I was just wondering, if the Anthrax found in Florida is determined to be a terrorist act of ObL, why that particular office building?
Not knowing a lot about Anthrax this may be a really dumb question, but would it be possible to put Anthrax into the pages of popular magazines and have them shipped out all across the country? Would it still be effective? It seems like a fairly simple way to expose millions of people in short period of time.
Am I totally off the wall or could this really happen?
First off, don’t worry about catching anthrax from the Enquirer. The publishing office is not the printing plant. In fact, most nationally circulated publications are printed at several plants, to make it easier to deliver all over the place on the same day.
As for why that particular building, not to say it was an act of Bin Lada, but why not a nationally circulated publication. If your goal is to get your message out and intimidate an entire country, what better to attack than national symbols and media.
I suppose it would be theoretically possible to ship anthrax in the pages of a magazine but I don’t think it would be a good choice if you’re looking to cause widespread deaths.
First off it is inhaled anthrax that is deadly. You can also get it in a wound or eat it but both are far less effective (but still dangerous) in that form.
FWIW a report I saw said you had to inhale a fairly good dose of anthrax spores to come down with the disease. A spore here or there probably isn’t enough to get you. As mentioned getting spores on your hand would be of dubious value if my goal is to kill you. I doubt you’ll eat your paper and to inhale enough spores to infect you you’d have to sniff the paper so all in all it’s not an effective means of distribution.
In the case of the Enquirer office they didn’t actually print anything there so sending anthrax to that site is worthless if you are looking to ship it out in every paper.
To ship it out in every paper you’d have to somehow gain access to the printing line and sit there with tubs of anthrax spores and sprinkle them over the papers as they ran by. I would guess someone would have something to say about your being there before you got very far with your plans (I doubt you’d make it to the printing line).
Whatever the deal is with the Anthrax at the Enquirer offices I don’t think it was an attempt to poison the country with infected newspapers.
I’m thinking this may be proof of the difficulty in spreading anthrax. In the whole building, one person contracted the disease and two others were exposed to it but suffered no symptoms. You’d get better results with attacking the place with a pointed stick.
Thank God, considering I bought one yesterday. In fact, that is what got me wondering just how possible and effective it would be to spread anthrax through publications. Sounds pretty unlikely.
tabloids published by that company. The Enquirer et al had published some VERY insulting stories about ObL. The tabloids were promoting toilet paper printed with images of ObL.
>> get better results with attacking the place with a pointed stick
To make it more effective you could infect it with E. Coli by poking it in some toilet… I an see the headline: “Terrorist threatens entire plane with a sharpened pencil poked in a chunk of his own excrement which he carried aboard concealed in his own body.”
In fact, that is what got me wondering just how possible and effective it would be to spread anthrax through publications. Sounds pretty unlikely.