This Anthrax Scare Is Getting on my nerves!

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Originally posted by killabry

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Originally posted by jaredigital

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Originally posted by Visionray

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Originally posted by johnie


And yes, the US is not prepared for a Biological attack- If smallpox or widescale anthrax was used then it would be chaos- Anthrax doesn't scare me- but when smallpox starts showing up that is when I'd be scared.

- The diluted vacine is only 70% effective.

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I agree. Its interesting...didnt most of us get a smallpox vaccine when we were born? And tt lasts for what? 15 years?

Well, smallpox obviously still exists, in government and medical labratories I suppose, and God forbid in the hands of terrorists. So why havent we all gotten vaccinated again- every 15 years? Just because it is supposedly "contained"? Freaky stuff.

I think its all hype though. The possiblities exist, but the media likes to exaggerate.

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i agree. what the media fails to mention is that a large-scale biological attack (via missiles or sprays, for example) is nearly impossible due to the actually frail nature of anthrax. it has to be "weaponized" to really cause a mass infection, and in this process it becomes fragile. so says CNN, blame them if i'm wrong.

smallpox, i don't know. the military is vaccinated. i have a friend in the Reserves who says he's been vaccinated against smallpox and anthrax.

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I think i heard anthrax dies in sunlight or something like that. Anthrax would be hard to attack us with.

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All this is true-

Military personell are typically vacinated against smallpox and Anthrax.

Anthrax would be very hard to use effectively as a weapon of mass destruction.

Now Small Pox is a very diferent story- SmallPox is highly contigous and the infected individual walks around infecting more people for about 3 weeks before subcoming to the disease. It would only take about 50 people walking in heavily traficked areas such as international airports or the the Subway system to start a world epidemic.

So we could have it already?

What are the chances that you can survive small pox?

Can I go tommorow and get a vaccine? No matter, I'd be one of the only people left alive, so whats the point.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281.../jst90000.html

Acording to JAMA smallpox would wipe out 30% of the unvacinated population. I think the US with diluting would have enough vacine for 75 Million people- Obviously not enough to vacinate the entire population.

Anyone under 25 more than likely has not been vacinated.

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Originally posted by johnie

also the text of 3 of the letters with Anthrax text(released from the FBI today):

I have this Anthrax.
You Can Not Stop Me.
Start Taking Antibiotics Now.
Death to Isreal.
Death to the USA.
Allah is great

or something close to that...

The letters were dated Sept 11 and contained weapons grade Anthrax.

Also a letter mailed from Miami to Argentina was also found to be contaminated with Anthrax.

- Basically an individual or group is doing the unethinkable in a lot of peoples minds- Waging a War of Bio-Terrorism. These people need to be rooted out and brought imediatly to justice. If it is state sponsered, which it more than likely is, considering the Anthrax is weapon grade, we need to take firm decisive action against that state.

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Yea that could be an obvious pinpoint to evidence that the bio-terrorists are Muslims, but it could also be anyone else, who hates muslims, and wants to make it appear that muslims are still terrorizing U.S. soil, so that everyone fears Muslim Americans. So I dont think the content of that message yeilds anything credible as to who is doing this.

This is a very tricky case, because its extremely hard for the FBI to get enough evidence when your sending this stuff through the mail. I'd hate to think it was an American, but it very well could be. Though the Bush administration is slowing giving hints that this Anthrax scare is State Sponsered. But then again, is the U.S. government credible in this case? Or are they using propoganda?

If it is state sponsered, the quesition is why so restrained? Only 6 people have died, from it looks like a small batch of letters that were sent out around the same time, with various strains from various places. Im sure that a country like Iraq has large quantities of this bateria. Why wouldnt they send out 5000 letters instead of 20?

If they were sent out on Sept 11th, then that is scary. Because that means it must be Al Qaida, and that they had prepared the Anthraz ahead of time, knowing the WTC and Pentagon attacks were going to happen.

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Originally posted by Visionray

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Originally posted by johnie

also the text of 3 of the letters with Anthrax text(released from the FBI today):

I have this Anthrax.
You Can Not Stop Me.
Start Taking Antibiotics Now.
Death to Isreal.
Death to the USA.
Allah is great

or something close to that...

The letters were dated Sept 11 and contained weapons grade Anthrax.

Also a letter mailed from Miami to Argentina was also found to be contaminated with Anthrax.

- Basically an individual or group is doing the unethinkable in a lot of peoples minds- Waging a War of Bio-Terrorism. These people need to be rooted out and brought imediatly to justice. If it is state sponsered, which it more than likely is, considering the Anthrax is weapon grade, we need to take firm decisive action against that state.

