Word: anthrax
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...Staten Island, N.Y., hospital fearing they had been exposed on a ferry. "It was a mob mentality," a doctor said. Clinicians tried to reason with people, explaining that their odds of being hit by a car while running to the ER are far greater than their chances of contracting anthrax. "We've been testing a lot of Sweet'N Low, drywall dust, sugar and talcum powder," said Kathy Barton, chief of public affairs for Houston's department of health and human services. "When we think we get the public calmed down, something else cracks down in Washington or New York...
...Washington the consensus was that public-health officials were equipped to handle a couple of dozen cases of anthrax spread by envelope but not a couple of million spread by a crop duster. A 1993 report by the now-defunct Congressional Office of Technology Assessment showed that a broad dispersal of anthrax spores over a major city could cause 3 million casualties. Another report estimated that a smallpox release could kill 40 million. But Bush's budget this year allocated just $345 million for bioterrorism preparedness. Congress had passed legislation asking for $1.4 billion, and now that number is considered...
...break in the skin, a small, itchy bump appears. In some cases, a rash may develop. In another few days, the lesion fills up with fluid and develops into a painless ulcer 1 to 3 cm in diameter. Not long afterward, the lesion turns black, a hallmark of skin anthrax, as tissue begins...
...MAKES YOU SICK Once inside the body, anthrax bacteria emerge from their dormant spore phase and begin to reproduce and spew out toxins, which poison tissues and cause organs to fail. Inhaling spores is most likely to result in death because the germs burrow into lung tissue, where they come in close contact with lymph vessels. These serve as the body's liquid highway, transporting nutrients, debris--and bacterial toxins--throughout the body...
...MORE THAN CIPRO Despite public perception that Cipro is the ultimate-and only-treatment for anthrax, other antibiotics work equally well against the bacteria. Bayer, Cipro's maker, is simply the only company to conduct the additional testing (on animals) required to make the claim on its label. Last week the FDA fast-tracked approval for penicillin and doxycycline as well...