anthrax and the two s

June 9, 2005

An anthrax article in Tuesday's NY Times made me think of the two s.

S.: The anthrax patient discussed " ...spells of overwhelming

fatigue... His legs regularly are gripped by painful convulsions, the

thigh muscles shaking as he struggles to hold them still. "

J.: " Both [anthrax experts] wondered whether Mr. Paliscak's

illness might be a devastating reaction to some other substance on the

filter [that the patient had removed from a ceiling as part of his job

in cleaning up anthrax contamination], such as yeast or mold spores. "

After a Shower of Anthrax, an Illness and a Mystery

The patient, Bill Paliscak, has encountered some of the problems

experienced by Lyme patients.

" Blood tests never detected the bacteria that cause anthrax or the

antibodies the immune system should produce in response. As a result,

the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention never classified

his disease with the 11 confirmed cases of inhalational anthrax, 5 of

them fatal....

" ...his doctors at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore remain convinced that

his anthrax exposure produced his disease, in part because exhaustive

testing found no other cause.

" ...Dr. J. Kerkvliet, an internist at Sinai who has cared for Mr.

Paliscak since 2001. Dr. Kerkvliet says he fears the C.D.C. " has its

head in the sand. " A colleague, Dr. Tyler C. Cymet, who spent months

talking to the confirmed anthrax survivors and their doctors, said, " I

come down strongly on the side that this is anthrax. " Few diseases

cause " whole-body symptoms " as does the toxin produced by anthrax, said

Dr. Cymet, who, like Dr. Kerkvliet, is an assistant professor at the

s Hopkins medical school. [i wonder if he thinks Lyme is one of

the diseases that causes whole-body symptoms.]

Sue ,

Upstate New York

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