Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Talkback Live

Who is Behind the Anthrax Attacks?

Aired October 16, 2001 - 15:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: A baby has anthrax. A Florida man takes a turn for the worse as a nation goes on alert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the envelope. White powder came out of the envelope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 10-4.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've all learned a lot more than we would ever want to know about anthrax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Still, America wants to know more. Who needs antibiotics, and will there be enough? What about the anthrax vaccine?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that we get this vaccine out to the people when it's necessary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: And still the question: Who is behind these anthrax attacks?

Good afternoon, and welcome to an abbreviated version of TALKBACK LIVE: AMERICA SPEAKS OUT. I'm Bobbie Battista. Each day, it seems, the anthrax investigation grows. The latest case, the seven-month-old baby of an ABC news employee. Also, the second anthrax victim in Florida has gone from a case of exposure to a case of pulmonary anthrax.

Now the questions: who's behind the anthrax attacks? Who is responsible for prevention? And what about antibiotics and the anthrax vaccine? What do Americans need to know? Let's start with Victor Cohen. He is a pharmacologist at Maimonides Medical -- I'm not sure I ever get that right. Maimonides Medical center in New York. Dr. Cohen, thank you for being with us.

VICTOR COHEN, PHARMACOLOGIST, MAIMONIDES MEDICAL: My pleasure. BATTISTA: I think there's still some confusion out there about diagnosing anthrax. The baby in New York, for example, actually started showing symptoms the night after he was exposed. And yet it was about 15 days before they were able to diagnose it. How easy is it pinpoint?

COHEN: It is not very easy. It presents similar to many flu- like illnesses such as influenza. That's the difficulty. The big importance is the laboratory -- medical laboratory is to identify it as quickly as possible, and also takes time and effort and that is really what causes the major delay.

BATTISTA: These tests they run to identify it. Are they always accurate or can they read false negative or false positive?

COHEN: They are almost usually 99 percent positive, because they are able to do various tests that assure positivity.

BATTISTA: So how long is it from when you are exposed to anthrax to the time that you start showing symptoms, because we've seen quite a range of time on that.

COHEN: Right. It's usually within 24 to 48 hours of onset of exposure. However, the exposure depends upon how you are exposed. The incubation period -- which is the time from exposure until you show symptoms could be anywhere up to six days. Once that six-day period is over, it is expected that you haven't been exposed, in general. That's if you have not been already tested positive for it. So anywhere from one to six days. And the onset of symptoms could be within 24 to 48 hours.

BATTISTA: The scary thing is that you can be standing in a room where someone may open a letter and there's anthrax in the letter, you don't know whether you've been exposed or not. Is that correct?

COHEN: It's odorless, it's colorless, it's tasteless, and that is correct. What I would suggest is, though, still not that easy to create this weapon and it is not easy to use it in this aerosolized form. It's not that simple. Therefore, I would caution creating too much hysteria over that.

BATTISTA: We can't stress too much, by the way, that it is not contagious.

COHEN: It is not. It is not contagious person to person, whatsoever.

BATTISTA: Question from the audience. Aurora, go ahead.

AURORA: I am a mother of five children. My concern is, how would I know what the symptoms are, and how are they different from flu or the common cold. The second part to that question is, because they are children, are they at a more vulnerable stage than an adult?

COHEN: OK. The first question is basically it is very similar to A flu-like illness, and there is no simple way to detect the difference between a flu-like illness and the anthrax. The prudent thing to do is to have your medical physician, who is trained -- they are trained in detecting anthrax, and they are on heightened alertness -- to assess individually your children if they do have the flu-like symptoms. Then he will make that decision, determination if further evaluation is necessary.

BATTISTA: Michael, quick question.

MICHAEL: Yes, I just want to know how many cases of anthrax were there last year before this all started?

COHEN: Actually, that's a good question. I don't have an answer to those statistics.

BATTISTA: But we do know it is almost minimal. Wasn't it like two or something?

COHEN: Right. Around the world it is still prevalent, but in the United States we don't have many reports. The question is, if we are looking for it -- is the question are we finding it now?

BATTISTA: I've got a bunch more questions for you Dr. Cohen, but I also want to bring in Charles Patrick Garcia at this point. He is a former military intelligence analyst. Charles, I wasn't here last week but you were on the show, and I know that you had been all along anticipating something like this. Was this what you thought would happen?

