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There's stuff accumulating up there for a long time—most of it is black, which is good New York City soot.
—U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard, on the possibility of anthrax in the ceilings of the U.N. building in New York
A New Jersey postal worker yesterday was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax and new anthrax spores were discovered at locations in Washington, according to reports...Full Story
The anthrax incidents along the East Coast are likely the work of one or more domestic extremists (see GSN, Oct. 25) who have no link to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda organization, government officials said yesterday...Full Story
Bush administration efforts to ease Russian concerns over U.S. missile defense plans are “bearing fruit,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in an interview Saturday...Full Story
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U.N. special representative Lakhdar Brahimi today began talks with officials in Pakistan as he attempts to arrive at a regional consensus on how to govern Afghanistan if and when the country's ruling Taliban, under attack by the United States for harboring suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, falls from power.
According to a senior diplomat cited by Reuters, Brahimi met today with Pakistani officials including Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar, and is slated to speak this week with President Pervez Musharraf and intelligence chief Ehsanul Haq. Brahimi, who was reappointed this month by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, is also expected to meet with Afghans, Western diplomats and Organization of the Islamic Conference Secretary General Abdelouhed Belkeziz during his stay in Pakistan (Jack Redden, Reuters/Yahoo! News, Oct. 29).
In an interview published Friday in Le Monde, Brahimi reiterated his desire for an Afghan-generated solution. His goal during this week's trip, he said, is to "speak to the Afghans as well as to the neighboring countries, beginning with Pakistan and Iran, to explore with them what must be done. I must emphasize that it is impossible to find the solution for Afghanistan's future in Manhattan; the interested parties must participate in its formation."
"As far as sending blue helmets goes," Brahimi said when asked about U.N. peacekeepers, "I am willing to leave all options on the table, but there has certainly been no decision made in this regard by the U.N. ... In order for a force to be deployed, be it from the U.N. or not, the agreement of all the parties must come first. As long as there is no agreement -- and there is none -- one cannot speak of a military force."
"I hear people saying, 'When is Brahimi going to form a government in Afghanistan?'" he added. "It is out of the question for me to form anything at all; it is the Afghans who will do that" (Afsane Bassir Pour, Le Monde, Oct. 26, UN Wire translation).
"I am glad he has been very skeptical because anybody who knows Afghanistan should be very cautious about imposing any foreign force," said OIC Afghanistan head Khalil Ibrahim Said. "If it is imposed or only one side needs the peacekeeping force, then I don't think the peacekeeping force will be very effective."
Brahimi met yesterday with U.N. aid staff. Accompanied by Annan's other Afghanistan envoy, Francesc Vendrell, he will go to Tehran Friday (Redden, Reuters/Yahoo! News). Later, he is slated to visit Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (Michael Christie, Reuters, Oct. 29).
Sattar said this weekend that the United Nations should allow moderate Taliban members to participate in the future government. Preventing Kabul from degenerating into chaos, he said, is vital. "That is why expeditious decisions by the U.N. are very important. If a credible political alternative emerges on the horizon, then the commanders may themselves begin to think about changing sides," he said (Thornhill/Bokhari, Financial Times, Oct. 29).
Swiss Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss said yesterday that the United Nations has a three-part role to play in the current global crisis: coordinating aid to Afghan civilians, enabling the international community to organize against terrorism and preparing a political transition in Afghanistan (Agence France-Presse/Cyberpresse.ca, Oct. 28, UN Wire translation). Calling for the Taliban to be ousted, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said yesterday that a temporary government could be placed "for a certain time under the aegis of the U.N" (AFP II/Cyberpresse.ca, Oct. 28, UN Wire translation). Also speaking yesterday, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, fresh from talks with Musharraf, said the Netherlands will work for a stable government in Afghanistan (Associated Press of Pakistan/Karachi Business Recorder, Oct. 29).
The United Nations can "act in trust for Afghans and the Afghan state," Afghanistan expert Paula Newberg wrote in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. "The U.N. knows how difficult it is to establish (or re-establish) the moral authority of a state. Its models for reconstruction and development, however unevenly executed, offer lessons for Afghanistan," Newberg said. She added that the world body's experience in related situations -- in Kosovo and the Middle East, for example -- have taught it "the critical importance of resolving social and political conflicts before they balloon out of control" (Paula Newberg, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 28).
