the date is September 18th 2001 and the
United States has just suffered the most
devastating attack against it since
Pearl Harbor all anyone can think of is
the threat of yet another terror attack
and suddenly it becomes very clear that
no one anywhere is safe from an attack
but in the busy mail room of the New
York Post terrorists are the furthest
thing from the mind of an overworked
mailroom employee trying to sort out the
glut of incoming mail as the employee is
busy handling dozens of letters suddenly
the corner of one works loose and a fine
mist of white powder puffs out of the
envelope perplexed the employee opens
the envelope and discovers more white
powder along with a printed letter that
reads nine 1101 this is next take
penicillin now death to America death to
Israel Allah is great hello and welcome
to another episode of the infographics
show today we're remembering the anthrax
letter attacks in the United States as
we take a look at just how dangerous is
an anthrax letter one week after the
September 11th terror attacks several
letters were sent via post to various
media offices and political figures
inside each letter was a printed-out
note that read much like a terrorist
threat along with powder laced with
anthrax spores by the time the letter
stopped arriving five people would be
dead and 17 others hospitalized in
serious condition while it is suspected
that a bio defense worker from the
United States government itself was to
blame for the attacks no definite
conclusion would ever be reached as the
suspect Bruce Edward eivin's would go on
to commit suicide in the end the cost of
cleaning up and decontaminating work
sites and entire post offices would
reach a whopping 1 billion dollars which
leads us to ask just how dangerous is an
anthrax letter really but first what is
anthrax anthrax is a highly infectious
disease that's caused by a naturally
occurring bacteria called bacillus
anthracis this bacteria typically lives
in the soil and often infects wild and
domestic animals such as goats cattle
and sheep surprisingly anthrax outbreaks
are pretty common around the world and
mostly affect agricultural workers who
spend all day around animals or working
with the dirt those who process animal
goods such as hides wool or bones can
also become in fact
however the bacteria can infect a host
in three different ways with the first
being the most common and resulting in
cutaneous anthrax or an infection that
occurs by bacterial spores entering the
body through a counter scrape on the
skin this is actually a very easy form
of the disease to treat and can be
easily cured with simple antibiotics
when inhaled however anthrax becomes far
deadlier and those who become infected
via inhalation are at dire risk of
respiratory collapse this form of the
disease has the highest rate of death
with a 92% mortality rate the third form
of the disease occurs when the anthrax
spores are actually consumed as can
happen when you eat the meat of an
infected animal this form of infection
is extremely rare but can also be quite
deadly in the United States between 20
and 60 percent of all gastrointestinal
anthrax cases result in death anthrax
bacteria are very long-lived
and their spores can remain dormant for
years in the soil upon entering a living
host the spore reactivate and the
bacteria begins to multiply because of
its natural resiliency and extremely
long life anthrax is a natural choice
for bioweapons and five nations
including Russia in the United States
maintained anthrax as a bioweapon ready
for deployment
today anthrax bioweapons are used as
deterrence meant to discourage the other
side from using bio weapons in the first
place but that was not always the case
in the First World War Scandinavian
nations used anthrax against the
Imperial Russian army and the Germans
covertly infected livestock and feed
from neutral nations that were being
shipped to Allied nations one attack
resulted in the deaths of 200
Argentinean mules after the many
chemical and biological horrors of World
War one though an international
diplomatic effort was made to limit the
use of bio and chemical weapons
resulting in the Geneva Protocol for the
Prevention of use and war of
asphyxiating poisonous or gases and
bacteriological methods of warfare while
a great step forward the treaty did not
outlaw the research or production of
biological agents and nations around the
world signed on to the treaty but
created amendments that would allow them
to use biological weapons as retaliation
in world war ii the british army would
deploy small quantities of anthrax
against german livestock in an attempt
to help starve the germans though
thankfully anthrax as a weapon
would not rear its ugly head again until
1993 when a religious cult in Japan
deployed anthrax against civilians in
Tokyo over the course of several days
the Domesday called ohm Shinrikyo
secretly released an aerosol liquid
suspension of anthrax from the top of
their eight story building on the first
date local residents reported foul odors
to local environmental health
authorities who quickly discovered the
order to be coming from the Elm
Shinrikyo building the next day even
more reports of foul odors were long
along with symptoms ranging from
appetite loss to nausea and vomiting in
some of the affected personnel due to
the complaints officials requested
permission to investigate the building
but ohm Shinrikyo members inside refused
to allow them inside because of no
readily apparent risk to human health
authorities were powerless to do
anything else but simply collect samples
for future analysis the next day an
intermittent mist began escaping from
one of the cooling towers atop the
building and though again officials took
samples of the oily residue left on the
sides of the building nothing more was
done it wouldn't be until two years
later after the March 1995 sarin gas
attack in the Tokyo subway that
officials went back and tested the
samples discovering that the group had
been trying to aerosolize a liquid
suspension of anthrax spores obviously
their plan hadn't done more than makes
some people mildly ill but had it worked
they could have potentially killed
hundreds or far more for their part that
doomsday cult believed that the ensuing
pandemic would have triggered a global
war which would have ended with the
group's leader ruling the world that
seems like a pretty big jump but dream
big we guess so on one hand anthrax was
used to try and start a third world war
yet
failed to make anyone anything more than
just mildly nauseous on the other those
small amounts of white powder led to the
death of five individuals and almost two
dozen seriously ill just how dangerous
is anthrax really then and specifically
how dangerous is an anthrax letter well
as with most things the quality of the
sample used in the anthrax matters a
great deal as does the technical
proficiency behind the dispersal method
anthrax is surprisingly easy to
cultivate at home and requires no more
than about $2,500 of easily bought
laboratory equipment to start your own
bio terror weapons program anthrax is
also very easily at
wired from the soil of just about any
agricultural area so getting a base
sample is not really difficult however
some strains of the bacteria are better
than others and while the Japanese
doomsday called ohm Shinrikyo was
ineffective running an amateur level
anthrax weapons program the suspect
behind the American letter attacks was a
former US bio Defense employee and would
have had access to very high quality
spore samples at the very least he would
have had the means and the education to
create his own from a wild sample the
aerosol attack didn't work for a variety
of reasons primarily because the
investigators didn't believe that the
Doomsday group had perfected the process
enough and it had ended up killing most
of the spores
however the concentrated powder that
those on the receiving end of the
anthrax letters found themselves covered
in would have been an extremely optimal
delivery method when you're holding a
letter you're typically doing so in very
close proximity to your nose and mouth
and giving anthrax as microscopic size
it wouldn't take much to get even just a
few hundred spores out of millions into
your respiratory tract any powder that
spilled onto your hands would quickly
spread across your skin and then into
your clothes where it could be dragged
on to other areas of your skin at that
point even the tiniest cutter puncture
and your skin would lead to an infection
in short anthrax letters remain a
serious threat and depending on just how
close you stick your face to your mail
could lead to certain death with the
last attack costing a total cleanup cost
of one billion dollars anthrax is a
threat that the u.s. government takes
very seriously so if you're looking to
join in with the other jokesters who
sent prank anthrax letters full of
talcum powder after the original attacks
we recommend you don't before you find
yourself in prison for making deadly
threats
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