…like playing in public, playing with other musicians and every bad joke about them on the tip of everyone else’s tongue…this appears..
Conn. Man Gets Anthrax From Drums
2 days ago
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — An African musician and a family member both contracted a non-contagious form of anthrax, apparently from imported animal skins used to make drums, officials said Wednesday.
Mayor Mark Boughton described one of the individuals as a renowned African drummer and drum maker who stored untanned animal hides obtained from areas of the world where anthrax is common.
A spokesman for the state Department of Public Health, Bill Gerrish, said a second member of the same family also had the disease. Both apparently had the cutaneous form of anthrax, which is not contagious and can usually be treated with antibiotics.
Cutaneous anthrax, the most common form of infection by the bacteria, can cause reddening and swelling of the skin. There usually are only one to two cases per year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
FBI agents were notified of the situation but state public health officials were handling the investigation, said Marybeth Miklos, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s New Haven field office. “We are aware of it, but as of right now it is not anything terrorism-related,” Miklos said.
In a similar case in February 2006, a New York City man contracted anthrax while handling drums he had covered with goat skin he brought from Ivory Coast. Health officials believe he inhaled anthrax spores while making the instruments.
Inhalation anthrax from natural sources is rare. It infects the lungs and kills about 75 percent of victims, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
The last U.S. case not linked to terrorism occurred in 1976.
One group of anthrax cases linked to terrorism occurred a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Five people were killed and 17 sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida. There have been no convictions in that case.
So much for cheap replacements skins.
Anstapa
