Anthrax found in Florida
A man in Florida has been infected with anthrax, according to the CDC. <http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/20011004b.html> But don't freak out, they say. Don't buy a gas mask or antibiotics. Don't panic. Get back in your cubicle. Keep working. Stay at your desk. Under no circumstances should you try to find some ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic which might be useful in treating inhalational anthrax. <http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/ANS01030.html>
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 12:51 PM, Anonymous wrote:
A man in Florida has been infected with anthrax, according to the CDC.
<http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/20011004b.html>
But don't freak out, they say. Don't buy a gas mask or antibiotics. Don't panic. Get back in your cubicle. Keep working. Stay at your desk.
Under no circumstances should you try to find some ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic which might be useful in treating inhalational anthrax.
First case of inhalational anthrax reported in the U.S. in over 25 years, CNN reported, and yet it is happening NOW? The news reports are that the man may have been exposed during a visit to North Carolina...they're checking on it. However, consider the _SECOND_ odd coincidence: the man is from the same part of Florida (Lantana, or somesuch) that the WTC pilots were training at. One coincidence is just that. Two... --Tim May V-CHIP CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST IS RATED: R, V, NPC, RI, S, I13. [For processing by the required-by-1998 V-chips, those reading this post from an archive must set their V-chip to "42-0666." I will not be held responsible for posts incorrectly filtered-out by a V-chip that has been by-passed, hot-chipped, or incorrectly programmed.] ***WARNING!*** It has become necessary to warn potential readers of my messages before they proceed further. This warning may not fully protect me against criminal or civil proceedings, but it may be treated as a positive attempt to obey the various and increasing numbers of laws. * Under the ***TELECOM ACT OF 1996***, minor CHILDREN (under the age of 18) may not read or handle this message under any circumstances. If you are under 18, delete this message NOW. Also, if you are developmentally disabled, irony-impaired, emotionally traumatized, schizophrenic, suffering PMS, affected by Humor Deprivation Syndrom (HDS), or under the care of a doctor, then the TELECOM ACT OF 1996 may apply to you as well, even if you are 18. If you fall into one of these categories and are not considered competent to judge for yourself what you are reading, DELETE this message NOW. * Under the UTAH PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ACT OF 1996, those under the age of 21 may not read this post. All residents of Utah, and Mormons elsewhere, must install the M-Chip. * Under the PROTECTION OF THE REICH laws, residents of Germany may not read this post. * Under the MERCIFUL SHIELD OF ALLAH (Praise be to Him!) holy interpretations of the Koran of the following countries (but not limited to this list) you may not read this post if you are a FEMALE OF ANY AGE: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Syria, Bahrain, and the Palestinian Authority. Non-female persons may also be barred from reading this post, depending on the settings of your I-Chip. * Under the proposed CHINESE INTERNET laws, covering The People's Republic of China, Formosa, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and parts of several surrrounding territories, the rules are so nebulous and unspecified that I cannot say whether you are allowed to read this. Thus, you must SUBMIT any post you wish to read to your local authorities for further filtering. * In Singapore, merely be RECEIVING this post you have violated the will of Lee Kwan Yu. Report to your local police office to receive your caning. * Finally, if you are barrred from contact with the Internet, or protected by court order from being disturbed by thoughts which may disturb you, or covered by protective orders, it is up to you to adjust the settings of your V-Chip to ensure that my post does not reach you. *** THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE IN COMPLYING WITH THESE LAWS ***
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 01:13 PM, Tim May wrote:
First case of inhalational anthrax reported in the U.S. in over 25 years, CNN reported, and yet it is happening NOW?
The news reports are that the man may have been exposed during a visit to North Carolina...they're checking on it. However, consider the _SECOND_ odd coincidence: the man is from the same part of Florida (Lantana, or somesuch) that the WTC pilots were training at.
One coincidence is just that. Two...
