Rural America Used to Wild Anthrax

Nov. 2, 2001 — -- The contaminated letters recently sent as biological weapons produced America's first human anthrax cases in …
a) centuries
b) decades
c) weeks

The answer, "c," might not be so surprising to ranchers and residents in parts of the country who have lived amid anthrax all their lives — but rarely have gotten sick.

"There are certain things that a rancher knows about raising cattle," said Ed Curlett, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "How to deal with anthrax is one of those things."

In a case this summer in western Texas, a man contracted the skin form of anthrax, apparently after attempting to skin a bison that had died of the disease, state health officials said. He was treated with antibiotics.

"It's not a bioterroristic, intentionally criminal act," said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Health. "Anthrax is found in nature in parts of the country, including parts of Texas. The organism itself in spore form can stay in soil for years."

Anthrax appears sporadically around the country, mostly along old cattle trails that ran from Texas to Canada, where health officials speculate anthrax from dead cattle settled in the soil. When conditions are right — such as when hot, dry weather follows cool, wet weather — the anthrax can reemerge and infect grazing animals that consume the spores. Anthrax usually occurs only in the summer.

This year, an estimated 1,600 animals in Texas — including about 1,200 wild white-tailed deer — are believed to have died from anthrax in what was a particularly bad season, state health officials said. Dozens of animals also died of apparent anthrax this summer in Minnesota, and 21 cattle died between Oct. 20 and 28 on a ranch in Santa Clara County, Calif.

Anthrax emerges so often in the part of western Texas where this year's human case occurred, the area around the towns of Del Rio, Rocksprings and Uvalde is known locally as the "anthrax triangle."