Amerithrax Attacks
The first victim of the 2001 anthrax letters, a photo editor in Florida, died of inhalational anthrax in early October.
Who was Robert Stevens?
These two components combine to form the "A" part of the anthrax AB toxin.
What are lethal factor and edema factor?
This type of pathogen provided one of the earliest recognized links in infectious diseases between animals and humans.
What is a zoonotic disease primarily affecting grazing livestock?/What is a zoonosis
This epidemiologic characteristic makes anthrax outbreaks easier to trace than many respiratory pathogens.
What is the absence of sustained person-to-person transmission?
In 1979, this Soviet city experienced a laboratory accident that released aerosolized anthrax spores, killing at least 66 people.
What is Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg)?
Some of the 2001 anthrax letters contained these references, intended to mislead investigators about the sender’s identity.
What were false flags involving Islamic extremism?
This second messenger is dysregulated by edema factor, contributing to impaired phagocyte function.
What is cyclic AMP (cAMP)?
This scientist’s work with Bacillus anthracis helped establish their "postulates".
Who was Robert Koch?
This reason explains why inhalational anthrax is considered a high-priority public health threat despite its rarity.
What is its high lethality, aerosol stability, and potential for mass exposure?
This Japanese doomsday cult attempted to produce anthrax as a biological weapon in the 1990s but failed to cause mass casualties.
What is Aum Shinrikyo?
This forensic conclusion shifted the FBI’s focus away from foreign terrorist groups toward a domestic source.
What is the determination that the strain was endemic to U.S. laboratories?
This cellular outcome best explains the vascular leakage and shock seen in systemic anthrax.
What is endothelial dysfunction leading to vascular leakage and hypotensive shock?
This 19th-century industrial disease, common among animal hide workers, was later recognized as anthrax.
What is woolsorter’s disease?
This Gram stain morphology raises immediate suspicion for Bacillus anthracis in a clinical specimen.
What are large Gram-positive rods with square ends, often in chains?
During the Sverdlovsk incident, the official Soviet explanation claimed these environmental sources were responsible, delaying recognition of a lab accident.
What are contaminated meat and natural soil exposure?
This Bacillus anthracis strain, long used in U.S. biodefense research, was identified in the attack letters.
What is the Ames strain?
This early cellular niche allows Bacillus anthracis spores to evade immunity while initiating infection.
What are alveolar macrophages and regional lymph nodes?
This early observation about anthrax helped disprove prevailing ideas about spontaneous generation.
What is the recognition that spores could persist independently of active infection?
This interpretive pitfall explains why B. anthracis may initially be dismissed as a contaminant.
What is the ubiquity of environmental Bacillus species in clinical specimens?
This country reported the accidental contamination of workers with anthrax spores in 1968 at a military microbiology lab.
What is the United Kingdom (Porton Down incident)?
This U.S. postal system vulnerability enabled widespread exposure during the 2001 anthrax attacks.
What is the centralized processing and aerosolization potential of the U.S. postal mail system?
This host cell receptor family mediates binding and internalization of anthrax protective antigen.
What are TEM8 (ANTXR1) and CMG2 (ANTXR2)?
This international treaty, influenced in part by historical anthrax weaponization programs, entered into force in 1975.
What is the Biological Weapons Convention?
This key biochemical trait helps differentiate B. anthracis from most other Bacillus species.
What is gamma-hemolysis(lack of) on sheep blood agar?
The United States conducted these secret studies of the effects of Anthrax on willing participants
What was operation whitecoat?