I thought I'd fill in the details for any of the skeptics: In the anthrax story: "LANTANA, Fla. (AP) - Health officials have begun tracing the steps of a Florida man to pinpoint how he became the first person in the United States in a quarter-century to contract an inhaled form of anthrax, a disease with a much higher profile since the terrorist attacks. " And here's the connection to the flight schools and where Atta and his partners rented apartments: "U.S. agents followed Atta's trail from flight training in Venice on the west coast to an apartment in Coral Springs to another in Hollywood to Lantana, a town on the state's east coast..." Yeah, mere coincidence that the first reported case of inhalational anthrax in 25 years happened at this time, and in the same small town where several of the WTC attackers were living and training. (And that Atta was one of those trying to rent a crop-dusting plane.) It would be paranoid to speculate that the strain is India-1967, the virulent form of inhalational anthrax developed by Biopreparat/Vector and weaponized and tested at Voz. Island in Kazahkstan, north of Afghanistan. When U.S inspectors finally got to the Stepnogorsk facility, weeds were growing in the paths between buildings, the doors were flapping in the wind, and the stockpiles of smallpox, anthrax, Marburg, tularemia, and pneumonic plague had presumably already been sold to the highest bidders. Have a nice day! By the way, with reference to the quote from the enemy of liberty below, it is tempting for those who have not thought about the issues deeply to opine that the horrors of biological terrorism mean that even _more_ civil liberties must be sacrificed (no doubt "Reason" is already preparing a "germs are scary!" piece to explain why there are no libertarians in biohazard suits). Bear in mind it was GOVERNMENTS who spend billions of dollars and rubles finding ways to kill certain ethnic groups with biological vectors, ways to gas cities of millions, and ways to create superbugs uncontrollable by vaccines. (The U.S. government fears the Sovs devoloped variants of smallpox using recombinant DNA techniques that will not be controllable by vaccines.) I speed-read Tucker's "Scourge" several days ago, and yesterday I sat down at my local Borders and speed-read the new Judith Miller, William Broad, etc. book "Germs." (When I "speed-read" I read for the important parts; I can usually absorb a book like this in an hour or so. I would read the book at my leisure, but I hate paying $30 for a book I can skim and get the gist of.) Nothing we didn't already know, except some stuff that goes beyond Ken Alibek's "Biohazard." Especially about the weapons plants in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and other places very close to Afghanistan! I'd thought from Alibek's book that most of the Biopreparat facilities were in Sverdlovsk and other places in Siberia. (Not that shipping a flask of India-1967 or anthrax another 2000 miles is difficult.) Like I said, "Have a nice day." --Tim May, Corralitos, California Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
This just in: (a very long URL...be careful cutting and pasting or clicking) http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20World%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_topworld& T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=ad_right1_windex&bt=ad_position1_windex&middle= ad_frame2_windex&s=AO73EbxYxQ2VudGVy "10/05 10:32 Center for Disease Control Investigating Second Anthrax Case By Chris Dolmetsch Fort Lee, New Jersey, Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Center for Disease Control is investigating a second case of anthrax poisoning in Florida, financial network CNBC reported, citing NBC News. One man is already hospitalized in critical condition in a Florida hospital with the deadly disease, CNBC said. The disease is not contagious between people. No further details were given. " Two cases of anthrax in Florida, if this is true, when there have been very few cases in the past 100 years. (And even fewer pulmonary cases...) And right where the WTC pilots were living and training. (BTW, the incubation period for anthrax is up to 60 days...) --Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound"
The New York Times is reporting that the vaccine is unavailable to civilians. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/health/06VACC.html -- Shields.
At 05:25 AM 10/6/01 +0000, Michael Shields wrote:
The New York Times is reporting that the vaccine is unavailable to civilians. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/health/06VACC.html
Wasn't it only available to veterinarians and others with a bona fide need before the DoD order? No, I'm not going to look at Google, I have other irons in the fire. Reese
Center for Disease Control Investigating Second Anthrax Case By Chris Dolmetsch
Very interesting, I can't find this story _anywhere_ other than the URL you posted. It should be white-hot news, because two airborne anthrax infections in the same region, where the terrorists trained, is either an enormous, outrageous coincidence, or a biological attack. Too bad that, like the smallpox vaccine, the anthrax vaccine isn't available to civilians. "We won't vaccinate you!" seems like not the optimal way to fight bioterrorism. Maybe if enough people die from it, there will be a black market in vaccines to meet the obvious demand. Maybe people will go to jail for having the wrong antibodies. FORTUNATELY, this stuff is not contagious. Either you have it or you don't. If there was an attack, it's too late to do anything about it, as far as I can tell from reading on the 'net.
