people with strong immune systems could likely fight off anthrax even if they inhaled a small dose.
"There are people out there who think that one spore landing on them is going to mark them for death," said Amy Cheng Vollmer, a bacteria specialist and biology professor at Swarthmore College south of Philadelphia.
"They don't realize that thousands and thousands of spores (of other bacteria) land on them all the time, and they have perfect health."
Government scientists report that the 10 people who acquired the serious lung-based infection of anthrax have a median age of 56. Researchers say they are starting to investigate whether age or health status might help predict who is most vulnerable to the potentially fatal bacteria.
"There may be host factors or particular susceptibilities in persons who might be a little bit older. And we're actively exploring that as a hypothesis based on the 10 cases that we have," said Dr. Bradley Perkins, a lead anthrax investigator at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Another theory, Perkins said, is that smokers might be more vulnerable to anthrax because of damage to a mechanism that clears impurities such as bacteria spores from the lungs.
Clearly some people escape the invader. In a 1979 outbreak in the former Soviet Union, 5,000 people were exposed to an anthrax aerosol, but only 70 died. The rest beat the infection or had no symptoms.
-------------------------
BIOTERRORISM VACCINATION NOT ADVISED
Decater Tribune
11/11/01
Email this story to a friend
CHICAGO, November 11, 2001 (CN)--Eventhough the threat of bioterrorism is real, the Illinois Department of Public Health says that vaccinations are not advised for the general public. Dr John Lumpkin, Director stated, "The U.S. has an anthrax vaccine that was licensed in 1970 and has been mandated for all U.S. military personnel; the vaccine is not available commercially. Between now and 2005, members of the military between the ages of 18 and 65 will receive a six-shot series of anthrax vaccine." For additional information, consult the current U.S. Public Health Service’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations on anthrax vaccination.
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Buildings still tainted by anthrax D.C. offices show minimal amounts.
Published Sunday, November 11, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) - Trace amounts of anthrax were discovered in the offices of three senators and a House member in congressional buildings where earlier tests had detected the presence of the deadly bacteria, authorities and lawmakers said yesterday.
The health threat was deemed minimal, said a spokesman for the Capitol Police.
Anthrax was found in several spots in the Hart Senate office building, where a letter containing anthrax was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said small amounts of anthrax had been found in his office mailroom. Aides to Sens. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, said anthrax had been discovered in the offices of those lawmakers.
Spores also were found in the office of Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said Lt. Dan Nichols of the Capitol Police. The office already was closed because it was next to an office where anthrax had been discovered. Calls to Cummings’ offices went unanswered yesterday.
Craig said he was told about the contamination by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman on Friday night.
"It came as shock to all of us," Craig said yesterday in an interview. "They’re using the term ‘cross-contamination’ because of the slight amount that was found there. It might have been a stack in our office that was in the same mail cart as the Daschle letter."
Craig said that while he has not been tested and is not taking antibiotics, those precautions have been offered to his staff, and five or six of them are taking Cipro. He said that if anyone on his staff was going to get sick, they probably already would have shown symptoms.
Feinstein said "the medical risk is virtually zero." She said her staff has not reported any medical problems that can be associated with anthrax.
Feinstein spokesman, Jim Hock, said everyone in Feinstein’s office has had nasal swab tests for exposure to anthrax, and the results so far have been negative.
Graham’s spokesman, Paul Anderson, said a minute amount of anthrax was found in the area where the staff sorts mail.
He said all of Graham’s staff tested negative for anthrax exposure in the days after the Daschle letter was discovered.
Nichols said that based on the amount of anthrax found, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not recommending antibiotics for anyone who had been in the contaminated Longworth or Hart areas.
U.S. Has Reportedly Discovered Chemical Weapons in Afghanistan
Aired November 11, 2001 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. has reportedly made an unsettling discovery in Afghanistan. The "New York Times" reporting today, the U.S. has identified three Afghan sites that may be producing chemical weapons.
Kathleen Koch is at the Pentagon with the government's take on the claim.
Good morning to you Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Martin.
And the article actually claims that while the U.S. knows about these three sites that it has not bombed the three sites -- one of them being a research lab in a small village east of Jalalabad, Afghanistan; one being a fertilizer factory in Mazar-e Sharif and then the third being an anthrax vaccine facility in Kabul.
