-Caveat Lector- http://www.news-press.com/news/today/010310anthrax.html Anthrax hoax becomes copycat trend First threat hit area last November By MIKE NEMETH [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anthrax. The word's frightening. The bold words go here: Lisa Fulton, left, and Ruth Savage, workers at Cameron British Foods, make Shepard Pies in the north Cape Coral facility. Things are back to normal after the company was the target of an anthrax hoax last November. Sounds like a Middle Eastern chemical weapon utilized by wild-eyed fanatics. Could be something out of a Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy thriller. It's leaving the old bomb scare in the dust. "Over the past few years, there have been between 400 and 500 biochemical threats made in notes and letters," said Brian Kensel, a special agent with the FBI in Tampa. "And every single one of them has been a hoax." For bad jokes, they sure cause a commotion. Southwest Florida learned firsthand Nov. 24, the day Bonnie Cameron of Cameron's British Foods in Cape Coral opened a package, and black powder spilled over her. Her son found a note inside as his mother went to wash up. "Anthrax." "When we first opened it, your first instinct is, 'This is a bunch of bull,' " said Bonnie's husband, Don Cameron. "But then there's the seriousness of, 'What if?' That's where the panic began." The hoax sent 19 people to Cape Coral Hospital, shut down the Cape Coral Industrial Park, drew scores of emergency workers and threw the media into a frenzy. It was the first of four anthrax scares to hit Southwest Florida within about 100 days, including Friday's at Sanibel Harbor Resort. "Some people do it because they think it's funny," said Duane Dobbert, a criminal psychology professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. "Other people do it because they're flat-out disturbed." Anthrax is a disease usually found in animals in Third Word countries, where livestock are not vaccinated. People are rarely infected, but the disease can be fatal, causing severe damage to the respiratory system and brain if not treated promptly with antibiotics. Dobbert said the first in a series of anthrax threats to strike a community typically comes from someone seeking revenge against a particular person, business or industry. Those that follow usually are from copycats, who either have someone they want to harm or just want to cause a panic after learning of the hoax in newspapers or on TV. Perhaps that's what brought on subsequent threats in Southwest Florida. On Jan. 24 - two months after the Camerons' business was threatened - someone sent an envelope labeled "anthrax" and containing white powder to OSI Collection Services in Fort Myers. The powder later was identified as talc. Four employees were forced to disrobe in a tent in breezy 60-degree weather and take a decontamination shower before being taken to the hospital. On Feb. 6, Evelyn Crosby, owner of Stonecutter's Jewelry in Cape Coral, found an envelope in her mailbox labeled anthrax. The word was misspelled. She did not open it. Kensel said the media tend to perpetuate anthrax hoaxes by covering them. "Tampa media have gotten together and drawn newsroom guidelines to parallel bomb threats, and we've had very few incidents in this area," Kensel said. "Orlando has covered them extensively, and in one week, we had 14 from one source." Media culpability or not, people are choosing to use the anthrax threat these days, leaving behind old hoax standbys like bomb threats or smallpox. "It's the poison of choice," Dobbert said. "I suspect it's because the word is frightening. It's very unknown to most people." The Gulf War in 1991 made anthrax part of our vernacular. "There were widespread reports that Iraq had a viable biological warfare program," said Kevin Briggs of Denver, Colo., a member of the American Civil Defense Association's board of directors. "The military said this is a very real weapon in our time." In 1993, the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment estimated that if 100 kilograms of anthrax spores were released into the air in Washington, D.C., it would kill between 130,000 and 3 million people, according to the Web site for the Journal of the American Medical Association. "The thing about anthrax is it's very subtle," Briggs said. "You wouldn't be able to see or smell or know it's happening unless you had huge amounts of powder." Before the Gulf War, Dobbert said, a person fired from his or her job might seek revenge by calling the IRS and reporting illegal activities by the target firm, or by calling in a bomb threat, especially in the days before calls could be traced. "Stuff a little talcum powder in an envelope, attach a little love note, and it shuts down operations for a day," added Briggs. While no one here has released biohazards, it has happened elsewhere. In 1995, a terrorist group in Japan, the Aum Shinrikyo, released sarin in Tokyo's subway system. The Journal of the American Medical Association says Aum Shinrikyo also dispersed aerosols of anthrax and botulism in Tokyo at least eight times. No one ever got sick from it. The Soviet Union wasn't so lucky in 1979 when a biological weapons plant in Sverdlovk leaked anthrax, infecting 79 people and killing 68 of them, according to the journal. The attacks in Japan, as well as more mention of anthrax in movies and on the Internet, also fuel hoaxes, Kensel said. A search using "anthrax" on the popular search engine Yahoo! yielded 50,800 Web page matches. For all the hype, nobody's actually sending the real bacterium in this country. "It's hard to get a hold of, and it's personally dangerous to handle," Dobbert said. "And the people who do this are more apt to do things from a distance - they are empowered by distance. They don't have the courage to come in the front door and say, 'Why did you fire me?' " If someone wanted to send anthrax in the United States, the terrorist might travel to a foreign country where the disease is common and bring back a sample, Briggs said. Or, if the person is part of a state-sponsored terrorist group, he might get a sample of the disease from a state-run biological warfare plant. It also is possible to find anthrax here in the States, but the process would be daunting. "There are anthrax spores throughout the country, and a knowledgeable person with a lot of time could culture it out of soil samples," Briggs said. "But that is not so easy. It would take a pretty smart guy, and he would have to have a lot of medical expertise." In the United States, no one has died from anthrax since at least 1978, according to the Centers for Disease Control, although its statistics are only as current as 1998. While Dobbert agreed that media stories about anthrax trigger copycat hoaxes, he said the press should continue covering them. "It alerts general society of the potential danger," Dobbert said. "I think a lot of people in Fort Myers are more cognizant of it." ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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