At 05:53 AM 10/6/01 -0000, Dr. Evil wrote:
FORTUNATELY, this stuff is not contagious. Either you have it or you don't. If there was an attack, it's too late to do anything about it, as far as I can tell from reading on the 'net.
Right. What you need to worry about is letters from Afghanistan (or Pakistan, etc?) containing that hemorragic fever that's broken out.
Tim May wrote:
This just in: (a very long URL...be careful cutting and pasting or clicking)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20World%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_topworld& T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=ad_right1_windex&bt=ad_position1_windex&middle= ad_frame2_windex&s=AO73EbxYxQ2VudGVy
"10/05 10:32 Center for Disease Control Investigating Second Anthrax Case By Chris Dolmetsch
Fort Lee, New Jersey, Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Center for Disease Control is investigating a second case of anthrax poisoning in Florida, financial network CNBC reported, citing NBC News.
One man is already hospitalized in critical condition in a Florida hospital with the deadly disease, CNBC said. The disease is not contagious between people. No further details were given. "
Two cases of anthrax in Florida, if this is true, when there have been very few cases in the past 100 years. (And even fewer pulmonary cases...)
And right where the WTC pilots were living and training.
(BTW, the incubation period for anthrax is up to 60 days...)
--Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound"
I'm guessing this is the neighbor of the first man, who has now died. They shared a herb garden in the back yard, and the theory is that they were both exposed while working in the garden. Whether the second is infected or not isn't stated. Story at http://www.msnbc.com/news/638169.asp. Hell of a time and place to happen, though. You're right about that. jbdigriz
Tim forwards:
Two cases of anthrax in Florida, if this is true, when there have been very few cases in the past 100 years. (And even fewer pulmonary cases...)
Prior to the current concern about biological warefare, tissue samples were not routinely tested for anthrax, so doubtless there were cases of fatal respiratory illness due to anthrax that flew under the CDC radar. Now all suspicious respiratory illnesses are being analyzed by the CDC, so we could just be catching cases that might have been missed before the period of heightened awareness. While two cases in Florida are an odd coincidence, I will wait for a few more before drawing any conclusions that people were deliberately infected. You can inhale anthrax spores from handling animal hides or fur, particularly imports. Anthrax is present globally, so two cases in Florida are hardly evidence of a deliberate biological attack. Let's not all rush to our sealed rooms yet. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Two cases of anthrax in Florida, if this is true, when there have been very few cases in the past 100 years. (And even fewer pulmonary cases...)
Everyone's been saying this, but what's your source? How do you know there haven't been any pulmonary cases?
And right where the WTC pilots were living and training.
Agreed, strange coincidence.
(BTW, the incubation period for anthrax is up to 60 days...)
But it's as low as 6 days. By the classic pattern, there should be a few new cases at the bottom end of the incubation period, with new cases appearing at an accelerating rate. Since anthrax is supposedly not human-communicable (one human is not contagious to other humans) and if there was a single "infection point" in the timeline (meaning there could have been any number of infection *sites*, provided they all were released at the same time) then we should be able to look back after the fact and see a bell curve of anthrax cases - a few at six days after the infection point, a few more at ten, more at 20, a maximum somewhere around 35, then tailing off with the number of new cases decreasing until we hit one or two final cases at 60 days. If this is the start of the Bell curve, then the infection point should have been about 10 days ago - which means it would probably have to be a different team, rather than something set up by Atta and company. The other possibility, of course, is that there was a poor, limited-dispersal attempt at infection, in which case there might only be a total of one or two successful infections - in which case, with the maximum at 35 days and using September 11 as our infection point, we might be at the maximum and these few cases (assume one or two mis- or un-diagnosed) are all we will see. That would be at odds with the apparent level of training and planning by the 9/11 terrorists, but doesn't rule the possibility out. I do agree two cases, in close proximity, among (apparently) non-farmers is a strange coincidence so close on the heels of a terrorist attack. - -- Matt Beland matt@rearviewmirror.org http://www.rearviewmirror.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7vyxNBxcVTa6Gy5wRAt2dAKD8DZ8dyFVo6EctlidBaTYqH6ZhPgCgt9v/ YO+mYzFT0jU7RvHtoIiSzNk= =m0qt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Tim May wrote:
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 12:51 PM, Anonymous wrote:
A man in Florida has been infected with anthrax, according to the CDC.