The London Times reported Saturday that some in Washington are discussing plans for NATO troops to make up part of a post-Taliban peacekeeping force. The troops could help prevent a direct accession to power by the opposition Northern Alliance should Kabul, the capital, fall, the newspaper says (Maddox/Watson, London Times, Oct. 27).
U.N. human rights special rapporteur Kamal Hossain Friday accused the Taliban of atrocities, including assaults on women and children and torture, committed against civilians in the context of the regime's war against the Northern Alliance. In the village of Yakawlong, 130 civilians were killed, Hossain said in a new report. "Most of the killing at this stage seems to have been indiscriminate, in the sense that all adult males in areas searched were rounded up and taken for execution," he said (Priscilla Cheung, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Oct. 26).
Related reports have come out of the village of Arjal. When Taliban troops raided the village, they slit men's throats, then drugged and abducted girls as young as 10, who have not been heard from since, according to villagers who have taken refuge in Khojabhuddin, Afghanistan. The National Post cites one 7-year-old girl who, asked by her father to explain to a visitor how the Taliban treated her during six months of captivity, ran away and hid. The Taliban gave no reason for taking the girl, her father said (Stewart Bell, National Post, Oct. 29).
In related news, Human Rights Watch has written U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to denounce past atrocities by the Northern Alliance and to warn that ethnic cleansing -- in retaliation for Taliban massacres -- could follow opposition victories in Afghanistan. "We believe the United States should use its influence with the Northern Alliance to ensure that their forces do not engage in reprisal killings, indiscriminate shelling and other serious violations of international humanitarian law," the group said (Richard Ehrlich, Washington Times, Oct. 29).
Meanwhile, thousands of armed Pakistanis are headed into Afghanistan to join in the fight against the United States. "I am an old man. I consider myself lucky to go and to face the death of a martyr," said retired army officer Shah Wazir, who carried an 80-year-old French rifle (Riaz Khan, AP/Nando Times, Oct. 27). BBC Online reports that as many as 9,000 Pakistani militants massed at the border this weekend, but that Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef has told them to stay in Pakistan. "We have requested that, since there are only air assaults in Afghanistan, there is no need and great danger for them being there," Zaeef said. "If they are needed, then we will tell them" (BBC Online, Oct. 29).
Press Association reports that 1,000 Britons are fighting for the Taliban. "I've been in contact with 1,000 British Muslims who are going to the holy war. Hundreds have passed through here on their way," said Hassan Butt of Manchester, United Kingdom, who is now in Lahore, Pakistan (PA/Irish Times, Oct. 29).
Mark Fitzgerald, commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, said many Afghan tribes have defected from the Taliban to the opposition. Defections to date are "in the thousands," Fitzgerald said, adding that recent U.S. strikes on Taliban troops, rather than supply lines, have inspired some of the switches (Chris Tomlinson, AP/Nando Times, Oct. 27).
Relatives of opposition leader Abdul Haq, executed last week by the Taliban, received hundreds of well-wishers yesterday at their Peshawar, Pakistan, home. His family said it was unclear if his body would ever be returned for burial (David Fox, Reuters/Yahoo! News, Oct. 28). Robert McFarlane, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, yesterday said Haq's death demonstrates the "incompetence" of the CIA.
"He had been working for a long time to organize the operations of colleagues ready to undertake sabotage and attack operations against the Taliban, but we offered no help, and he was captured," McFarlane said of Haq. "The CIA has failed in catastrophic fashion, for a year now, to get closer to people who are ready to help us, who are angry at the Taliban and who even today could be recruited and tell our soldiers where to aim" (AFP/La Tribune, Oct. 29, UN Wire translation).
Hamid Karzai, another opposition leader who traveled to Afghanistan to stir up anti-Taliban action, is thought to be in southern Afghanistan and could be in danger himself, the New York Times reported yesterday (Jane Perlez, New York Times, Oct. 28). Mir Hamed Jaafari, another anti-Taliban figure, is living in Iran under the protection of relatives armed with knives and has asked the United Nations for asylum, the Los Angeles Times reports (Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 29). And according to AFP, Mohamed Zaman, an opposition figure exiled in Pakistan, is calling for "the support of the international community, military and financial support, to go into Afghanistan and begin an organized movement against the Taliban" (AFP/La Tribune, Oct. 29, UN Wire translation).
