"What's crucial is what Los Alamos [National Laboratory] tells us about the strain," says Jeanne Guillemin, sociologist at Boston College and author of "Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak." "We should then be able to know which country it came from."
Then again, she adds, isolating a country of origin isn't direct proof of terror. If the strain came from Iraq, for instance, that could simply mean that someone accidentally brought the bacteria over on the fibers of a rug. Guillemin points out that America's scant experience with accidental anthrax infections reveals a pattern of almost unbelievable coincidence: a woman getting spores off her bongo drums in one case; a football player hitting the ground and inhaling some soil in the other.
"My first guess is that it settled out of the air," she says. "It would be strange if there weren't spores elsewhere in the office."
Eric Croddy, a biological weapons expert and senior research associate at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Washington, shares Leitenberg's reluctance to cry bioterror.
"I tend to agree with Milton," he says. "He's been watching these things for many years."
Still, Croddy acknowledges, parts of the case don't add up yet. Croddy, for instance, thinks the victim inhaled the anthrax.
"It seems fairly clear that it was inhalation anthrax," he says. "And a carcass [a common mode of natural anthrax transmission] is unlikely to generate aerosols."
Bruce Clements, associate director of St. Louis University's Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections, told the Associated Press he doesn't think the infections were part of a major attack.
"If you had a large release (of anthrax spores), you wouldn't see just one case," he says. "We would see quite a few cases."
But none of the experts could rule out the possibility that the anthrax infection was an experiment, a deliberate but small-scale release. It's famously difficult to grow a good strain of anthrax -- but could the America Media Inc. offices have been a guinea pig for something much larger? "It's possible someone was testing a solution," Croddy says.
Indeed, a few hours after Salon spoke to these experts, Newsweek reported that the FBI is looking for a former intern at the office, of Middle Eastern descent, who sent an ominous e-mail, hinting at "something that he left behind."
Nightmare scenarios notwithstanding, Leitenberg, Guillemin and Croddy bristle at the kind of attention Boca Raton is getting. Even if was deliberate, they say, it's small and contained, and biological weapons remain extremely difficult to manage. So as Attorney General John Ashcroft steps up the warnings and 300 employees from the infected Florida office building get tested for bacteria, at least a few experts remind us that a major anthrax attack is still unlikely.
"I'm leery of all the fear-mongering," Guillemin says. "America is very healthy. Anthrax goes for older people. Smallpox goes for the weak. We could afford to focus more on other risks."
About the writer
Chris Colin is the associate editor of the Life and People sections at Salon.
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