|
 |
Volume 3 Issue 197 Published - 14:00 UTC 08:00 EST 20-Oct-2001 Next Update - 14:00 UTC 08:00 EST 21-Oct-2001
| Editor: Susan K. Boyer, RN © RAmEx Ars Medica, Inc. All rights reserved. |
|
|
 Law Enfocement Officials, FBI, Skeptical Of Link Between Anthrax Cases And Terrorists
According to Newsweek, FBI officials are skeptical that the anthrax cases reported at NBC, Microsoft and American Media Inc. came from Osama bin Laden or any other known terrorist. The connections so far are circumstantial and although authorities haven't ruled out that connection, says one senior U.S. official, "my instinct says it's a nut case." And while the few cases do not mark an epidemic and anthrax is not contagious, they are unprecedented and the worry is spreading. By the end of last week, eight employees at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida had been exposed to anthrax, one employee of NBC News in New York also tested positive and another letter received at a Microsoft office in Reno, Nevada also contained anthrax. Yet one death, one easily treated rash and seven symptom-free people with anthrax spores in their noses or antibodies in their blood are hardly what experts expected from terrorists wielding a bioweapon, write Begley and Isikoff in the current issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, 15 October). While you can't just walk into a lab and swipe a vial of anthrax, researchers admit that nothing would stop a determined individual from obtaining a starter culture. But, Begley and Isikoff write, turning pathogens into weapons of mass destruction is hugely difficult. A recent Newsweek Poll shows that Americans are divided over the recent news stories about cases of anthrax: 46 percent say they are probably acts of terrorism (including 51% polled Friday after news of the New York cases), while 43 percent think they are not. However, 93 percent of those polled say they have taken no steps in recent weeks to protect themselves against such an attack by buying either a gas mask or antibiotics. Only six percent say they have. Despite the knowledge that anthrax is not contagious, fear has spread fast. A typical civilian's chances of getting infected are still vanishingly small, writes Senior Editor Geoffrey Cowley, and taking Cipro, or other antibiotic may help us feel less vulnerable, but the drug itself can have a range of adverse effects especially in children. Cowley adds that overusing any antibiotic is a sure way to breed pathogens that can resist it. |
||