What are the odds?
NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - A New York man has been hospitalized after accidentally inhaling anthrax from raw animal skins, city officials said on Wednesday, ruling out terrorism while reviving memories of anthrax attacks in 2001.
“At this time we have every reason to believe that this infection is an isolated, accidentally and naturally transmitted case. There’s no evidence of terrorism here,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a news conference, where he was flanked by the city’s top law enforcement and health officials.
In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, five people died and several others were sickened when anthrax was sent in letters to media and government offices in Washington, New York, Florida and elsewhere. Those cases have not been solved.
Officials in this case believe the 44-year-old man, a professional drummer, was infected by inhaling anthrax from untreated animal hides he brought back from Ivory Coast in December and used to make drums in his New York workshop.
anthrax is relatively common outside of the shrill panicky Bizarro World in which we’re living now. Untreated animal skins will do it.
Yup, I’m a spinner, and I’m really careful about who raised my raw fleeces. Remember, anthrax is also called wool-sorter’s disease/
There was an episode of some show (House?) where that happened - multiple people sick/dead of anthrax via drumskins.
Huff. It’s the CNN disease of the day. This is nothing.