<http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/20011004b.html>
But don't freak out, they say. Don't buy a gas mask or antibiotics. Don't panic. Get back in your cubicle. Keep working. Stay at your desk.
Under no circumstances should you try to find some ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic which might be useful in treating inhalational anthrax.
First case of inhalational anthrax reported in the U.S. in over 25 years, CNN reported, and yet it is happening NOW?
The news reports are that the man may have been exposed during a visit to North Carolina...they're checking on it. However, consider the _SECOND_ odd coincidence: the man is from the same part of Florida (Lantana, or somesuch) that the WTC pilots were training at.
One coincidence is just that. Two...
It is peculiar timing, but they are looking harder for stuff like this now, too. Probably some mis- or undiagnosed cases have gone unreported. The CDC bulletin does mention a case in Texas earlier in the year. I'm just outside the largest military installation on the East Coast. It went on a major security tightening a month or so before the WTC attack, so it looks like somebody had reason to expect something.. Still don't feel the need for a gas mask. jbdigriz
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 02:39 PM, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Still don't feel the need for a gas mask.
Nor should you. They won't work for the obvious reasons, oft-discussed. That E-Bay auctions are pricing them at $500 for a surplus Israeli mask shows P.T. Barnum was right. --Tim May, Occupied America "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
At 03:03 PM 10/5/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 02:39 PM, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Still don't feel the need for a gas mask.
Nor should you. They won't work for the obvious reasons, oft-discussed.
They can be useful. Sarin, being volitile (gone in half an hour) mostly causes injury via inhalation. VX, being nonvolitile (2 weeks), causes injury mostly by contact. The Israelis *also* sealed a room, and would sit in that room with masks on. Since buildings exchange gasses slowly with the outside, they could survive a cloud that dissipates. YMMV.
David Honig wrote:
At 03:03 PM 10/5/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 02:39 PM, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Still don't feel the need for a gas mask.
Nor should you. They won't work for the obvious reasons, oft-discussed.
They can be useful. Sarin, being volitile (gone in half an hour) mostly causes injury via inhalation. VX, being nonvolitile (2 weeks), causes injury mostly by contact.
The Israelis *also* sealed a room, and would sit in that room with masks on. Since buildings exchange gasses slowly with the outside, they could survive a cloud that dissipates.
YMMV.
Using masks with HEPA filters will keep the bulk of anthrax spores out of your airway. Probably below the 4,000-12,000 reputedly needed for infection, Lot better than nothing, and buys you some options. If you have newer model vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter you could positively pressurize a reasonably well sealed room with filtered outside air for a while, or fabricate a dust hood/mask, with some poly and good old duct tape. Still don't feel the need. jbdigriz
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 on Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 09:51:57PM +0200, Anonymous (nobody@paranoici.org) wrote:
A man in Florida has been infected with anthrax, according to the CDC.
<http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/20011004b.html>
But don't freak out, they say. Don't buy a gas mask or antibiotics. Don't panic. Get back in your cubicle. Keep working. Stay at your desk.
Under no circumstances should you try to find some ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic which might be useful in treating inhalational anthrax.
With one man dead and Bloomberg reporting a possible second case, the warning posted to this list on the 27 of September looks more interesting: From: osama_ben-laden@hushmail.com To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Opening night Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:02:12 -0700 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/mixed by demime 0.97c X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain The rehearsals have gone off better than expected. Opening night for our production of Anthrax Theater approaches. Please check your TVs and newspapers for details. Archive URL: http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.2001.09.24-2001.09.30/msg00531.html 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 iD8DBQE7vqCKOEeIn1XyubARAv7hAJ9/e1ZR83U8Pcs0zIt3FwIOhzk/uACeMRs4 IG+JkyGF2oQnzvquiIfIt/E= =Blew -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (10)
-
Anonymous -
David Honig -
Dr. Evil -
Eric Cordian -
James B. DiGriz -
Karsten M. Self -
Matt Beland -
Michael Shields -
Reese -
Tim May