, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A New York woman died of inhalation anthrax Wednesday and the medical and law enforcement community is baffled and frustrated by the continuing spread of the apparently mail-borne disease, according to U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher.
The New York woman, the fourth to die of the disease, had no apparent connection with previous victims of either the inhalation form or the less-deadly skin type of anthrax. She worked in a hospital stockroom next to a mailroom in New York, but tests have turned up no signs of anthrax spores.
"There is a lot we don't know about what the attacker is doing, and that's the difficult part," Satcher said on "Larry King Live." We don't know what the attacker is doing or what the attacker is going to do next in terms of strategy. We're used to dealing with infectious diseases, but we don't have a lot of experience dealing with terrorists."
Someone, somewhere is making the high-grade spores, Satcher said, and "the FBI, of course, is looking into that very closely as to what is the source of this anthrax and who is behind it."
"And hopefully, with all of the work that they're doing, we will know that answer soon. That is the only way we can prevent a continuation of this," he said.
Thousands of postal workers and legislative staff members and some media workers are being treated with antibiotics after potential exposure to the spores. Two postal workers, a photo editor at a tabloid magazine and Wednesday's death of the hospital worker have scared other workers and baffled investigators.
"We're very concerned that we really don't know how (the fourth) person was infected, and the reason we're so concerned about that is because that will tell us who else might have been exposed in the same situation at the same time or near the same time," Satcher said. "So our major concern now and our major investigations are surrounding trying to understand how this person became infected.
"It's very strange. They have not found any evidence yet as to the nature of her exposure. They haven't found any in that mailroom. So, hopefully, very soon we will discover where she contracted anthrax, because that means that other people have been or are being exposed probably in the same place," Satcher said.
"There is no link, and that's what really has us concerned. We need to find out how she was infected. A lot of investigations are going on as we speak. The epidemiologists from CDC, and working with the local health department, are looking very intensely into this case. We need to find out exactly where and how she was exposed."
Satcher said the medical community now knows a lot about anthrax, the disease, but are perplexed about how it has been spreading.
And the public, too, is perplexed and has been frustrated at the flow of sometimes contradictory information.
"I imagine if this were a major snowstorm we would probably know more information to share than we know now," Satcher said. "I think we have tried to be very forthcoming with information. CDC is reporting as rapidly as it can, as we get new information, but we're very careful not to give information that would be misleading, that's inaccurate.
"So I know that people would like to know more sooner, but I think people want accurate information. And people must understand that we're learning together," Satcher said. "This is new. We have not faced a bioterrorist attack before with anthrax or bioterrorist attack at all, so we are learning together."
