USA: One year after developing inhalation anthrax David Hose is still unable to return to work

Record ID: 190050

  • Title: USA: One year after developing inhalation anthrax David Hose is still unable to return to work
  • Date: 7th October 2002
  • Summary: (L!1)UNKNOWN LOCATION, USA (FILE) (REUTERS) CU LETTERS ADDRESSED TO TOM BROKAW AND SENATOR DASCHLE CU BIOSAFETY WORKERS IN HAZARD SUITS AND LAB SHOTS (4 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA, USA; UNKNOWN LOCATION, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA542VQZOVS5TGUZKXL2M2028T9
  • Story Text: One year after developing inhalation anthrax at the mail handling facility in Sterling, Virginia, David Hose is still unable to return to work.
    Three times a week 60-year-old David Hose exercises at this cardiac rehabilitation center in Winchester, Virginia. He struggles to get through a modest workout something which, a year ago, would have been a breeze.
    "A year ago is like day and night. I don't have any where near the strength I had before. If I wasn't a real strong person before physically, I would have probably died," Hose says.
    Last October Hose contracted inhalation anthrax while handling mail for the State Department in Sterling, Virginia.
    After a few days of flu like symptoms, Hose began coughing up blood and was driven to the emergency room.
    "After two hours I talked them into taking a blood test and told them I thought I had Anthrax, because I knew six letters had been taken out of our facility at the State department and had been sent to the FBI," Hose says.
    They sent him home with Cipro and some cough syrup. By the next morning when his test showed positive for anthrax, Hose was gravely ill and lingered near death for days.
    "My blood pressure went up to 268 over 138. My heart rate was 165 beats a minute," Hose says.
    Anthrax bacteria releases deadly toxins that attack tissue throughout the body, killing cells and causing fluids to accumulate. Death often occurs after delirium, seizures and coma.
    Infectious disease specialist Dr. Mark Galbraith of the Winchester Medical Centre says a CT scan shows the havoc anthrax reeked on Hose's lungs last October.
    "You can see there is fluid on both sides. We drained the fluid off, because it was making it hard for him to breathe," says Galbraith.
    After inhaling the anthrax, his body transported the bacteria to the lymph nodes.
    "By bringing the spores into the lymph node it multiplies and suddenly then spores multiply and bacteria produces a swelling, and this creates a back log in the lymph channel,"
    Galbraith says.
    This is normal CT scan of Hose's lungs taken last summer.
    Still he suffers from asthma, shortness of breath and chronic fatigue. Because of ongoing illness, neither Hose, nor the other inhalation anthrax survivors have been able to return to work. A year later, the lingering condition has baffled health officials.
    "No one had anticipated long term sequelae. We didn't think people would have fatigue, we thought they would recover, and they haven't so there (are) some big unanswered questions as to what happened to this group of middle aged adults that came down with this illness," Galbraith said.
    Now it has been a year since the first of five Americans died from inhalation anthrax. And still another question remains: who was responsible for these attacks.
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