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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/10/04/anthrax.htm Man hospitalized in Florida with anthrax
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A businessman has been hospitalized in Florida with pulmonary anthrax, a highly lethal disease mentioned as a possible biological weapon. But U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said Thursday there is no evidence the case was a result of terrorism.
"This is an isolated case and it's not contagious," Thompson said at a White House news conference. He said such cases are "rare, very rare."
Anthrax has been developed by some countries as a possible biological weapon. But the disease can be contracted naturally; the bacterial spores can be found in soil and are often carried by livestock. Officials said the Florida victim is an avid outdoorsman.
Thompson said the most recent previous U.S. case of anthrax was earlier this year in Texas. But that case was not pulmonary anthrax — an especially lethal and rare form in which the disease settles in the lungs.
The 63-year-old Lantana, Fla., man, whose name was not released, checked into the hospital on Tuesday. Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Halth Department, said the case is "very likely" to be fatal.
The man had recently traveled to North Carolina and became ill shortly after he returned, Florida Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said. The incubation period for the disease can be 60 days.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI are investigating.
Fears that terrorists may have been planning an airborne chemical or biological attack were raised last month when it learned that a group of Middle Eastern men — including one of the hijackers in the attack on the World Trade Center — had been asking a lot of questions about a crop-duster at an airfield in Belle Glade, which is about 40 miles inland from Lantana.
Because of those fears, the government grounded all crop-dusters across the country for a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The men who visited the Belle Glade airfield had asked employees of a fertilizer company about the range of the airplane, how much it could haul in chemicals, how difficult it was to fly and how much fuel it could carry.
The Florida patient was initially believed to have meningitis, but X-rays and other testing showed that it was pulmonary anthrax, officials said. The disease is treated with antibiotics.
Anthrax is a spore-forming bacterium that is especially virulent if inhaled. The disease causes pneumonia. There is a vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease, but it is available only to the military now.
All forms are rare, but the most recent cases — including ones in Texas and North Dakota — have been so-called cutaneous cases resulting from handling animals. During the 20th century, only 18 cases of inhaled anthrax have been reported in the United States, the most recent in 1976.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that President Bush had been notified of the anthrax case by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
He said the Health and Human Services Department has been working on plans for years in case of an outbreak, and "a series of protections have been put into place."
