Sallie Baliunas

In the fall of 2001 letters containing a white powder form of anthrax were mailed to political and media figures. Five people died and at least thirteen others were infected (the sender of the letters remained unknown at the end of 2002). Anthrax is a disease caused by a bacteria that exists naturally in livestock animals; it is nearly always fatal to humans if it is caught by inhalation and left untreated. In the following viewpoint, Sallie Baliunas describes the disease, its causes, and its symptoms. The hardiness and lethality of the anthrax bacterium has made it a prime candidate for biological warfare, she writes. In consequence, she argues, anthrax should be considered a serious threat to human health. Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a senior scientist at the George...