Now, we've asked the Pentagon about the report. It is looking into it, but really has no comment on it at this point.
Now, of course, the prospect of actually bombing during any war, potential chemical or biological weapons production facility is very problematic. If such production is actually underway, you run the risk of releasing toxins that could potentially threaten the lives of innocent civilians, of opposition forces or of your own ground forces in the country. If such production is not underway, then your country could face criticism for wrongfully bombing a civilian facility.
Now, if you'll recall that's what happened back in 1998 when President Clinton ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, believing that it was connected to the al Qaeda terrorist network. The U.S. had intelligence reflecting that. Well, it turned out later that that intelligence was apparently incorrect.
Then, of course, there is the issue of if such a facility is bombed, the building is actually reduced to rubble, will you ever be able to find out exactly what was going on inside? And of course, now, with opposition forces controlling Mazar-e Sharif, the United States has a better chance of potentially, at least, getting inside this fertilizer factory in that city and finding out what actually is being produced inside -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Kathleen, the report of these chemical plants comes at the same time that Osama bin Laden is claiming that he has access to chemical weapons. Does the Pentagon see a connection here?
KOCH: Well, obviously, there -- anyone hearing these reports from Osama bin Laden would believe there may be a potential connection. But we have learned not only when it comes to Osama bin Laden's claims but the claims of the Taliban that they are suspect often and certainly not confirmable. But this will obviously increase the Pentagon's efforts and the United State's efforts to find out exactly what is going on in these facilities and to handle them very carefully before taking any direct action against them -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon. Thank you very much.
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WASHINGTON
Trace amounts of anthrax were discovered in the offices of three more senators and another House member in congressional buildings where it had been found earlier.
The health threat was deemed minimal.
"We have always been concerned about mail that has been contaminated by other mail," Dr. John Eisold, the Capitol physician, said at a news conference yesterday.
But he said the trace amounts found "are not a public health risk; they are not an inhalational risk; they are not a cutaneous risk."
The anthrax was found in several spots in the Hart Senate Office Building, where a letter containing anthrax was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Spores were found in the offices of Sens. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
It was also found in the sixth-floor offices of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in the Longworth House Office Building. Cummings' office had already been closed because it was adjacent to an office in which anthrax had been discovered.
Craig said he was told about the contamination by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman on Friday night.
"It came as shock to all of us," Craig said yesterday in an interview.
Feinstein said "the medical risk is virtually zero." She said her staff has not reported any medical problems that could be associated with anthrax.
The Associated Press
DUH!
From the last story in your original post: ...where a letter containing anthrax was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
I'm wondering if they are going back far enough. If the Daschle letter was opened on the 15th, it was obviously mailed before that.
The article mentions that Nguyen shopped frequently in Chinatown. Did she use Chinese or other herbs as medicines? She apparently ate a lot of oriental foods, which frequently contain fresh garlic.
We've been told that the anthrax was susceptible to several antibiotics, including penicillins, doxycycline, and cipro. Many herbs have antibiotic properties, including those used in cooking- garlic, for instance. It's just possible that while the herbs weren't enough to protect her, they may have slowed down the reproduction of the bacteria enough to give her a longer incubation time. IIRC, garlic used to be known as "the poor man's penicillin".
Very possible. It is also possible that she was a "mule", someone who was intended to be used to spread anthrax.
12 posted on 11/11/01 2:57 PM Pacific by wooly_mammoth
Very true!
I would trust them any farther than I could throw them!
I wonder whatever happened to the hoaxes from St. Pete where I live. It seems to be that the hoaxers' timing was mighty close to the timing of the actual perpetrator as if they worked simultaneously. A lady at Walmart yesterday was looking at shredders with wastebaskets attached. I interrupted her and her daughter and simply said "I wouldn't buy a shredder now." I didn't want to shock them so I just said that it was better to just throw the mail away. I didn't even use the anthrax word because I am not an alarmist. Mom seemed to get my drift. Then I went to the next row and I heard the daughter repeat to the mother to just throw the mail away.
It seems to me that a shredder would just stir up anthrax.
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