Anthrax...coincidence?

James B. DiGriz jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org
Sat Oct 6 12:52:19 PDT 2001


David Honig wrote:

> At 11:58 AM 10/6/01 -0400, Steve Furlong wrote:
> 
>>"Dr. Evil" wrote:
>>
>>>>Center for Disease Control Investigating Second Anthrax Case
>>>>By Chris Dolmetsch
>>>>
>>>FORTUNATELY, this stuff is not contagious.  Either you have it or you
>>>don't.
>>>
>>I'm not sure I believe that, or much of anything else put out regarding
>>a bioagent. ("We have everything under control. Just continue to pay
>>your taxes and do what we tell you and everything will be all right.")
>>Are there any real doctors or vets on the list who can confirm it from
>>their own knowledge? (Sorry, I don't think I want to trust the word of a
>>"Dr Evil". <grin>)
>>
> 
> Channelling TM: why don't you google the topic yourself? 
> 
> Or go to a library, since if you kick the paranoia up a notch
> you can't trust the net.
> 
> In fact, Anthrax spores are much more useful than say smallpox militarily,
> because Anthrax doesn't spread to your homeland.  That's the whole
> point.  You have to use spores to infect, but infected people don't
> make spores.  Also, once infected, you're toast quickly despite treatment.
> 
> But other background info backs this up:
> 
> * You have to know what you're doing to force the bacilli
> to make spores, eg industrially.  The bacteria will do it on its
> own under certain conditions, ie, its environment is getting harsh.
> True for lots of bugs.
> 
> That's the knowledge that the germwar people know takes finesse,
> making spores and then making a decent inhalable aerosol of the thing.  
> 
> 
> * There *are* nasties that live in the soil and make spores.  An
> archeologist told me of a debilitating lung fungus you get if you dig in the
> ground a lot.  A cell biologist told of someone getting a weird
> disease because they had fed human hair
> to their garden bacteria (to deter animals I think).
> 
> * Similar (in a real bio sense) animals will often share
> diseases -HIV in primates, anthrax in sheep and the like, etc.
> Flu jumps between birds, pigs, and men.  The cowpox/smallpox
> interaction has been noted here.  Rabies gets anything 
> warmblooded I think.  Quite a lot of variation in species 
> specificity, and a resivoir in "wild and domestic lower
> vertebrates" (like hanta in mice, lyme in deer) is common.
> 
> 
>>Do the spores reproduce only in herbivores?
>>
> 
> Bacteria chose to make spores when the puddle is drying up.
> 
> 
>>Well, maybe I'm just cynical from experience with the government's lying
>>and concealing for our own good.
>>
>>SRF
>>
> 
> Given current events, skepticism is even wiser than usual.  But
> I wouldn't doubt the existing medical or bio info.
> 
> The "extra-vigilance --> extra detection" explanation is of course possible.
> 
> Still, *fantastic* timing, as has been pointed out.
> 
> 
> 

It's peculiar enough to warrant further investigation, which according 
to the CDC bulletin is being done. I'd imagine they'd be analyzing soil 
samples from the garden and surrounding neighborhood, tracking down 
where fertilizer, potting soil, mulch, etc. came from, suspicious 
activity in the area, and so on, as well as even more vigilance checking 
pulmonary diseases. In addition to retracing people's movements as 
stated in the MSNBC article.

Coincidences *do* happen, though.

jbdigriz





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