10/22/01 10:48:00 AM Symbol
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UPDATE 2-N. Carolina firm to sell home anthrax test kits
October 18, 2001 4:17pm
Source: Reuters
By William Borden
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Vital Living Products Inc. , a maker of water testing kits, is planning to ship home anthrax tests to retailers before Thanksgiving, but some merchants are lukewarm about stocking them due to questions about their reliability and effectiveness.
The few recent cases of anthrax across the United States have made some citizens uneasy about exposure to the disease.
Some merchants are not interested in Vital Living's PurTest Anthrax Test, which detects anthrax in the air or water or on surfaces, while others say they will offer it.
Lowes Cos Inc., the second-largest U.S. home improvement retailer, does not plan on carrying Vital Living's anthrax test kit, spokeswoman Tawn Earnest said.
``I don't think there has been any one reliable test that has received an endorsement from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency),'' Earnest said.
Rite Aid Corp., a 3,600-drugstore chain, said the company is open to considering this kind of product, ``but we want to make sure it is a quality product and an effective product,'' spokeswoman Sara Datz said.
Paula Erickson, spokeswoman for hardware store cooperative ACE Hardware Corp., said the PurTest Anthrax Test will be made available to its 5,100 independently owned stores.
However, Erickson said, ``It's hard to gauge how many of our stores will choose to order it.''
Vital Living President and CEO Donald Prodrebarac said the PurTest Anthrax Test is valid.
``This is a very, very accurate test,'' he said.
Vital Living's stock soared 74 cents, or 60.2 percent, to close at $1.97 on the Nasdaq bulletin board in Thursday trading.
VITAL PLANS KIT AFTER SEPT 11 ATTACKS
After the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Prodrebarac Thursday said the company was planning to develop a kit to detect toxic agents before the recent anthrax scares around the country.
Prodrebarac said that Sept. 12 he called a microbiologist who has done work with the company and determined that anthrax was the ``most obvious'' agent for a test kit. The company has set a press conference about the test kit, which will retail for $19 to $25, for Oct. 23 in New York.
Vital Living Products, of Matthews, North Carolina, sells a water testing kit for coliform bacteria through home improvement stores under the PurTest brand and has provided the CDC with kits.
The CDC, based in Atlanta, said anthrax is diagnosed in people from isolating the germ from the blood, skin lesions or respiratory secretions or by measuring specific antibodies in the blood of persons with suspected cases. A simple detection of the disease can come from a nose swab test.
Since the company announced definite plans Tuesday to ship the kit and was featured in a Wall Street Journal article Thursday, Prodrebarac said he has received calls from investors, consumers and retailers expressing interest.
``There have been lots of questions and understandably so,'' he said.
LITTLE CHANGE SEEN IN MERCHANDISE MIX FOR RETAILERS
Aside from anthrax antibiotic treatment Cipro, which has become a household name, traditional retailers have not stocked up on merchandise -- such as gas masks -- that would have been familiar to veterans or soldiers before Sept. 11.
Aside from the rush for Cipro, Rite Aid spokeswoman Datz said the company has not drastically changed its merchandising mix since the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax scare. The only change has been an increase in flags and patriotic merchandise, she said.
Erickson at Ace Hardware agreed.
``We have had some customers looking for gas masks and those kind of supplies,'' Erickson said. ``But we're seeing more demand for patriotic items like flags.'' ^ REUTERS |
