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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (6104)	10/18/2001 9:13:50 PM
From: RocketMan	Respond to of 281500

I'll look at this tomorrow and comment, I'm going to bed.

To: FaultLine who wrote (6104)	10/18/2001 9:15:59 PM
From: Selectric II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Leave it to the Washington Postal to start directing blame at the Administration, while the media independently interviews Congressional lawmakers and the media's own hired experts who give conflicting reports and opinions.

To: FaultLine who wrote (6104)	10/19/2001 9:07:41 AM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

That article only highlights the confusion and inconsistencies in various statements by congressmen on the nature of the anthrax found in the capitol. Nowhere do I see support for your statement that It has been ordinary, lab grade clumped anthrax considered unsuitable for use as a weapon. Another Washington Post report sheds a bit more light on this: By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 18, 2001; Page A12 Confusion reigned yesterday as terms such as "weapons grade," "finely milled" and "potent" were thrown about by members of Congress and others describing the strain of the anthrax bacterium found in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.). Those and other terms are inexact, and relate to different aspects of the danger from B. anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax. (snip) At least one unnamed federal official has said that the samples collected from Daschle's office were especially small. If true, that could suggest that the substance was produced by a well-equipped lab -- perhaps one sponsored by a state or large organization -- because it is difficult to make large quantities of very finely milled spores. But scientists say it is not difficult to make small quantities of finely milled spores. And only small quantities have been mailed so far. Preliminary analysis of the spores found in Daschle's office revealed "some attempt to collect" anthrax, "perhaps refine it and make it more concentrated," said Scott Lillibridge, head of the office of national security and bioterrorism at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in testimony yesterday before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. And here: By Walter Pincus and Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 18, 2001; Page A14 Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said that members were told the sample of spores from Daschle's office showed no uniform size. Some spores were small, "one to three microns, but others were larger," he said. Again, I remind you that 1-3 micron dried anthrax spores are quite suitable for delivery by aerosol, and can be quite devastating, though not in the crude method whomever is responsible chose for delivery. Look, I am not trying to create panic here, I am just trying to lay out the facts as best as we know them, from open sources. These guys win in two ways: either we panic out of proportion to the situation, or else we bury our heads in the sand -- which is what has gotten us in trouble when we ignored early warnings. Nor am I saying that this anthrax attack has a foreign source. It could well have been manufactured in the U.S. by a number of home-grown terrorist organizations. As the DTRA demonstrated in Project Bacchus, a small group can easily manufacture sub-5 micron anthrax spores in a clandestine facility with parts bought at hardware stores and ordered over the internet. We can not ignore that. Nor can we ignore the thousands of liters of anthrax that we know Iraq had at one time, and could easily have gotten into the hands of al-Qaeda and other organizations. Bottom line, we know very little at this point, so we should err on the side of caution and whatever defenses we can muster.

To: FaultLine who wrote (6104)	10/19/2001 12:26:32 PM
From: Jill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Question on biology maybe somebody here can answer for me: If its garden variety why did augmentin (baby put on that at first) and penicillin (CBS girl put on that before they realized it was anthrax) not do a thing? Only cipro helped both of those cutaneous cases. My understanding from various reports was on the one hand, only cipro could handle weaponized (not in terms of size but in terms of bioengineered virulence) but that generics like amoxy and doxy could handle regular anthrax. Nobody has addressed this either & its been "bugging" (pun?) me