Florida's eerie anthrax scare

Biowarfare experts say the nation shouldn't worry that two men -- and now possibly a woman -- tested positive for exposure to the mysterious bacteria, but panic is proving contagious.

By Chris Colin

Oct. 9, 2001 | It's still too soon to know what happened in Boca Raton, Fla., where one man has died of anthrax and a co-worker was found with traces of the deadly bacteria in his nose. Although the FBI took over the investigation, sealing off the office building where the men worked and where additional spores of Bacillus anthracis were recently detected, some of America's most notable anthrax and biowarfare experts tell us we still don't have reason to worry.

Certainly the story took a strange turn Monday, when Ernesto Blanco, a 73-year-old mailroom worker at American Media -- which owns the National Enquirer, the Star, the Globe, News of the World and other papers -- was found to have been exposed to anthrax. Just last week, Bob Stevens, a Sun photo editor, died from the disease. And the New York Post reported Tuesday that David Pecker, president of American Media, claims a third employee from the same office building has tested positive for anthrax exposure. Anxious American Media workers were issued 15-day supplies of Cipro, the antibiotic most effective against anthrax.

But biowarfare experts say there's no evidence the outbreak was a result of terrorism. "The United States government deserves this panic -- the public has been uninformed," says Milton Leitenberg, senior research fellow for the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. "But it's utter gibberish what [former Secretary of Defense] William Cohen has been saying for years [about imminent biological terror attacks]." Anthrax remains hard to grow, and hard to spread, notes Leitenberg, who has spent the last 35 years studying chemical and biological warfare in his arms control work at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and Center for International Studies' Peace Studies Program at Cornell University.

Last year he wrote a paper, "An Assessment of the Biological Weapons Threat to the United States," attempting to discredit mounting fears of an imminent biological attack on U.S. soil. Leitenberg argues what we've been hearing steadily but quietly for years: Biowarfare is hard to pull off. Therefore the appearance of anthrax in Florida, he now says, should be approached skeptically.

"The first case [in Boca Raton] began with meningeal symptoms, not shock," Leitenberg says. This would likely indicate intestinal, rather than inhalation, anthrax. Intestinal anthrax generally signals a natural infection, as opposed to a deliberate one.

Stevens' autopsy could answer some questions, he notes. "They're also going to look for lesions in his gut and ... between the lungs," Leitenberg says. Lesions in the gut would be further evidence of a natural infection.

In addition to the autopsy, an identification of the particular anthrax strain will answer many of our questions, Leitenberg says. Many different strains exist, and differ vastly in their toxicity; identifying the specifics about the bacteria found in Boca Raton could take us closer to finding out what happened.

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