Doctors Say Third Anthrax Case Unlikely.

October 9, 2001 7:14 AM

Doctors Say Third Anthrax Case Unlikely. [The] case rang alarm bells because [the patient] told hospital officials he worked in a building in Fairfax, Virginia, that he believed was affiliated with American Media Inc, the company where the two other men infected with anthrax worked in Boca Raton, Florida. One of those victims, a photo editor for a supermarket tabloid, died on Friday.
posted by ryanshepard (10 comments total)

Funny how they say that the "public should not panic" and that "Anthrax is extremely rare in the United States". The fact that it IS rare and that we keep hearing about new cases is plenty reason to be concerned.
posted by rglasmann at 7:33 AM on October 9, 2001

Doctors Say Third Anthrax Case Unlikely.
posted by tranquileye at 7:35 AM on October 9, 2001

"The (final) results of the anthrax tests will not be available for 24 to 48 hours, but we all feel very confident that they're going to be negative,"

....So he probably doesn't have anthrax. Why was this posted?
posted by thewittyname at 7:37 AM on October 9, 2001

I think we should panic about the italics.
posted by websavvy at 7:37 AM on October 9, 2001

Well, it *is* instructive in showing how close to freaking out everyone is, no matter how many times the mediapeople say that things are "returning to normal."
posted by Mid at 7:44 AM on October 9, 2001

the media perpetuates panic by reporting information that is not fully accurate as if it were fact. The reporting of circumstantial evidence or things such as "they think it might be anthrax" provides no benefit to the general public except to stir up emotions.

The media has become one large editorial tabloid.

When was the last time you read an article which simply presented facts without any bias, and which fully represented the truth? I'm sure it's been years.

Take a highlighter to your newspaper or magazine, and mark anything that has ANY bias towards one viewpoint or another, and then look to see if it is marked as an editorial.

love the media!!
posted by presto at 8:02 AM on October 9, 2001

Spot on, presto. I can't believe how many articles are based on circumstantial evidence, or worse yet, opinion and are edited to read otherwise. Damned amazing. Journalism sucks for the most part in most channels. (Blogging is not that far behind either, as a lot of them simply put up this kind of post for circulation, eh hem).
posted by mmarcos at 8:13 AM on October 9, 2001

Well, this does say that health care is on alert for Anthrax, and given the florida cases that seems prudent. It seems though that we don't have great rapid assay tests for Anthrax, and part of determining if someone *has* it is to do that old fashioned thing of [ sample blood, culture, read the results some time after ] -- add to that, the diagnosis is hard to make. I have a [[self blog alert!]] list of anthrax resources I collected yesterday.
posted by artlung at 8:20 AM on October 9, 2001

Just a note. Ari Flicher just said that this particular case of Anthrax was in error, and not an actual case live on CNN.
posted by delmoi at 9:18 AM on October 9, 2001

cnn reports a third anthrax case has been confirmed. "details soon"

rebecca predicts: this will not be terrorist related. it's an opportunistic attack by a non-al Qaeda individual, prpbaly acting alone.
posted by rebeccablood at 5:47 PM on October 10, 2001