Jon Roland
Anthrax omnipresent -- Don't panic
Thu Oct 18 13:16:36 2001


There are several things about Anthrax that need to be understood
in the current public discourse.

First, Anthrax is a common soil bacterium. Like the pollen grains
and mold spores that afflict hay fever sufferers, a few spores, or
at least fragments of dead ones, can probably be found almost
everywhere by sufficiently sensitive detection methods. Moreover,
Anthrax spores are not readily distinguishable from other common
bacterial spores, except by analyzing the protein signatures of a
sample, which is likely to detect the background of spores or spore
fragments that are ubiquitous in our natural environment,
especially in rural areas of temperate climate. Therefore, getting
a "positive" for such detection is not necessarily grounds for
alarm. Anthrax is only dangerous in sufficiently large dosages. It
takes at least 2500 spores of the most common, or Ames, variety of
Anthrax to cause the pulmonary form of the disease. Persons should
be cautioned against reporting the presence of Anthrax unless
either the density, spore size uniformity, or genetic virulence are
at a level that poses a threat. Otherwise, we will just panic one
another into political and economic meltdown without the terrorists
having to do anything.

The fact is that anyone can drop a pinch of dirt from a rural area
where livestock or deer abound into a envelope and have that test
positive, without presenting any real danger to anyone other than
that produced by their own fears. We can't allow ourselves to be
panicked by such pranks.

This scare may prove useful if it encourages us to mobilize and
become more vigilant, but not if we allow it to distract us from
our everyday pursuits. Unless or until a genetically-modified
variety of Anthrax is spread, the danger is small. The greater
threats could come from other diseases, like smallpox, some variety
of influenza, or perhaps a variety of HIV or Ebola-like virus made
more contagious. Presently only a few countries have the capability
of producing such diseases, but the security of some of those is
not at tight as it should be. Sooner or later it is likely that
some individual or group will find a way to produce and release
such diseases. We need to have tools that will enable us to meet
such threats, and that mostly requires more research and
development, which needs to commence long before the threat appears
in order to yield countermeasures in time to be useful.

--Jon

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