As U.S.-led attacks against Afghanistan reached the three-week point yesterday, U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that a halt in strikes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins near the middle of next month, is "being considered," but that "if you look at the history of warfare in Islamic countries ... there have not been pauses during Ramadan" (Chris Fontaine, AP/Yahoo! News, Oct. 28).
Thirteen civilians in Kabul died yesterday in the U.S. strikes, the second group of civilian deaths in as many days. "I have lost all my family. I am finished," one woman said (Kathy Gannon, AP/Miami Herald, Oct. 29). Human Rights Watch said Friday that U.S. air strikes killed 23 civilians Oct. 21 in the village of Thori (HRW release, Oct. 26).
OIC chief Belkeziz said yesterday that his organization "always stands against civilian killings." Reiterating the organization's condemnation of the Sept.11 attacks on the United States, which left more than 5,000 dead, Belkeziz added, "The deaths and damages inflicted by the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan are causing considerable concern around the world" (Reuters/Karachi Business Recorder, Oct. 29).
The Saudi newspaper al-Bilad said in an editorial today that the strikes "have taken on grave destructive dimensions to reach the level of mass annihilation of civilians. ... The American eagle is no longer noble in its campaign after it missed its targets" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, Oct. 29).
Two U.N. mine-sniffing dogs were killed by a U.S. bomb that hit Kabul, the United Nations said Saturday (AP/Dallas Morning News, Oct. 27).
The upper house of the Japanese Parliament has passed legislation, already passed by the lower house, to allow the country's soldiers to participate in the U.S.-led campaign. The troops will be able to take part in operations but not to engage in combat. Previous Japanese laws allowed no military activity unless the country was directly attacked or threatened (CNN.com, Oct. 29).
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The United States could support writing off Russian debt to free funds for Russia’s nonproliferation and nuclear security programs, according to the Washington Post. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell communicated that message to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in a telephone call on Thursday during which they discussed a range of nuclear issues, including reducing strategic nuclear forces and missile defenses (Glasser/Baker, Washington Post, Oct. 27).
Russia’s foreign debt was $12 billion in 2000, and this year debt payments would total $14 billion, according to USA and Canada Studies Institute Director Sergei Rogov in a Friday press conference in Moscow. “In 2003 we will have to pay $20 billion dollars. This is a very big amount of money, considering that the entire Russian federal budget, all the revenues last year were a little more than $30 billion,” Rogov said (Federal News Service transcript, Oct. 26).
B-2 stealth bombers could be used to root out terrorist bases in other countries besides Afghanistan in the future, said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday. Six of the aircraft flew one mission each during the first week of the bombing campaign against Afghanistan, but none have flown since then.
“My guess is that the role for the B-2 will not be over” Myers said, also commenting that “there are lots of places where there are folks harboring terrorists. There are lots of places where weapons of mass destruction are being developed … [The B-2s] could very easily be used tomorrow.”
Myers deferred to Air Force commanders on the question of whether the United States should build more B-2s (see GSN, Oct. 25). “A follow-on bomber is one of the things we’ll be looking at. Whether that’s more B-2s or something completely different is yet to be determined,” he said (Scott Canon, Kansas City Star, Oct. 27).
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A New Jersey postal worker yesterday was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax and new anthrax spores were discovered at locations in Washington, according to reports.
A New Jersey postal worker was confirmed today to have inhalation anthrax, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The New Jersey worker handled mail at the Hamilton processing center, near Trenton, New Jersey, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. Anthrax-tainted letters sent to NBC News and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) went through the Hamilton center (see GSN, Oct. 16). The postal worker is "clinically improving," said New Jersey Health Department spokeswoman Susan McClure.
Anthrax may be "stuck" on mail somewhere, which could lead to U.S. Postal Service facilities and machines being contaminated, said White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. "I have no reason to believe that our Postal Service is in jeopardy," Card said. He said, however, "there may be other letters that are stuck in the system” contaminating machinery in postal facilities that handle a large volume of mail, Card said (Katharine Seelye, New York Times, Oct. 29).
