Several Firms Capitalize on Anthrax Scare
Scores of companies are turning America’s bioterror fears to their advantage, selling unproven or overpriced anthrax gear and driving up their stock prices with announcements for safety gadgets or testing kits.
Products for sale range from ordinary latex gloves, 40-cent masks and plastic goggles repackaged as $10 “terror response” kits to $40,000 mail-sanitizing machinery. The Federal Trade Commission and state consumer-protection officials say they are unable to investigate dozens of complaints because of a lack of staff.
“We’re asking the public to be extremely skeptical, particularly when they are buying things from companies they don’t know anything about,” said Rich Cleland, a senior attorney at the FTC, which polices advertising.
The companies have had a relatively open field because federal health officials have said little about what precautionary measures are appropriate.
“I’m not excusing it, but they probably have some other things on their minds,” said Dr. Clarence Peters, a former pathogen expert at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The CDC issued a recommendation Oct. 31 that office workers handling mail wear gloves and that those around electronic mail-sorters wear masks, following medical clearance for each worker and testing for a close fit.
The $10 mask-and-glove package is being sold as a “Mailroom Respiratory Kit for Biological Terrorism Response” by a small Long Beach company, Coast to Coast Safety Inc.
The key feature, said Coast to Coast President Martin Laursen, is the government-certified “respirator”--a nose-and-mouth mask like those worn on construction sites.
A sales manager for Coast to Coast’s mask manufacturer, Gerson Co. of Middleboro, Mass., said distributors are charged only 40 cents per mask. Laursen said his mark-up is modest. Business is brisk, he said, but “I don’t think we’re going to be millionaires.”
Laursen said that his company has sent 20,000 one-page faxes advertising the kits, mostly to Washington, New York and New Jersey.
The masks meet federal standards for keeping out 95% of even very small particles, including the size range of the most dangerous anthrax spores. If the masks were worn continuously, they would provide some protection, said Peters, now a University of Texas microbiologist.
Holly Chirico, vice president of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, said overpriced combination packages are common and that businesses could assemble the same items themselves.
Some package sellers “are preying on people’s fears,” Chirico said.
Also widespread are e-mail pitches for a variety of $100 devices that look like flashlights and are said to eliminate anthrax in mail or around the house with ultraviolet light.
One is the “Anthrax Exterminator.” The seller’s Web site, recently disabled, proclaimed that waving the battery-powered gizmo would end all “worries about anthrax lurking invisibly on mail or other surfaces you come into contact with every day at work, home, or when going out in public.”
The CDC and other authorities declined to comment on those or other claims. Independent scientists said that while it is true that ultraviolet rays are effective against biological agents, the devices themselves are not a good bet.
Among other problems, the rays won’t penetrate all envelopes, and the most dangerous spores don’t stay on surfaces. “The slightest breeze will lift them into the air,” said Steven Block, a Stanford University biophysicist and government biological warfare advisor. “These home remedies are just making a lot of money off scaring people.”
Other pitches are using Web pages filled with terms designed to grab the electronic attention of Internet search engines.
At security gear peddler https://www.N-B-C-warfare.com (N-B-C stands for nuclear-biological-chemical), the list of words includes “germ war, germ warfare, terrorism, war, gas masks, survival, surviving, sarin.”
Based in Cleveland, N-B-C offers mailroom protection systems from $512 to $40,000 on its Web site, which went up after Sept. 11. The company said recently it hasn’t sold any of the highest-end machinery, but has given price quotes to companies considering upgrading their existing equipment.
Before that, N-B-C’s parent specialized in tracking down debtors for banks and credit companies, said spokesman Edward Carson.
Small businesses and nervous citizens aren’t the only ones getting come-ons. Investors looking to make a buck are on the list, too.
Last week, Nasdaq halted trading in ESafetyWorld Inc., demanding more information about the company’s claims for a forthcoming $500 airtight container for opening suspicious mail.
By that time, ESafetyWorld’s shares had jumped from 62 cents to $3.18 before settling at $2.49. The Bohemia, N.Y., company lost $243,000 in its most recent fiscal year and has four full-time employees.
In a regulatory filing Monday, ESafetyWorld said that Nasdaq accused it of failing to get clearance for its news release on the MailSafe Containment Chamber and that it may be delisted from the exchange. ESafetyWorld officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
Also under media scrutiny is Vital Living Products Inc. of Matthews, N.C., a publicly traded maker of water purification tools. Last week, it said Ace Hardware stores and Meijer Inc. supermarkets planned to sell Vital’s soon-to-be-released testing kit for anthrax spores in water or the air.
Both retailers later said they had no such plans. Shares in Vital Living, which has a negative net worth, soared from 50 cents before the new product was announced to $2.03 and closed at 66 cents Friday after the company said an independent lab must still evaluate the kit.
While stock market watchdogs provide some checks on the claims of publicly traded companies, private firms can get away with much more.
And some of those operations are taking advantage of the lack of guidance from health officials. The CDC issued new recommendations last month on what employees should do if they find a suspicious package or envelope, generally encouraging them to put it down, leave the room and call for help.
The health agencies have had much less to say about the merits of testing or sterilization kits.
Until they do, said FTC attorney Cleland, the burden of showing the systems work lies with the merchants and independent experts.
“There’s no reason for consumers to give any credence to these claims,” Cleland said. “Unless somebody other than the person trying to sell me the device tells me it can work, I won’t buy it.”
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Consumers Beware
Remedies: Doctors caution public against unproven treatments. S1
