gpg: Invalid passphrase; please try again ... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 on Sun, Oct 21, 2001 at 06:02:17PM -0700, David Honig (honig@sprynet.com) wrote:
At 02:56 PM 10/21/01 -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote:
The media hype also tends to ignore the fact that anthrax is, in the forms detected to date, largely treatable. Gross attempts at containment (expensive) are less advisable than identification and treatment of exposed individuals (less expensive).
Once the person has enough symptoms to seek treatment, I think they're toast. We'll see. Maybe all USPO workers will be given 60 days of Cipro. If they're the only ones to survive, the species is fucked.
You clearly can't to wait for individuals to be symptomatic, you have to detect eposures. The point, however, is that exposure itself isn't a high risk given appropriate, timely, treatment. The Economist is now reporting on "instant screening": http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=821937 Biological weapons Testing times Oct 18th 2001 From The Economist print edition Instant screening for anthrax is now possible [...] Unfortunately, the two established methods for identifying anthrax and other microbial contaminants involve time-consuming laboratory techniques. One is to try to culture an organism from the powder, and then subject it to a barrage of chemical tests to identify it. The other is to amplify and identify its DNA . The first takes days, and the second is a sophisticated technique that few laboratories are yet able to manage. So, even if the result is negative, chaos may already have been caused and the act of terrorism rewarded. A better solution would be to screen on the spot. And technology to do this is now available. It uses a test strip, costing $20, that looks like a pregnancy-detection kit. The Guardian Bio-Threat Alert System is a joint development by Alexeter Technologies, based in Wheeling, Illinois, and Tetracore, of Gaithersburg, Maryland. It takes 15 minutes to react to the presence of anthrax, and it is the only rapid field test now available. [...] Apologies if this was already posted here. Search of my inbox doesn't turn it up. Peace. - -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE703eMOEeIn1XyubARAkv8AJsGXp1TQp8Zy+CPWNLrtb34BeJBdQCfb470 tehhCnLmo1UbvUhPFE7o4Z0= =cjrt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----