Science Slow to Ponder Ills That Linger in Anthrax Victims
For far longer than anyone had predicted, these two postal workers and many of the 15 other survivors of the anthrax attacks that began a year ago this week have been ill with symptoms their doctors cannot explain — fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, memory loss. In interviews, many say they communicate very little with one another, most fighting their battles alone, often confused, at times frightened.

These survivors are of great scientific interest, especially those who had the inhaled form of the illness, because in the past nearly everyone with inhalation anthrax died, and doctors have almost no information about recovery.

But only now is the government beginning to study their progress. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has drawn blood from survivors to measure changes in their immune systems, it has not conducted comprehensive follow-ups or physical examinations. The reason, officials say, include a lack of trained personnel, red tape and a surfeit of competing demands.

Now another agency, the National Institutes of Health, has developed a plan to study the survivors. But some leading anthrax experts say that the work should have begun a year ago and that valuable information may have been lost in the meantime.

"It's very peculiar to me that these people haven't had the million-dollar work-up that they deserve," said Dr. Meryl J. Nass, an anthrax expert in Freeport, Me., who has advised one victim. "Nobody has made an attempt to gather them together and test them all for the same things and compare the results. That's how you make a determination of what's wrong with them."

Critics like Dr. Nass say survivors offer a rare chance to map the course of recovery and try to determine whether the disease has any long-term effects that might help explain the problems now confronting some of the survivors. Such information could help not only the survivors themselves but also future victims, should anthrax ever be used as a weapon again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/16/national/16LIMB.html?pagewanted=all&position=top