A third postal facility was shut down in New Jersey yesterday when trace amounts of anthrax were discovered there, according to officials. A mail bin at the Princeton Main Post Office tested positive for a "single colony" of anthrax spores, New Jersey health officials said. The test results may be a laboratory error or the bin could have come from the contaminated Hamilton center, said acting New Jersey Health Commissioner George DiFerdinando, adding that additional tests have begun.
The CDC had not recommended that workers at the Princeton facility go on antibiotics, DiFerdinando said. Antibiotics will be made available, however, to any worker who wants them, DiFerdinando said. U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) said anthrax testing should be conducted at all 46 postal facilities in New Jersey that receive mail from the Hamilton center (N.R. Kleinfield, New York Times, Oct. 28).
Investigators discovered anthrax spores at another location in Washington, bringing the total number of "hot spots" to 18, according to the New York Times (Seelye, New York Times). A mail processing center in Maryland for the U.S. Department of Justice tested positive for anthrax bacteria yesterday, officials said. Areas that handled the mail for the Justice Department's main building and for Attorney General John Ashcroft were affected, said a Justice Department spokeswoman. The Justice Department recommended antibiotics for workers in mailrooms that receive mail from the Maryland center.
Postal workers at the Brentwood Road mail facility, where the tainted letter to Senator Daschle was handled when it arrived in Washington, have now been given a 50-day supply of the antibiotic doxycycline, according to the Washington Post. Doxycycline is just as effective as the oft-prescribed Cipro and is less likely to cause side effects, health officials said. "Here we are, coming back for anther 50 days of doing the same thing," said William Davis, who works at the Brentwood facility. "Things have changed. Our lives have changed. You have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder" (Morello/Blum, Washington Post, Oct. 29).
Health officials in Washington have switched to doxycycline, instead of Cipro, as the antibiotic of choice against anthrax, according to CNN. A better balance is desired in the types of antibiotics used, CDC sources said. The use of a single antibiotic for long periods can increase resistance and doxycycline is cheaper and more plentiful than Cipro, according to CNN.
The U.S. Supreme Court will convene outside of its courtroom today because of anthrax testing, according to CNN. "The testing began in the Supreme Court building Friday night and continued this weekend. We don't have any results yet," said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, adding officials were unsure if the justices could meet in the building on Tuesday. Investigators ordered tests when anthrax spores were discovered on an air filter in an offsite warehouse and mail-handling facility for the Supreme Court, according to CNN.
This will be the first time the Court has convened outside of its courtroom since it was built in 1935. Instead, the justices will convene in the ceremonial courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hear oral arguments in two cases, according to CNN (CNN.com, Oct. 29).
Anthrax spores were found in three offices in the House of Representatives Longworth office building Friday, according to officials. The affected offices belonged to Representatives John Baldacci (D-Maine), Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), according to the Associated Press. "We are not concerned about a significant health risk," said Capitol Physician John Eisold (Alan Fram, Associated Press/RealCities.com, Oct. 29).
More anthrax spores were discovered in the House Ford office building yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times. The spores had contaminated the office of the bomb squad that had initially responded to the Daschle letter. The Ford, Longworth and Senate Dirksen office buildings remained closed today.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) criticized federal administrative officials for not providing more information on the potency of the anthrax sent to Senator Daschle. "In some officials' mind, the idea was if you give people information it will panic people," Gephardt said. "The opposite is true" (Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 29).
A white substance found dropping from the ceiling in the U.N. headquarters two weeks ago tested negative for anthrax, said a U.N. spokesman. "In response, initial culture tests were taken of the area, which were negative for anthrax bacteria," said U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard. "However, because some other tests results were inconclusive, fresh samples were taken last Sunday night and turned over to for testing to U.S. authorities," Eckhard said. U.N. workers who had been near the substance were put on antibiotics as a precautionary measure, Eckhard said.
Asked about what the substance could be, Eckhard replied, "there's stuff accumulating up there for a long time—most of it is black, which is good New York City soot" (U.N. News Service, Oct. 26).
While the cause of the anthrax incidents along the East Coast is unknown, an outbreak of anthrax among cattle in Texas may be traced back to Old West cattle drives, according to ranchers and state officials. During cattle drives on legendary trails such as the Chisholm Trail, diseased cattle were simply abandoned and the carcasses left to rot, which in turn released anthrax spores into the soil, epidemiologists said. “If you follow those trials, that’s where you’ll find anthrax outbreaks today,” said Texas Department of Health Epidemiologist Julie Rawlings.
