Word: bacteria
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...rattled lawmakers launched an investigation into U.S. preparedness. They found two drugs were considered feasible treatments for anthrax: Penicillin and doxycycline. And they found problems with both. Scientists fear that introducing massive amounts of penicillin into the general population could hasten the creation of mutant penicillin-resistant strains of bacteria. Likewise, there was some evidence that terrorists had engineered strains of the anthrax bacteria resistant to both penicillin and doxycylcines. There was another option, lawmakers were told: Cipro...
...sure to raise the specter of a bioterrorist attack (see story below). Last week there were two such reports: an anthrax death in Florida and a cluster of cases of a virulent hemorrhagic fever along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Easy to forget but worth remembering is the fact that bacteria and viruses, even unconventional ones, do occasionally sweep through human hosts...
...bacteria responsible for anthrax, for one, nestle in soil and animals for years, sometimes even decades. Over the past century, 18 Americans have fatally inhaled anthrax spores. The victims include a San Francisco woman who played bongo drums made from infected skins, and gardeners who handled fertilizer made with ground bone from infected animals...
...bacteria, he said, “represent the black hole of biodiversity...
...disseminated - most likely as a slurry, which is a liquid, or possibly as a powder. Either way the spores would be imperceptible, because in order to be used as a weapon, the particles have to be microscopic in size. Over a period of hours, sunlight would kill the bacteria, so the danger of infection starts to fade over time...