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Yea that could be an obvious pinpoint to evidence that the bio-terrorists are Muslims, but it could also be anyone else, who hates muslims, and wants to make it appear that muslims are still terrorizing U.S. soil, so that everyone fears Muslim Americans. So I dont think the content of that message yeilds anything credible as to who is doing this.

This is a very tricky case, because its extremely hard for the FBI to get enough evidence when your sending this stuff through the mail. I'd hate to think it was an American, but it very well could be. Though the Bush administration is slowing giving hints that this Anthrax scare is State Sponsered. But then again, is the U.S. government credible in this case? Or are they using propoganda?

If it is state sponsered, the quesition is why so restrained? Only 6 people have died, from it looks like a small batch of letters that were sent out around the same time, with various strains from various places. Im sure that a country like Iraq has large quantities of this bateria. Why wouldnt they send out 5000 letters instead of 20?

If they were sent out on Sept 11th, then that is scary. Because that means it must be Al Qaida, and that they had prepared the Anthraz ahead of time, knowing the WTC and Pentagon attacks were going to happen.

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What they are hinting at is that Iraq supplied the anthrax-there is evidence that some of the hijackers met with Iraqi opertives before sept 11, also it is important to note that it is real hard to kill somone with Anthrax- which goes back to what I said about woring more about smallpox or other diseases.

Again there is no difenitive proof and it would probably take 10 or 20 years to difenitivly prove anything- look at the Uni-Bomber case.

If it's americans, i'm really happy that buch is pres., cuz I think a good ol' texas B-B-Q is called for.

What does everybody think we should do if it is the Al Qaida?

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Originally posted by killabry
If it's americans, i'm really happy that buch is pres., cuz I think a good ol' texas B-B-Q is called for.

What does everybody think we should do if it is the Al Qaida?

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move the good ol' texas B-B-Q overseas. :D

yep, I think what is going to happen is that the U.S. is going to crack down heavily on the U.S. Postal Service, just like it beefed up airline security. But its always to late, and the terrorists probably already have plans to attack in other ways where we are weak, where we least think possible.

It's really messed up because here we are..we've just been attacked..the media urges us go on about our daily lives..show the terrorists we're not afraid..then they turn around and basically hint to put on hazmat suits when we check the mail. It's just been really schizophrenic in these here United States. I'm tired of the news cuz it's all anthrax related..it's newsworthy, but it's almost as if the war in Afghanistan has become secondary ....less than that some days.

In case you were wondering?

http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281.../jst80027.html

This is JAMA's write up on Anthrax- It is more deadly 80%+ mortality rate on inhalation Anthrax vs 30% for smallpox but is harder to deploy and it isn't infectous as smallpox- a person who has smallpox is likely to infect 10 to 20 other people under normal circumstances.

Only 17 countries are known to have large quanities of Anthrax and only 2 countries Iraq and Russia have admited to weaponizing it- although many terrorist groups are known to have a supply of Anthrax.

I would say that with that info and the Fact that the Anthrax found was Weapon grade it is real easy to narrow down who is doing this- In otherwords it is more than likely Iraq, Russia, or a terrorist group- although I have few doubts that the US, Isreali, and UK military have Weapon grade Anthrax- however none of them have the motive and Russia simularly doesn't have a Motive so that Narrows it down to Iraq and terrorist orginizations who both have strong motive.

That along with the contents of the note, Threats of retalition by leaders of Al-Quida, The Fact that they already proved they have no concern of killing inocent civilians when they ran airplanes into the WTC, and there is evidence that Iraqi opertives met with some of the hijakers are very daming to Al-Quida and Iraq.

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Originally posted by dazedandconfused
It's really messed up because here we are..we've just been attacked..the media urges us go on about our daily lives..show the terrorists we're not afraid..then they turn around and basically hint to put on hazmat suits when we check the mail. It's just been really schizophrenic in these here United States. I'm tired of the news cuz it's all anthrax related..it's newsworthy, but it's almost as if the war in Afghanistan has become secondary ....less than that some days.

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The Anthrax is more important becuase a group or country is still attacking the US and although they have good gueses who is doing this they don't know who exactly is doing this and if they are going to continue doing it.

3 Deaths, 18 confirmed cases of Anthrax infection, exposures at NBC, ABC, CBS, The Senate Majority Leaders office, Gov Pataki's office, The White House mail Sorting facility, the AMI Building in Florida, the NY times, The US embasys in Kenya, The US Embasys in Argintina, the US embasies in Naroubi, and several post offices. This is several 100 people exposed to Anthrax.

This is very newsworthy and is a reason for concern... Also if it is proven that Al-Quida, The Taliban, or Iraq had a part in it it further justifies Military action against these orginizations and States.