“The spores have a hard coating, resistant to desiccation, even resistant to some disinfectants,” said Texas Animal Health Commission State Epidemiologist Terry Conger. “They literally seed the ground, then migrate back up again in certain weather conditions,” Conger said.
More than 1,600 animals have died of anthrax in Texas over the summer, according to officials, making it the worst outbreak since 1987. “We’ve had a wide variety of livestock affected this year, including sheep, cattle, goats, horses, three buffalo and even one llama,” Conger said. There have been no fatalities attributed to the anthrax, however, and only one man contracted the skin form of the disease. The man contracted skin anthrax after skinning an infected buffalo. Another man was believed to have been infected, but recovered before he could be tested, Conger said.
“There has been anthrax around for as long as there have been people and animals, all the way back to the Bible,” Conger said. “We’ve just learned to live with it” (Ross Milloy, New York Times, Oct. 29).
Following today’s announcement that a New Jersey postal worker was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax, 13 people have been diagnosed with the anthrax infection since the first case was announced in Florida (see GSN, Oct. 5), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
| | Deaths (From inhalation anthrax) | Inhalation Anthrax Infections | Skin Anthrax Infections | | Florida (Discovered in workers at American Media Inc.building) | 1 | 1 | 0 | | New Jersey (Discovered in workers at mail-processing center in Trenton ) | 0 | 1 | 2 | | New York (Discovered in workers at NBC and CBS News and child of ABC News producer) | 0 | 0 | 3 | | Washington (Discovered in workers at Brentwood Road mail processing center and State Department offsite mail facility) | 2 | 3 | 0 | | Total | 3 | 5 | 5 |
(CDC release, Oct. 28)
The anthrax incidents along the East Coast are likely the work of one or more domestic extremists (see GSN, Oct. 25) who have no link to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda organization, government officials said yesterday.
None of the 60 to 80 threat reports collected daily by U.S. intelligence has connected the anthrax-tainted envelopes to al-Qaeda or other known terrorist groups, and the evidence taken from samples of the anthrax spores show no link to a foreign government or laboratory, officials said. “Everything seems to lean towards a domestic source,” said a senior official. “Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation.”
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are looking at other possible suspects, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic terrorists, according to the Washington Post. The group Aryan Action says on its website “Either you’re fighting with the Jews against al-Qaeda, or you support al-Qaeda fighting against the Jews,” according to the Post. U.S. extremist groups echo the anti-Israel messages in the anthrax letters, said Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Director Abraham Cooper. Neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists, united in their hatred of Jews, attended a meeting in Beirut this year, Cooper said. “Some extremists are now globalized,” Cooper said.
The recently reported case of a U.S. State Department mail handler who contracted inhalation anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 26) has persuaded many officials that more than one anthrax-tainted letter has been sent to Washington, federal health officials said yesterday. The “working hypothesis would be that this is not cross-contamination,” said Centers for Disease Control Director Jeffrey Koplan. “There is not enough infectious material from cross-contamination to do that,” Koplan said. There is a theoretical possibility that a few spores picked up by an envelope might cause a skin anthrax infection, but a case of inhalation anthrax “is highly unlikely,” said William Patrick, former head of the U.S. biological warfare program.
Ongoing searches of undelivered mail to government buildings have failed to find any other anthrax-tainted letters, which may mean the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is the only source of anthrax, according to FBI officials. “This envelope, Daschle’s envelope, is not watertight or airtight or anything like that,” a law enforcement official said. “It’s porous. At [a pore size of] one or two microns, there’s plenty of room for the spores to escape.”
“Nobody believes the anthrax scare we are going through is” the next wave of terrorism, a senior official said. “There is no intelligence on it and it does not fit any [al-Qaeda] pattern” (Woodward/Eggen, Washington Post, Oct. 27).
Anthrax spores found in the Daschle letter resemble electron microscope photographs of spores found by U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, government scientists said. The process used to produce such spores, however, was known to several countries other than Iraq and to experts in microbiology, U.S. investigators said.
