Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Ma Anand Sheela, personal secretary to the
Bhagwan, leader of the commune, and Ma Anand
Puja, a nurse, worked with a trained laboratory
technician to culture
Salmonella typhimurium
used
to contaminate salad bars throughout the commu-
nity [20]. They specifically rejected the use of a
more dangerous pathogen,
S. typhi
, the causative
agent of typhoid fever, due to their concern that
an outbreak of typhoid fever would attract too
much attention. The Rajneeshees believed that they
could accomplish their intended objective, inca-
pacitation, using a generally non-lethal agent,
S.
typhimurium
, which causes diarrheal illness, often
accompanied by fever, chills, headache, nausea
or vomiting [68]. The September and October
contamination of salad bars was seen to be practice
for incapacitation of the local populace during the
November elections, so that the Rajneeshees could
influence local elections with their votes. In 1986,
Sheela and Puja were sentenced to 24-year prison
terms, and served four years in a California prison
before parole.
four concurrent 20-year prison terms in September
1998 [20].
2.18 Other Recent Bioterrorism
Incidents
In 1991, a right-wing extremist group, the
Minnesota Patriots Council, produced a small
quantity of ricin toxin from castor beans, made
from a recipe found in a topic. They planned to use
a mixture of ricin and DMSO, apparently hoping
that the DMSO would transport the ricin [128]. In
1994 and 1995, four members of this group were
the first to be tried and convicted under the 1989
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, for the
possession of ricin [69].
In 1995, Larry Wayne Harris, who has been
linked to white supremacist groups, was arrested
after ordering
C. botulinum
through the mail from
a cell culture repository in Maryland. He was later
convicted, and re-arrested in 1998 after having
possession of
Ba. anthracis
[70].
After terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon in 2001, envelopes containing
Ba. anthracis
spores were mailed to news media
and US government offices [71]. As a result of
these exposures, there were 11 cases of inhala-
tion anthrax, 11 cases of cutaneous anthrax, and
5 deaths [72,73]. Public health and law enforce-
ment investigation and response activities across
the United States and in other countries occurred
as a result of the anthrax mailings. As of October
2004, the perpetrator has still not been appre-
hended.
In December 2002, six terrorist suspects were
arrested in Manchester, England; their apartment
was serving as a “ricin laboratory.” On January
5, 2003, British police raided two residences near
London and found traces of ricin, which led to
an investigation of a possible Chechen separatist
plan to attack the Russian embassy with the toxin;
several arrests were made [74].
Ricin was also found in a South Carolina postal
facility in October 2003 [75] and in the mailroom
that serves Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's
office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in
Washington, D.C. on February 3, 2004 [76]. Also
2.17 St. Paul Medical Center, Dallas
On October 29, 1996, twelve people who worked
in the laboratory of the St. Paul Medical
Center hospital in Dallas, Texas, were deliber-
ately infected with
Shigella dysenteriae
type 2, a
rare strain of shigella that causes diarrheal illness.
An e-mail message was reportedly sent to labo-
ratory personnel inviting them to eat blueberry
muffins and doughnuts available in the laboratory's
lunchroom. Everyone who ate a pastry became
ill by November 1. Clinical tests revealed that
the victims were infected with
S. dysenteriae
, and
this pathogen was also found in a saved muffin.
Investigators learned that the laboratory had a vial
containing beads impregnated with
S. dysenteriae
type 2 of the same strain, and that some of the
beads were missing [127]. Police attention was
focused on a disgruntled laboratory technician,
Diane Thompson, who had access to the labo-
ratory's shigella culture. Thompson was indicted
and accused of infecting her co-workers with
Shigella dysenteriae
Type 2, and was sentenced to
