投稿者 佐藤雅彦 日時 2001 年 11 月 04 日 10:44:12:
回答先: （記事）新聞社デスクの悲劇再現 投稿者 踊る藁人形 日時 2001 年 11 月 04 日 00:31:51:
フロリダ州のタブロイド新聞社に送られてきた所謂「炭疽
菌入り封書」は、９・１１米国事変のおよそ１週間前に同社
に届いており、「ダビデの星」が入っていた……とか。
このあたりの情報が語られずにいるのは奇妙なことです。
シオニズム批判サイト『アストランの声』に同様の脅迫状
が送られてきた件や、メキシコでのシオニストの奇妙な動き
と考え合わせると、興味ぶかい動きが見えてくると思うの
ですが……。
フロリダ州の「炭疽菌騒動」との絡みで、ダヴィデの星
について言及していた、事件当初の英文メディア記事を
紹介しておきます。
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http://www.ptconnect.com/archive/news/1001/09/pmnew01.asp
Tuesday, October 09, 2001
FBI investigating how co-worker became exposed to anthrax
By Amanda Riddle
Associated Press
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) Federal officials suspect foul play rather than an environmental source is at the root of two Florida anthrax cases that have left one man dead and hundreds of co-workers getting tested for the disease.
The FBI on Monday sealed off the offices of American Media Inc., where both men worked. During the night, a stream of unmarked cars entered the adjoining parking lot, where agents peeled off layers of blue and purple gloves and washed their hands with water from a firetruck.
The Palm Beach County Health Department tested 743 people connected to the building on Monday and expected an additional 100 people on Tuesday, said Alina Alonso, the department's director of clinical services.
How the bacterium got into the newspaper's office remained unknown. But federal investigators have eliminated the obvious environmental sources of anthrax, said Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
In Washington, Florida Sen. Bob Graham met with CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan. "I asked Dr. Koplan what would be the likelihood that such a disease could have occurred without human intervention. His words were, `Nil to none,"' Graham said.
And Attorney General John Ashcroft said the case could become "a clear criminal investigation." "We don't have enough information to know whether this could be related to terrorism or not," he said during a news conference in Washington.
The concern raised by the death Friday of Sun photography editor Bob Stevens intensified after anthrax was found in the nose of a second employee and on an office computer keyboard. Employees who waited for hours to be tested and receive antibiotics said the hassle was worth it.
"I may be able to sleep better tonight because I've gotten a head start," said Joanie Cox, 21, a free-lance writer for The Star tabloid. "I just want everybody to be safe."
Dr. Landis Crockett, director of disease control for the Florida Department of Health, said it was unusual to have two anthrax cases in such close proximity.
"The chances are one in a billion to have two anthrax cases," he said. "There then would be another explanation, and that would be that foul play would be suspected."
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the federal government is continuing to investigate. "It's not unusual at times like this for false alarms to go off," he said. "Nevertheless, it will be the continuing, ongoing position of the federal government to investigate, to make all means available, to be helpful."
Anthrax cannot be spread from person to person, but all 300 people who work in the AMI building and anyone who spent more than an hour inside since Aug. 1 were advised to visit health officials.
The second anthrax exposure involved a mailroom employee identified by co-workers as 73-year-old Ernesto Blanco. Officials said he had anthrax bacteria in his nose, but he has not been diagnosed with the disease.
Blanco was tested for anthrax because he happened to be in a Miami-area hospital for what co-workers said was an unrelated heart problem. He was in stable condition, authorities said.
Elsewhere, a Virginia doctor downplayed what had been described as a possible anthrax case there with connections to the Florida cases. Dr. Thomas Ryan of Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Va., said doctors now do not believe the patient has anthrax.
Only 18 cases of inhalation anthrax were reported in the United States during the 20th century, the most recent in 1976 in California. More common is a less serious form of anthrax contracted through the skin.
