Anthrax Infection ‘Isolated Case,’ Say Authorities

A 63-year-old Florida man has been hospitalized with anthrax, a deadly and extremely rare disease that has also been harnessed for use as a germ weapon, state and federal officials said Thursday.

Though the man lives in Palm Beach County, temporary home to many of the Sept. 11 hijack suspects, officials stressed that there is no indication it is a case of bioterrorism.

“It appears that this is just an isolated case,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson told a White House news conference. “There is no evidence of terrorism.”

But with the nation on high alert and officials warning that more terrorist attacks are likely, it was none other than National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice who informed President Bush of the Florida man’s unusual illness. Thompson’s own appearance at the daily White House press briefing was also an evident attempt to inform and calm a jittery public.

Still, Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the possibility that the anthrax infection resulted from a terrorist act was “on the list” of hypotheses being investigated.

Thompson said the victim was believed to have inhaled an airborne spore of the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Only 18 cases of inhaled anthrax were reported in the United States in the 20th century, and none since 1976.

The rarity of the disease has prompted a large-scale investigation into the Florida case. The disease, however, is not contagious.

The Lantana, Fla., resident, who recently made a vacation trip to North Carolina, was hospitalized at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, said Tim O’Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Health Department. The man was vomiting and delirious and experiencing seizures, he said.

The Sun, a supermarket tabloid, identified the anthrax victim as one of its own employees, Bob Stevens, a photo editor. Thompson said he was of British descent. At JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, Fla., the patient was reported to be on a ventilator.

“He’s critically ill,” Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious disease specialist, told reporters.

O’Connor said the chances of the disease being fatal are “in all likelihood, 100%.”

Florida and federal officials, including from the FBI and the CDC, are trying to trace the origin of the disease, O’Connor said.

Up to six days can pass between the time a human comes in contact with the bacterium and the onset of symptoms. According to O’Connor, the victim, an avid outdoorsman, was on vacation in North Carolina on Sept. 28-30 and returned home Monday.

“We are trying to trace the restaurants he ate in, the people he came in contact with, the fur and skin he may have been in contact with, anything that might give us direction,” O’Connor said.

The anthrax bacterium can be inhaled as an airborne spore, absorbed through a cut or sore from infected soil or ingested from the tainted and improperly cooked meat of cattle, goats, sheep or bison.

Inhaled anthrax, the rarest kind, is almost always fatal. At first, the symptoms are not unlike those of a common cold, but deteriorate into severe breathing problems, shock and usually death.

At the White House briefing, Thompson said the victim was believed to have inhaled the spore.

“I want to make sure that everybody understands that anthrax is not contagious and is not communicable, which means it is not spread from person to person,” Thompson stressed.

At least 10 countries are believed to have experimented with anthrax as a potential weapon. A 1979 incident in the former Soviet Union, in which at least 68 people died of anthrax inhalation, is generally believed to have resulted from an accident at a bacteriological warfare factory.

An anthrax vaccine is licensed for use in humans and is considered to be more than 90% effective in preventing the disease but is currently only available to the military. In the event of a mass outbreak, Thompson said there are enough antibiotics on hand to treat 2 million victims for 60 days.

Fears that terrorists might be planning a chemical or biological attack in the U.S. arose when it was learned that Middle Eastern men, including one of the Sept. 11 suspects, had made inquiries about crop-dusting planes in Belle Glade, about 40 miles west of Lantana.

Many of the men believed to have crashed airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon also lived temporarily in Palm Beach County towns.

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Dahlburg reported from Miami and Slater from Chicago.