One of the main similarities between the spores in the Daschle letter and the Iraqi spores is their coating (see GSN, Oct. 25). The Daschle letter spores were surrounded by a brown, powdery agent designed to make the spores dry and fluffy, so any motion would send them into the air to be inhaled, according to the Wall Street Journal. Iraq experimented with several spore coating agents, including a fine silica powder and bentonite, a porous, chocolate-colored clay, according to former U.N. weapons inspectors.
Laboratory tests have not shown the presence of bentonite on samples taken from the Daschle letter spores, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, and added that further tests are ongoing. The materials being studied by investigators “may have additives,” said White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, but investigators were having difficulty identifying them because there were only two “very small samples” to analyze.
The similarities between the coating of the Daschle letter spores and known Iraqi spores may not necessarily point to Iraq, said Patrick. Other nations and individuals could make it in small batches, said Patrick. “I believe all this anthrax is being made on a small scale, or else they would have attempted to hit bigger targets,” Patrick said (Fialka/Hamburger, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29). “Bentonite was used by the Iraqis in producing the anthrax that they produced,” said David Franz, former commander of the U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. “However, bentonite is found throughout the world. Bentonite is found in the United States. It’s found wherever there was ever an active volcano, probably,” Franz said (Bill Sammon, Washington Times, Oct. 29).
A team of genetic researchers plans to decode the entire genetic makeup of the anthrax used in the recent incidents, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Institute for Genomic Research will conduct the gene sequencing, with funding from the National Science Foundation. The effort is “basic research in the national interest,” said NSF Director Rita Colwell, and the DNA code could tell investigators whether the anthrax had been genetically modified.
Institute scientists will sequence DNA from an anthrax sample taken from Florida, where the first anthrax incidents surfaced. Two years prior to the anthrax incidents, institute researchers had started making a genetic reference map of the anthrax bacterium, using the “Ames” strain of the disease. The “Ames” strain is the same one believed to be used in the anthrax incidents in Florida, Washington and New York, according to the Bush administration.
Comparing the DNA sequenced from samples from the recent anthrax incidents with the genetic map could yield clues to help investigators, according to the Wall Street Journal. The DNA sequence of the incident strain would show if it had been genetically modified, said Colwell. The genetic code may also indicate if the incident strain had been culled from nature, or grown for long periods of time in a laboratory. Since genetic changes accumulate more quickly when bacteria are grown, the Florida sample may have signs of its handling, Colwell said.
“The fundamental question is how much variation is there in these strains that seem otherwise identical,” said Colwell. “That is a scientific question in addition to a service to the country” (Antonio Regalado, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29).
Washington health officials this weekend dropped Cipro and chose an antibiotic called doxycycline as the drug of choice to treat anthrax infections. The switch should lead to a better balance of antibiotics, since treating many people with a single antibiotic for a long time could lead to the spread of drug-resistant strains of anthrax, CNN reported yesterday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention originally treated people with ciprofloxacin, known by its brand-name Cipro. They recently began recommending that physicians treat anthrax patients with Cipro plus a mix of other antibiotics (see GSN, Oct. 26). Currently, state and federal health officials are distributing Cipro to more than 10,000 people to treat anthrax exposure. The strain of anthrax that has surfaced this month is susceptible to many antibiotics.
Although Cipro will still be used, the CDC hoped the official switch to doxycycline would boost the public’s confidence in other drugs (CNN.com, Oct. 28).
Health regulators in North Carolina cracked down on Friday against one physician who wrote a flood of online prescriptions for Cipro. The state’s medical board alleged that Michael Reiff Ross engaged in unprofessional conduct through “prescribing irregularities,” “fee splitting” and “assisting the unauthorized process of medicine.” Ross worked with one of the largest online Cipro suppliers, VirtualMedicalGroup of Morrisville, North Carolina (Julia Angwin, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29).
CDC officials plan to offer some of the military’s anthrax vaccine to lab technicians, bioterror investigators, decontamination personnel and other people on the front lines of the fight against anthrax terrorism. Only one company currently produces anthrax vaccine in the United States, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shut down the company’s manufacturing facility in 1998 (see GSN, Oct. 26).
A CDC committee that has been reviewing the vaccine’s prospects behind closed doors should announce its decision in two weeks or less (Laura Johannes, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29).