CHARLES PATRICK GARCIA, FORMER MILITARY INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I said it on your show last time. Now we have 13 cases in four states, so we know we have bioterrorism on our hands. We have terrorists who are trying to poison United States citizens on our lands. The question is, how do we win this war on bioterrorism? To win any war we need a good offense, we need a good defense.

If you will allow me, I will very quickly tell on you the offense we need two things: we need to ask other countries that have vaccines and have antibiotics to help the United States. In 1948 we gave $13 billion in the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War II, and since then over a trillion dollars in foreign aid to countries all over the world. Now is their time to help us.

Secondly, we need better ways to detect whether we have anthrax. Right now it takes about two days. How is it possible that we have cattle ranchers that can test cattle within hours? So we need better detection.

On the defense, two points. We have right now 46 germ banks outside the United States that have anthrax cultures. According to the "New York Times," they have very lax security procedures. We need to shut them down until we can establish very tight security procedures.

The second on the defense is there are 65,000 Soviet scientists that were in the biowarfare program in Soviet Union that has largely been dismantled. But there are, according to the State Department, about 7,000 Soviet scientists which are proliferation risks. Why don't we go on the defense and hire them and put them into a global defense initiative in order to develop vaccines not only for anthrax, but also for smallpox.

BATTISTA: You've thrown out a lot of information there, and I want to come back to each and every one of those points. Do I have time, mike, or do we need to take a break? Let me take a break first and then we'll come back and we'll talk about vaccines first. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: All right. Vaccines, Dr. Cohen. The United States has one. It's not readily available and there are some questions about its effectiveness or side-effects. Russia and India supposedly have vaccines that they have offered to the U.S., we may not know so much about those, either. Tell us if you about the U.S. one and why it's not available.

COHEN: The vaccine is very effective. It provides immunity. It allows our natural defenses of our own body to be stimulated against anthrax. It is not a live vaccine, therefore, it doesn't allow us to get actual the anthrax. We are safe in that respect. Also in terms of side-effects, the anthrax vaccine is quite safe. It does cause a local reaction associated with the injection site right on the arm. It may cause rash and some form of inflammation. Otherwise it is quite safe.

One in every 200,000 patients may have threatening reaction, which causes such as malaise or weakness or fever, etcetera. In addition, about one out of every 100 may have a hypersensitivity reaction. Realize this. With influenza vaccine, we have that same rate of side effects associated with the vaccines. The reality is that the vaccine is very effective, will promote significant immunity towards anthrax.

The only question is the availability at this point. I know there is only one consistent manufacturer, which is BioPort, currently. I do not know -- only from listening to the media -- that there are other manufacturers looking to increase our stockpiles at this point.

BATTISTA: The audience has a question for Charles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, how are these people getting anthrax, and how easy is it to make? It must be easier than we think it is.

GARCIA: Well, the answer to that is it is not easy to make. You need someone to help you. I talked about the Soviet scientists that posed a risk of proliferation. You have five countries that are known to work with terrorists, one obvious one being Iraq. Those are all possibilities.

The problem with the vaccine we were just were talking about is really there is no vaccines right now. They are only available to the military, and the public health officials have told us it is impractical to vaccinate American citizens because it's a six-shot regime over 18 months. But again, very difficult to do, but we're seeing it now.

BATTISTA: Maryanne of Texas has a question about antibiotics. Go ahead, Maryanne.

MARYANNE: Yes, Bobbie. Just like myself, I was wondering about the many Americans that are allergic to any type of antibiotic. What do we do?

COHEN: Yes. I can answer that. That's a very good question. If you are allergic to Cipro, you would have to avoid any of those agents that are cross or related to Cipro, and there are about five or seven out on the market.

That's why it's prudent not to stockpile on your own, but allow your physician determine that. He will ask you the necessary questions. In addition, besides Cipro, you can use doxycycline, which has been shown to be highly effective, just as much as Cipro. And it's actually a cost-effective agent. In addition, penicillin -- old penicillin -- is very effective against anthrax as well in terms of post-exposure prophylaxis.

BATTISTA: We are totally out of time. Thank you both very much for joining us. So many questions. Go to CNN.com if you need more information about anthrax. We'll see you again tomorrow.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com