[iwar] [fc:Anthrax.kills.beef.cattle.in.Santa.Clara]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-31 22:14:10

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 22:14:10 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Anthrax.kills.beef.cattle.in.Santa.Clara]
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Anthrax kills beef cattle in Santa Clara 
Eric Brazil, SF Chronicle, 10/31/2001
<a href="http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006rFX">http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006rFX>

Anthrax has killed 21 beef cattle on a southern Santa Clara County
ranch, the California Department of Food and Agriculture said yesterday. 
It is the worst outbreak of anthrax in California livestock in 17 years. 
State veterinarian Dr. Richard Breitmeyer said the first indication that
some of the cattle in the herd were ill had come Oct. 20, but his office
was only informed of the seriousness of the outbreak on Friday. 
The first veterinarian on the scene did not diagnose anthrax -- that was
done by microbiologists at the University of California at Davis,
Breitmeyer said.

State and Santa Clara County Health and Agriculture department officials
declined to disclose the name of the cattle's owners or the ranch. 
Breitmeyer said that there was no apparent connection between the
anthrax terrorist attacks on the East Coast and the deaths of the cows.
However, he said, "because of the heightened awareness, we contacted the
FBI and transported the bacteria culture to them so they can have it to
make sure it is our garden variety anthrax." 
The carcasses of the dead cattle have been buried, and 120 healthy
animals in the herd have been corraled and quarantined for 60 days, and
vaccinated against the disease. They are being fed and are not grazing,
Breitmeyer said. 
Anthrax was once a common scourge of cattle throughout the West, and
still claims hundreds of head annually in Texas. But a rigorous
vaccination regimen practiced by California ranchers has virtually
eliminated it as a major threat to the state's herds. 
Because the ranch where the cattle died did not have a history of
anthrax, the herd had not been vaccinated, Breitmeyer said. 
"It was pretty dry, and the (cattle) were obviously grazing pretty close
to the ground, and they must have ingested a pretty good dose of
anthrax," he said. 
The Santa Clara County deaths are the most serious anthrax outbreak in
California since 1984, when the disease killed 135 sheep and 43 cattle
pastured on the Carrizo Plains of San Luis Obispo County. 
Although anthrax spores are ubiquitous in the ground in Northern
California's rangeland, just nine confirmed cases had been reported
since 1991. 
Santa Clara County Agricultural Commissioner Greg VanWassenhove said
that the ranch affected by the outbreak was a cow-calf operation, with
range bulls, "and some of each died." 
Dr. Sharon Hietala, a pathologist with UC Davis' animal disease
diagnostic laboratory, said vaccinating healthy members of the herd was
done to prevent further exposures to anthrax bacteria. 
Dr. Rance LeFebvre, a UC Davis microbiologist and anthrax expert who
teaches a course on bioterrorism, said that as a practical matter, "if
they get the (healthy) animals out of the field they've been grazing in,
the risk is gone. . . . Chances are, their immune system will kick in in
a couple of weeks." 
Anthrax vaccine for livestock uses a live organism as its immunizing
agent and is not considered suitable for use on humans.

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