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CNN Live At Daybreak

Anthrax Investigation: Much of Response Only Now Devised

Aired October 23, 2001 - 08:00   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The anthrax scare has introduced Americans to a new drug. We've been mostly heard it called Cipro. Its formal name is Ciprofloxacin. It is an antibiotic that's being used to counteract anthrax, but as we've seen, it sometimes doesn't help those taking it.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta now on the medical response to anthrax.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, Paula. One of the things that's sort of unusual about Cipro and anthrax is that anthrax isn't a disease that we've seen a lot of, and certainly, in order to test the effectiveness of drugs, you typically have to expose people to the disease, and no one would knowingly expose people to anthrax, as it's been almost virtually fatal if it's inhaled -- 90 to 100 percent fatal.

So typically the way it works, Paula, is that you have a drug, you test it for safety first -- and we know Cipro is a safe drug -- and then you test it for the effectiveness. A lot of times, for example, with cancer, patients will volunteer for trials. They'll try all these new drugs, and eventually, they'll collect enough data to know how effective it is. You can't do that with this. You can't do that with anthrax.

So you're absolutely right. Most of our data about how effective it is comes from animals, and it comes from the laboratory; it doesn't come from humans. It is very effective against animals -- even primates: monkeys and apes -- but we are finding out now about the effectiveness in humans.

ZAHN: So Doctor, one thing I'd like you to clarify this morning is how it is that you could have one letter that some might suffer the inhalation kind of anthrax, and then someone touching it a time later would get the skin kind of anthrax.

GUPTA: It may have more to do with the way that person was actually exposed, Paula, and quite simply it could be the exact same anthrax, the exact same bacteria. We've been hearing that. But certainly, if someone were to actually only touch it versus actually bringing it up to their nose and smelling it or inhaling enough spores in some way to actually give themselves the inhalational version, that could be the only difference why the diseases are so different. Someone inhaled it, and someone merely touched it and didn't inhale enough to give them the inhalational version. ZAHN: And it would seem, Doctor, that even the postmaster general, who admitted last night on "LARRY KING" that everybody is sort of learning as we go along here, that perhaps the CDC didn't understand that a postal worker could get infected from an unsealed envelope. Was it simply the wrong assumption made there?

GUPTA: You know, Paula, it's one of those challenging things as a doctor. Certainly, the CDC is someone who we've looked to lot for all sorts of guidance. In this particular situation, I think what you said is absolutely correct. We are learning a lot as we go along here.

With all due deference, we haven't seen a case of inhaled anthrax in nearly a quarter of a century, or a little longer than that. And I think that the protocols and things to try and treat that are being developed, quite honestly, to some extent. We've seen that with regards to who gets tested, at what time period they get tested -- that is how many days after a suspected exposure -- who gets treated, how long they get treated. All those sorts of things are being developed.

You've probably seen, just even over the past few weeks, the way some of the things were handled initially in Florida versus how they're being handled in D.C. -- they have been dramatically different. Part of that is because now we're seeing more of the inhaled cases, two more, at least, perhaps more than that, in Washington. And part of that is going to probably change the way the protocol is handled. I expect it will probably get a little bit more aggressive.

ZAHN: I suspect you are absolutely right, as you usually are. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for that update.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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