Antibiotics can treat anthrax, although the rare, inhalation form that killed Stevens, 63, is particularly lethal. Untreated, 90 percent of victims die within days.
Anthrax can be contracted from farm animals or soil, but the bacterium is not normally found among the wildlife or livestock in Florida. Stevens was described as an avid outdoorsman and gardener.
The anthrax bacterium normally has an incubation period of up to seven days, but could take up to 60 days to develop.
Newsweek magazine reported on its Web site Monday that the American Media office received a "weird love letter to Jennifer Lopez" a week before the Sept. 11 attacks. Inside was what was described as a "soapy, powdery substance" and a Star of David charm. The letter was handled by both Stevens and Blanco, according to unidentified workers cited by Newsweek.
【『ニューズウィーク』誌が月曜（10月８日）に報じたウェブ記事によれば、アメリカン・メディア社には９・１１攻撃の１週間前に「ジェニファー・ロペス宛ての奇妙なラブレター」が送られてきていた。封書の中には、いわゆる「石鹸のような粉状の物質」とダビデの星の護符があったという。『ニューズウィーク』は、氏名不詳の複数の従業員の証言として、この封書を手にとったのはスティーヴンズ氏とブランコ氏だったと書いている。】
One law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI is trying to track down the letter but does not believe it is a likely source for the anthrax.
【ある捜査官は匿名を条件に、「目下ＦＢＩが封書の出所を探っているところだが、これは炭疽菌の感染源ではない公算が大きい」と語った。】
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have raised fears of bioterrorism across the country, and focused particular concern on the origin of the anthrax here.
Stevens lived about a mile from an air strip where a flight school owner said suspected hijacker Mohamed Atta rented planes. Several suspected hijackers also visited a crop-dusting business in Belle Glade, 40 miles from Stevens' home in Lantana.
Bennet Bolton, a senior reporter for The National Enquirer, told The Associated Press about a "cryptic" e-mail sent to the staff in late August or early September by an intern. "It was rather neutral and then he said, 'I left you a surprise for you to remember me by. Ha ha, just kidding,"' Bolton said.
Officials at Florida Atlantic University said Tuesday that the intern was a student at the university and had been cleared by the FBI. The university was trying to find him and 11 other students who received company-sponsored scholarships to have them tested for anthrax.
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【以下に紹介するのは、上記記事に言及されている
『ニューズウィーク』10月８日号の該当記事です。】
http://www.msnbc.com/news/639937.asp?cp1=1
Police stand at the parking lot entrance to American Media
Anthrax Alarm
What had been a public-health probe in Florida is now a criminal investigation
By Joseph Contreras, Michael Isikoff and Howard Fineman
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Oct. 8 -- The possibility that a photo editor for the weekly tabloid The Sun was killed in a bioterrorism attack took on a new sense of urgency today after Florida public-health officials disclosed that a nose swab taken from a 73-year-old hospitalized co-worker contained the rare bacteria spore that induces Anthrax, an often-fatal illness.
PUBLIC-HEALTH OFFICIALS confirmed that Ernesto Blanco, a 73-year-old Cuban-American who works in the mailroom of American Media office building in Boca Raton tested as having been exposed to Anthrax. Blanco was admitted to a Miami hospital last week with symptoms of pneumonia. On Friday, Bob Stevens, a photo editor at The Sun, died from disease.
What had been described as a public-health probe instantly became a criminal investigation as FBI agents on Sunday evening sealed off the office building, which houses the offices of most of the country’s supermarket tabloids including The National Enquirer, The Star, The Globe, News of the World and others. Employees and visitors to the building were ordered to undergo medical tests. Grim-faced state officials who had initially tried to downplay speculation late last week that Stevens’s demise might have been caused by foul play didn’t sound so sure at a Monday afternoon press conference. “We can’t speculate as to the source of this particular anthrax germ,” said acting Florida Secretary of Health Dr. John Agwunobi, who confirmed earlier reports that Anthrax spores had been found on the computer keyboard at Bob Stevens’s desk. Other officials went further. “We have to assume that a human element was involved,” concluded Florida Health Department director of disease control Dr. Landis Crockett.
