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The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story
The Anthrax Letters A Medical Detective Story Author:Leonard A. Cole At 2:00am on October 2, 2001, Robert Stevens entered a hospital emergency room. He was feverish, nauseated, and barely conscious. Notations on his admitting chart indicate that he was "not oriented to person, place, or time." Perplexed by the sudden and especially severe onset of his symptoms, doctors ran a variety of tests. As armies of bacte... more »rial agents attacked and shut down every major organ in Bob Stevens's system, doctors quickly accumulated and analyzed medical data, fitting the pieces of this complicated puzzle together to arrive at a stunning diagnosis. Bob Stevens had anthrax -- and he was soon to become the first official bioterrorism fatality in America. Behind the panic and the politics that would quickly ensue there remained a key line of defense. For while the police and FBI frantically investigated a crime, there were other professionals at work, conducting their own painstaking inquiry -- medical and scientific detectives hot on the trail of deadly organisms deliberately set loose in the postal system. Modern heroes in a quickly changing world, the public health officials, physicians, researchers, and scientists who staff our hospitals, clinics, and laboratories will be among the first responders on the scene of any future biowarfare event. Conducting his own detective work, bioterrorism expert Leonard Cole has composed a fascinating account that gets right to the heart of all the noisy sound bytes and hysterical headlines. Cole is perhaps the only person outside law enforcement to have interviewed every one of the surviving inhalation-anthrax victims, along with the relatives, friends, and associates of those who died, as well as the public health officials, scientists, researchers, hospital workers, and treating physicians -- indeed, anyone who has something of value to add to the story. Speaking through their voices, the narrative reflects the tension and emotions stirred by the events from that fall in 2001. Fast paced and riveting, this minute-by-minute chronicle of the anthrax attacks recounts more than a history of recent current events; it uncovers the untold and perhaps even more important story of how scientists, doctors, and researchers perform life-saving work under intense pressure and public scrutiny. The Anthrax Letters is a spellbinding behind-the-scenes expose that amply demonstrates how vulnerable America and the world really were in 2001 -- and how critical scientific research promises to strengthen our ability to address the challenges we must meet in the future.« less