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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 6, 2001
WEST PALM BEACH -- A 63-year-old Florida man died of anthrax Friday, but an intensive search by state and federal health officials turned up no other victims or evidence linking the death to a terrorist attack.
Bob Stevens failed to respond to the antibiotics he had been given and died at 4 p.m. after kidney failure and cardiac arrest. His is the first reported anthrax death in the United States in a quarter century.
Anthrax is an extremely rare and lethal disease often cited as a bioterrorist's weapon-of-choice.
Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and Tim O'Connor, her counterpart with the Florida Department of Health's Palm Beach County operation, both said Friday that no other cases of anthrax have been reported.
Health officers have, however, investigated more than 100 people who became ill recently to determine if they had contracted the disease. Three cases in particular looked as though they could be anthrax, said Dr. Landis Crockett, director of disease control for the Florida Department of Health.
Anthrax was eliminated in two of the three cases, and investigators are "relatively certain" the third case will be eliminated, too, O'Connor said.
The third patient has had chest X-rays and a blood test, both of which came back negative for anthrax, and is feeling better. Still, health officials said they await a lab test on spinal fluid to be certain.
With every day that passes without new cases being confirmed "we gain a little more comfort that there was not an attack" with a biological agent, said Crockett. "If there was a massive exposure, I think we would be seeing more cases."
Gov. Jeb Bush called the Palm Beach County case an isolated incident and a "cruel coincidence." The governor, questioned during an appearance in Orlando, said the state's disease surveillance system worked well in quickly identifying and isolating the case.
"I can honestly say there are zero persons that we believe are a high potential for anthrax," said Dr. Steven Wiersma, an epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health.
O'Connor said hundreds of people suffering flulike symptoms have called the Health Department or local hospitals with concerns or questions. Throughout the Tampa Bay area, though, there was little evidence of concern.
Pinellas County officials prepared to field a large number of calls but received only a few, said Dr. Julia Gill, epidemiology program manager for the Pinellas County Department of Health.
A few people called the Hillsborough County Health Department to ask about an anthrax vaccine, which is not available to the public, said Jordan Lewis, director of environmental health and epidemiology. The real surge in concern over biological hazards occurred after the Sept. 11 hijackings and attacks, he said.
In Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties, health departments reported only a handful of concerned calls.
A host of federal and state officials, including the FBI, sealed off Stevens' house and searched it for about two hours Friday. When they left, they removed the yellow crime scene tape they had placed around the house. They were also searching his workplace.
FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said that was routine procedure and it does not indicate any belief by agents that the anthrax was released by terrorists.
"This is not a criminal investigation," Wiersma said. "We partner with the FBI because of the potential of these bacteria to be used as a bioterrorism threat."
More than 50 state and federal investigators searched South Florida for clues Friday, trying to learn how Stevens came in contact with the disease. He contracted the pulmonary version, the most lethal kind.
From his Lantana home they took aerosols, household chemicals, fertilizer and other items that could have infected him.
"We don't expect any of these to turn out positive," Wiersma said. It's prudent to check, he added, but "we may never know" the answer.
The disease is difficult to track because its incubation period may vary from person to person, depending on the amount of spores ingested and the person's overall health. It can be as short as five days and as long as 60, according to the few studies that exist on the subject.
"We just haven't had many cases to collect data on," said Gill, of the Pinellas County Health Department. A 1979 anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, then in the USSR, provided scientists the only good opportunity in recent years to study the progress of the disease.
U.S. officials attributed that outbreak, which killed at least 68 people, to an accidental release of spores -- a bacterium's inactive state -- from a military microbiology facility. The disease appeared in people anywhere from two to 43 days after exposure, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Anthrax has been developed by several countries as a possible biological weapon, and the recent terrorist attacks put many people on edge.
Mohamed Atta, one of the suspected hijackers who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center last month, rented planes at a flight school at Palm Beach County Park Airport. Stevens, who was a photo editor at the supermarket tabloid The Sun, lived within a mile of the airport.
Shortly after the terrorist attack, Marian Smith, owner of Palm Beach Flight Training, said Atta had rented a plane four times in August. Employees at the flight school declined to comment Friday.
Atta also visited an airfield in Belle Glade, about 40 miles inland from Lantana, and asked workers there questions about their crop-dusters, but never flew one. Some of the suspected hijackers had lived in an apartment complex in Boynton Beach, about 10 miles south of Lantana.
Whatever its usefulness to terrorists, and many experts say it is an unreliable weapon, anthrax can also be contracted naturally from farm animals or soil.
"By all accounts, this is an isolated case," said Gill, of the Pinellas County Health Department. "Origin to be determined."
-- Times staff writers Ryan Davis, Mark Albright, Alisa Ulferts, Kathryn Wexler, Saundra Amrhein and Jim Ross contributed to this report, which used information from Times wires.