France has decided not to vaccinate its population or medical personnel against smallpox, Bernard Kouchner, France’s health minister announced Saturday. If a case of suspected smallpox appeared, France would immunize healthcare workers and other first responders, including those who received vaccinations before smallpox was eradicated, Kouchner added.
France has ordered 3 million vaccine doses from the drug company Aventis to supplement the current French stockpile of 5 million doses (Jean-Yves Nau, Le Monde/GSN translation, Oct. 28).
Several experts said people who received smallpox vaccinations before mass vaccinations ended—1972 in the United States—could still have some immunity against smallpox, contrary to some recent government reports, Slate reported. A study of a 1902-1903 smallpox epidemic in Liverpool, England, offers evidence to suggest vaccine immunity lasts for decades, said Frank Fenner of Australia’s John Curtin School of Medicine. The study found that 93 percent of people aged 50 and over who had received vaccinations in infancy survived the epidemic, while 50 percent of the same-aged population who had not received vaccinations died.
Fenner and other experts said they do not know how many people in the United States have immunity to smallpox. However, “everyone would agree that if you had a vaccination in your life, you’re much better off than if you hadn’t,” said Bernard Moss of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated immunity from vaccination lasts three to five years. About 40 percent of the U.S. population are 29 years old or younger and so have never received smallpox vaccinations, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (Jon Cohen, Slate, Oct. 28).
Bush administration representatives are scheduled to meet with Canadian officials this week to push for an alternative enforcement mechanism to the Biological Weapons Convention. The United States rejected a long-negotiated protocol in July, and last week a U.S. delegation met with European officials to discuss alternatives (see GSN, Oct. 23).
The U.S. proposal includes four measures: tightening export controls over bacteria, viruses, and toxins, including those that could be used for pharmaceutical research; toughening domestic laws to punish individuals who make or possess biological weapons; improving global disease surveillance; and creating a mechanism allowing the U.N. Security Council to order investigations of countries’ germ warfare capabilities.
“The Europeans are certainly not very satisfied” with the U.S. approach, said Barbara Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists, after speaking with senior European officials. The officials complained that the Australia Group, an informal group of nations that standardizes export controls (see GSN, Oct. 9), has already established the export controls sought by the Bush administration, Rosenberg said. She added the United Nations has historically been unsuccessful in stopping biological weapon programs in Russia and Iraq (Graeme Smith, Globe and Mail, Oct. 29).
Patricia Villone Garcia went home from the hospital anthrax-free on Friday. The U.S. media mistakenly reported last week that Villone Garcia was a Capitol Hill reporter who had been at the Hart Senate Office Building the day a letter containing anthrax spores was opened in Senator Thomas Daschle’s (D-S.D.) office who had become ill potentially with anthrax.
The Washington Post set the record straight Saturday. Villone Garcia does not have anthrax; she was sick with a bug of some sort and is feeling better. She was on Capitol Hill the day after the letter was opened in Daschle’s office but was never in the Hart building. She is a reporter for CTV News 76 in Prince George’s County, Maryland, but does not usually cover Capitol Hill events. Another false report said she was a dot-com worker.
Villone Garcia became ill while in Oregon after visiting Capitol Hill. When she returned to work in Washington last Monday, her employers suggested she undergo anthrax testing. She was tested the next day, and medical personnel suggested further tests after they realized she felt sick. Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, admitted her and ran tests. She was released Friday.
The Post said the misinformation came from Holy Cross spokesman Mike Hall, who said he told reporters Villone Garcia had been at the Hart building because other hospital personnel reported the information to him.
Villone Garcia said the medical personnel often seemed confused or misinformed about anthrax and how to react to a possible case, such as wearing masks and gloves, even though anthrax is not contagious.
“It’s definitely been interesting, to say the least,” she said about her experience (Steve Twomey, Washington Post, Oct. 27).
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Bush administration efforts to ease Russian concerns over U.S. missile defense plans are “bearing fruit,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in an interview Saturday.
“I think that the Russians are beginning to see that what we’ve said all along is true: that the near-term program for missile defense, which is really a testing and evaluation program, is not actually a threat to them,” Rice said.