However is doing this has declared a war on Humanity. See what happens if the Anthrax mutates and becomes infectious? What about Small Pox. Biological weapons are bad- very very bad and could potentially wipe out large portions of the earths population considering how mobile the population is today. Biological weapons cannot be set to target a military target and once released have a possibility of turning on the whole world.

This is why it is getting press over the war in Afghanistan.

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Originally posted by killabry

What does everybody think we should do if it is the Al Qaida?

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ummm, we could bomb them?

i wonder if it is external terrorists, this just doesn't seem to make sense that way. I would say they are rightly the prime suspects but i wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's an internal attack by a crazed individual... anthrax can be gotten hold of in the states if you're in the right job.

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Originally posted by aversion

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Originally posted by killabry

What does everybody think we should do if it is the Al Qaida?

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ummm, we could bomb them?

i wonder if it is external terrorists, this just doesn't seem to make sense that way. I would say they are rightly the prime suspects but i wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's an internal attack by a crazed individual... anthrax can be gotten hold of in the states if you're in the right job.

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I agree, but hope it isn't an internal group. I'm sure they mark US stocks of Anthrax with genetic markers. I'm also pretty sure that they could probably tell about where it was weaponized- I know the US govt is not fully disclosing everthing it knows about the Anthrax.

I'm actually proud that most americans have not gone wild with speculation, allowed mob rule to take over, and above all... have not just panicked. As an american that actually saw firsthand one of the hijacked planes hit it's target I was in just outside of DC that morning I could see where panic could definitely settle in, and lead to social entropy.

and if it's some internal group - Americans hurting Americans, oh boy, they will feel it...

but... there is a part of me...straight angry. I mean... Anthrax is a serious, and now, actual threat that is ongoing. And no answers other than 3 dead, 18 cases, and places where the contagion was found.

argh... part of me is bothered that we don't have answers already.

but then again, part of me really wants it all to make sense. or stop. either way, doesn't look like I will be getting what I want... :rolleyes:

This link contains a link to an image of the three letters http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/condi...rax/index.html

the number of postal workers believed to be exposed is now beleved to be over 1,000 and 2 more people are being treated for what they believe is Inhaltion Anthrax.

Unfortunatly they knew what they were doing by sending it by the US Mail- as it is almost untraceble.

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Originally posted by johnie

I agree, but hope it isn't an internal group. I'm sure they mark US stocks of Anthrax with genetic markers. I'm also pretty sure that they could probably tell about where it was weaponized- I know the US govt is not fully disclosing everthing it knows about the Anthrax.

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as far as i know none of the anthrax found so far has been weaponised, which means it could have come from anywhere, any american vet in the cattle industry could probably get hold of it.

i hope it's not domestic also, that would really shake the foundations, maybe if it was a lone nut, but otherwise people in america are going to feel like they're being attacked form all sides...

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Originally posted by aversion

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Originally posted by johnie

I agree, but hope it isn't an internal group. I'm sure they mark US stocks of Anthrax with genetic markers. I'm also pretty sure that they could probably tell about where it was weaponized- I know the US govt is not fully disclosing everthing it knows about the Anthrax.

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as far as i know none of the anthrax found so far has been weaponised, which means it could have come from anywhere, any american vet in the cattle industry could probably get hold of it.

i hope it's not domestic also, that would really shake the foundations, maybe if it was a lone nut, but otherwise people in america are going to feel like they're being attacked form all sides...

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The letter to Daeschel, Tom Brokow, and the New York Post were all weaponized Anthrax.

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Originally posted by johnie

The letter to Daeschel, Tom Brokow, and the New York Post were all weaponized Anthrax.

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i think that's still being debated, last week Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, said the anthrax was not "weaponized."

the govt is saying that the anthrax is sophisticated, ground down into a fine powder etc, but is cautioning the media against using the word 'weaponized'

just read this on the bbc website:

"A 1993 report estimated that releasing a cloud of 100kg of spores upwind of Washington DC could cause between 130,000 and 3m deaths. "

yikes.

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Originally posted by aversion
just read this on the bbc website:

"A 1993 report estimated that releasing a cloud of 100kg of spores upwind of Washington DC could cause between 130,000 and 3m deaths. "

yikes.

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Studies based off of the 1995 Japan release of Anthrax point that it wouldn't be quite as lethal as that- It still wouldn't be good if they would do that. Fact is they aren't entirely sure what the results of using anthrax on a wide population would be... Its never been used on a large population before.


6 postal workers have been hospitalized for anthrax... It was reported in the news that the both the srain of the anthrax and the cut indicates that it is weapon grade- at least that's the story I've been hearing on the evening news and NPR.

Regardless of what you call it it is obvious that you would not have to open the package in order to contract the Anthrax as 2 postal workers have already died from it and 6 are hospitalized.