Anthrax Cattle Graves - Russia's 500-year Disease Threat

http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/87/348/11005_anthrax.html

Anthrax Cattle Graves - Russia's 500-year Disease Threat
10/02/2003 17:03
Veterinary records confirm an anthrax outbreak in Russia's Volgograd region. Three cases have been registered - two blamed on a diseased cow killed for a meat-packing factory
The outbreak at Vodno-Buerachny in Kamyshinsky district followed a vet missing signs of anthrax symptoms in the beast, attributed to "atypical development of the disease." Though the animal looked unhealthy, it still went to the slaughterman and ended up as sausage meat, a case report says.

Compounding the offence, the carcass was not medically examined and the diseased meat was processed inside a week - while trouble reared when the cow's now sick owner and the slaughterman went to hospital. They, and another animal owner, were diagnosed with a skin form of anthrax and the settlement was quarantined. Unlike the intestinal and pulmonary strain, this can be cured easily, doctors say.

But while vets are charged with checking live animals for diseases like this, anthrax burial sites are going unmonitored for the huge health dangers lurking there. Volgograd-s regional administration says their territory is home to at least 1,500 anthrax sites, many neglected because exact locations are known for just a few.

Before 1948, infected carcasses were not cremated, as is practice now. Since then, landscapes have changed and settlements knowing of many sites have disappeared. The spores, meanwhile, have a lifetime of up to 500 years even underground. Neglected sites are as deadly as decades ago

more...

I find this interesting this story comes out after Bush saw Putin in Camp David

Bears watching!

:bounce:

Anthrax is not that unusual a disease in cattle, even here in the US, mostly in western states.
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/INF-DA/INF-DA_Anthrax.html

On second thought, keep the tinfoil, there are still plenty of real conspiracies to guard against.