“And I think that all the time that was spent in the consultations between [U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] and [Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov], and when the Russians came here, and we laid out to them what’s in the missile defense program, is bearing fruit,” she said. “I think they’ve gone back and crunched it and sort of looked at it with a calculated military eye and said ‘OK, the Americans are right. There isn’t a threat.”
Rice was the highest ranking official to date to suggest that Russia is dropping its long-held objections to the U.S. missile defense testing plans, according to the New York Times.
Other administration officials told the Times they were working on the assumption that Russia would agree to allow U.S. testing if President George W. Bush postponed any decision to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (Sanger/Shanker, New York Times, Oct. 28).
A complete abandonment of the treaty remained an administration goal, however, according to a senior Bush administration official who said a “mutual withdrawal” from the treaty could coincide with deep reductions in U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles.
“We have made very clear that we would prefer as an outcome joint withdrawal, but the president’s also made clear that if necessary we’re going to go it alone,” the official said.
“The treaty is … designed to prohibit exactly what we want to do, what we intend to do and what the president has decided that we will do … develop and deploy limited but effective defenses against the new threats that we face,” the official said (Jim Puzzanghera, San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 28).
Meaning of Test Postponement Questioned
Last week’s announcement by Rumsfeld that the Pentagon would not conduct tests of the Aegis radar (see GSN, Oct. 26) was curious considering that the tests had already been postponed on Oct. 5, said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pentagon spokesman Rick Lehner announced then that the tests would be delayed for technical reasons. So why the re-announcement?
Cirincione offered two possible explanations in an online column Friday. First, the White House may have ordered the announcement to improve the climate before next month’s Texas summit with Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin. “Spinning the test delay as [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty-related could send a signal of accommodation to the Russians,” Cirincione said.
Secondly, the Rumsfeld announcement could be an effort by Pentagon hard-liners to highlight how the ABM Treaty is preventing the United States from deploying an effective missile defense, Cirincione said.
The Aegis radar test, however, would have been irrelevant to U.S. national missile defense plans, Cirincione said. “There are no current plans to involve the Aegis cruisers and destroyers in any national missile defense system,” Cirincione said, bolstering his argument that the test delay was made only to try to get rid of the treaty (CEIP release, Oct. 26).
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At the conclusion of a two-day debate last week on efforts needed to improve sanctions implementation and monitoring, the U.N. Security Council heard broad support Thursday from several countries for an ongoing review process for U.N.-imposed sanctions.
Several speakers called for the creation of a monitoring body to not only enhance the effectiveness of sanctions but also to oversee their implementation, while other speakers supported the notion of targeted sanctions with a limited timeframe.
Representatives also briefed the council on three initiatives to improve the sanctions process: the "Bonn/Berlin process," which focuses on arms embargoes and travel-related sanctions, the "Interlaken process" which deals with basic legal and administrative requirements for national implementation of financial sanctions and the "Stockholm process" on effective monitoring of compliance with sanctions (U.N. Newservice, Oct. 25).
Ambassador Patricia Durant of Jamaica told the council that the United Nations should design sanctions to affect only the individuals whose behavior should change and avoid any negative impact on the civilian population in a country under sanctions. Sanctions should be closely monitored and periodically reviewed, she said, adding that the Interlaken and Bonn/Berlin processes combined with recommendations by the working group established by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan would provide useful tools to enhance sanctions.
Ambassador Jagdish Koonjul of Mauritius submitted to the council that sanctions in the last decade have not worked, adding that sanctions should avoid harmful consequences to civilians. Koonjul said the United Nations should establish a committee to monitor implementation of all council resolutions to improve sanctions' effectiveness and that sanctions should have time limits and be applied gradually.
Countries generally agree sanctions should remain a viable policy option, according to Ambassador James Cunningham of the United States, who said, "Sanctions provide us with an approach greater than persuasion, but less than the use of force, to employ the collective will of the international community to resolve conflict."
He said the United States has worked to avoid risk to civilians from sanctions, but sometimes governments, including Iraq and Afghanistan, abuse their people, he said. "Despite our best attempts, what can the council do when a dictatorial regime itself holds its own people hostage? What are we to think when a state or government denies its own people food, medicine and shelter -- items the international community is willing to provide to those most challenged?" Cunningham told the council. The United States would join other countries in discussions to find ways to improve implementation and monitoring of sanctions, he said (U.N. release, Oct. 25).
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