NEWSWEEK has learned that the FBI is aggressively trying to locate a summer intern from nearby Florida Atlantic University in connection with the investigation. The intern, who sources said came from a Middle Eastern country, had sent an e-mail to all employees that a top American Media official described as “peculiar.” The e-mail thanked company employees for the help he gave them, but then contained language suggesting that he wasn’t saying “goodbye.” Another company official recalled the email as having “a sense of foreboding” and referring to a “surprise” or “something that he left behind.” Said the official, “it was weird.”
Sources at American Media said the FBI has asked company employees about any “enemies” the company or its papers might have. Given the content of the weekly tabloids, “that list would go on forever,” joked one employee. Alarmed workers say they are urgently trying to recall receiving suspicious or unusual letters and packages. Several are focusing on a letter that arrived at the company about a week before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. It was described by sources as a “weird love letter to Jennifer Lopez”--similar, outwardly, to the types of mail the tabloids often get. But inside the oddly-worded letter was what was described as a “soapy, powdery substance” and in the pile of that a cheap Star of David charm. The letter, per routine, was taken in by the joint mailroom of the company. Employees said the letter was handled both by Stevens and Blanco.
【アメリカン・メディア社の何人かの社員が９・11テロ攻撃のおよそ１週間前に送られてきた一通の封書に注目した。複数の情報源によれば、この封書は「ジェニファー・ロペス宛ての奇妙なラブレター」で、外見上はこのタブロイド新聞社がたびたび受け取るたぐいの郵便物とよく似ていた。だが、奇妙な文字で書かれた封書のなかにはいわゆる「石鹸みたいな粉状の物質」が入っており、その粉の中から安っぽいダビデの星の護符も出てきた。】
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Effects of anthrax infection
● The inhaled form of anthrax is rare and extremely deadly. Studies of previous cases indicate that a dose of 2,500 to 55,000 anthrax spores is lethal to about half of the people who inhale them
●The first stage of anthrax infection, lasting from hours to a few days, involves flu-like symptoms, including fever, coughing, weakness and chest pains.
●The second stage usually ends in death within days. Lung damage deprives the body of oxygen. The victim then goes into shock. Brain infection may also occur.
●Antibiotics only prove helpful at the earliest stages of the disease because they fight bacteria, not the toxins the bacteria produce in abundance.
●The cutaneous form of anthrax is caused by the same germ but is contracted through the skin. Three to five days after infection, a painless blister appears. A day or two later, this becomes a black, open sore.
●Cutaneous anthrax accounts for 95 percent of anthrax cases in the United States, and is easily treated with antibiotics. Left untreated, perhaps 5 percent of cases progress to a dangerous bloodstream infection, which is almost always fatal.
（The Associated Press, MSNBC research ）
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By late Monday afternoon, Boca Raton fire rescue vehicles and unmarked trucks and vans had descended on the American Media office building and investigators in white germproof suits were combing the ramp leading into the underground parking lot. Earlier in the day, hundreds of office workers filled out four-page forms at the Delray Beach health center asking them questions about their medical history, any recent unusual events that had occurred inside the building and whether they had visited the mail room and a photo library frequented by Blanco and Stevens.
The office workers were issued 15-day supplies of the antibiotic Cipro that doctors prescribe in cases of Anthrax exposure. A skittish golf pro who works at a course adjacent to the premises of the American Media headquarters looked on warily from a distance as law enforcement officials swarmed around the building this morning. “I’m very concerned, and I’m going to give my lessons on the far side of the course,” said Broken Sound Golf Course instructor Michael Meredith. “I’m going to try to stay as far away as possible.” He was not alone in voicing such sentiments on a day when the specter of bioterrorism suddenly loomed large over the placid suburbs of Palm Beach County.
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、
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。