How do these bastards handle the letters without killing themselves?

If the letters just passing through the post office is enought to contaminate the sorting machines with inhalable anthrax, how the hell do these guys handle the letters without killing themselves? Are just gloves enough? Do they have to go to a mail box wearing gloves and a mask?

I could take this whole thing better if whoever sent these damn things out had to die to do it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I can’t believe they are bringing the mail system to a halt (almost). They want to close down the largest post office in Manhattan which handles something like 20 million pieces of mail a day, if I understand correctly. What are we going to do? What CAN we do?

DaLovin’ Dj

I’d imagine they’re vaccinated. There’s an anthrax vaccine that’s been given to members of the U.S. military, and is probably available from other sources as well.

They are probably wearing gloves and are on an aggressive antibiotic regimen.

I would imagine that anyone sophisticated enough to procure anthrax would also be sophisticated enough to get some protective gear and antibiotics too. Unless the person depositing the mail was planning to die, they were probably wearing latex or plastic gloves and possibly a mask when they went to the mailbox. Granted, someone wearing latex gloves and a mask might look suspicious to any observers. But it’s also possible that whoever did this went to the mailbox at some weird hour, like 3AM.

The U.S. Postal Service is planning to have sanitizing equipment set up to kill anthrax during mail processing. One of the first areas to get the electron beam machines will be Washington D.C., and I would presume New York, New Jersey, and Florida would also be high on the priority list:

http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_1027titan.htm

We know the hijackers were willing to die for their cause. Perhaps the Postal Terrorists are too.

I would tend to think that the Postal Terrorists are probably taking precautions. If they die, then someone is going to find out, unless they have confederates who are planning to dispose of their bodies without anyone knowing about it.

Difference is, the culprits know what they are handling.

The anthrax would probably stay mostly in the envelope if you didn’t jiggle it around. So you use protective gear when loading the envelope, you handle it gingerly when posting it, you don’t take deep breaths around it, you wear latex gloves, and you shower once it’s out of your hands.

You also don’t put it through a high speed mail sorter, which would fling spores everywhere.

Fewer postal workers would have become sick if they’d known what was coming through the mail and how to take steps to avoid catching it. Those are the steps that the culprits are taking.

ABC news reports a possible link between a suicide terrorist and the letters had been found, but no details. I guess if you knew you were going to die you wouldn’t care if you handled anthrax. The only problem is the time descepancy. It seems too long from Sept. 11 before they arrived at their destinations, unless they were mailed overseas and relayed through say a Mailboxes Etc. in New Jersey or New York with instructions to mail on a particular date. I’ve never used a mail drop. If you sent the letters in a package, would they then put them into the U.S. mail system and that’s when they would be postmarked? There’s a new case of inhalation Anthrax and she has no connection with the post office or a news agency. Maybe she got her mail at Mailboxes Etc. How long does it take to come down with symptoms?

I used to manage a MailBoxes Etc. in Washington DC. We would do just about anything the customer would ask as long as they pre-paid and the task wasn’t overtly illegal or dangerous. The terrorists could have set up an account with the instructions to mail a certain cache of letters on a certain day and it could easily be carried out. The postmark could come from the post office or from MBE. (MBE stores have their own postmarking equipment on account from the Post Office - just as they use UPS scales on account.)

If any of this crap turns out to be through the MBE I used to manage I will laugh my ass off.

As a side note: At certain times I cooperated with the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, BATF, and US Postal Inspecters.
Of all of these agencies, I was most impressed with the Secret Service and least impressed with Postal Inspectors (I think part of the training to be a Postal Inspector involves learning how to be as arrogent and rude as possible so that noone will ever want to help you ever.)

A deplorable commentary and certainly not in the great spirit of SDMB.

If U.S. mail workers can die from handling these contaminated envelopes, so could your former co-workers. No one deserves that fate.

One thing for sure is that they were not vaccinated. The current vaccine requires four booster shots and even then is not totally effective. Work is in progress for a better vaccine.

It’s possible to just use a vent hood, you know, sort of the bubble boy thing when handling such materials. It’s very simple to do.

I doubt the guy(s) doing the, ahem, mailings are in the same class as the “suicide bombers”. As BobT mentioned, when someone is infected with anthrax and it becomes known, they would certainly be investigated. As well, although there may be many lining up to sacrifice themselves for the “cause” by strapping on a bomb, they’re basically experiencing instant death. I wonder how many would want to die the slow, painful death of anthrax? Not many, I’m betting.

I would venture to say that they did not wear gloves.
They can grow these things in isolated area like in an air tight bag, so nothing can escape or in hoods as mention by others.

Once you place these in plastic bags, you can deliver it to mailboxes.

I would guess they will wash themselves afterwards.

They can also get antibiotics to prevent any problems. Remember you don’t need cipro to cure anthrax.

Anthrax is just a normal bacteria.

That also means that you can develop/breed bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

I remember seeing on tv news that they say it is impossible to create Anthrax that is non-treatable. That is BS. You can culture bacteria that is resistant to all available antibiotics for human consumption.

About the vaccine, the vaccine works.
The problem it is not wide spread is not only the fact that it takes such a long time with several shots, but also it is hard to produce and the licensed factory has a history of not being upto standard.

One thing people overlook is that very few resources is devoted to researching vaccine compare to finding the cure. vaccine business is the least profitable/highest risk in medicine right now, imo.

I also saw on the news that any person who did something like this anthrax no glove thing or whatever, would be so blasted sick from it, they wouldn’t be able to visit the PO to mail it.

Well, there is an incubation period, you know. A person could be quite mobile during this time.

From the CDC website:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/DocumentsApp/faqanthrax.asp

The CDC handles dangerous bacteria all the time. They have 3 levels of safe rooms, depending how dangerous the bacteria are. If they can do it, so can any one who follows safe procedures, and terrorists don’t have to worry about escapees.

All you need to do is breathe thru a wet clothe and the chances of you getting anthrax is minimal.

if you know you are exposed to anthrax, you can take antibiotics.

it is only deadly when you don’t take precautions.

as for cdc, they are overly protective. people can wear those white suits… bunny suits…???

anyways, if you bomb the cdc, i am sure the deadly strands can escape.

Assuming that any dangerous bug would be able to survive the fire that is created by an explosion that would be sufficient to destroy the CDC.

And the nastiest stuff is kept in safes.

I don’t think the CDC just leaves dangerous bacteria and viruses lying around on tables.

Please try to ask what someone means before assuming the worst.

I was tired and that bit did not come out as intended. I wish no ill on anyone. What I intended to imply was a laughter borne of bitter irony at someone doing such a hateful thing right under the noses of so many potential authority figures (FBI, Secret Service, etc.). I’m sorry I did not phrase it better.

As a matter of fact, I highly doubt that the anthrax is coming out of a MBE type store, mainly because I doubt that whoever is doing this is leaving anything to chance and going through MBE would just add another level of uncertainty.

Once again, I apologize if my comment was poorly worded and sounded harsh, it was not my intention to gloat or wish ill on anyone.