CarolC, in answer to your question...

On Anthrax:

Quoted in part from www.nov55.com/athr.html "Here's the truth of the matter. Anthrax will never be used successfully as a terrorist weapon, and probably never as a military weapon. It has to be converted to spores suspended in the air, which is technically very difficult; and the lethality is nowhere near the terror that it is made out to be. It is not 100% lethal as often claimed. Wool sorters inhale anthrax spores in small quantities continually (150-700 per hour), and only if they get a large dose does an infection get started."

"Anthrax is a livestock pathogen. There are anthrax spores in the ground in rural areas, because they survive for about twenty years. They normally have no effect upon humans, because a few anthrax spores cannot create an infection, and they do not come up from the ground in large quantities.

Anthrax is what's called a "gram positive" bacterium. This means it has the type of cell walls which are harmless, unlike the cell walls of "gram negative" bacteria, which attack tissue. Therefore, anthrax can only attack tissue by producing a special toxin which it excretes. One cell or spore does not produce enough toxin to start an infection.

Studies have apparently determined that, typically, ten thousand anthrax spores must be inhaled to start an infection. That number might be someone's guess, but it is in line with the biology of the disease. It is the number which the military uses, and only the military has significantly researched such questions. It uses gas chambers for animal tests.

Anthrax normally attacks the lungs, because it must lodge in vulnerable tissue. It can invade through other routes such as cuts or undercooked meat, but it only does so under third world conditions, and those routes are not relevant to biowarfare."

On Ebola:

Quoted from www.american.edu/ted/ebola.htm "Ebola is one of the most gruesome and deadly viruses in its effects on its victims. It often destroys its victim in less than ten days and it is spread through bodily fluids, most easily through blood to those who have close personal contact with the person who is acutely ill. For instance, family members and health care workers have caught it, the latter through reuse of hypodermic needles when treating infected patients. This is most common in developing countries such as Zaire and Sudan where healthcare is underfinanced.

Lack of sanitary conditions, including clean needles, syringes, water, and ways to sanitize an area after it comes into contact with the fluids of a victim are prime ways in which to spread the disease. We do not know what risks are associated with which body fluids because medical workers who have caught the disease were exposed to various body fluids. It is unlikely that there is airborne transmission in humans, although in monkeys this is more likely. There may be risk of spread of the disease through sexual transmission, although this is not likely through those who are infected but show no signs of infection. For persons who have been previously infected, the disease may spread through genital discharges for a brief period after recovery. The risk of transmission of the disease is more likely, of course, in the later stages of the disease, when body fluids are flowing more freely (for example, through vomiting, diarrhea, and hemorrhaging).

There is a great need for an increase in clean water, new syringes and better sanitation, especially in hospitals. In fact, hospitals are in such great need for these that two of the three outbreaks of Ebola in Zaire were in hospitals; for instance, in the university hospital in Kinshasa, several patients must share a single bed, and in a larger hospital, the Mama Yemo Hospital, corpses have piled up because of the lack of funds to dispose of them.(1)

In the 1995 Zaire Ebola outbreak, there were reports of transmission between people a few days after the onset of the fever. (Other symptoms in the primary patients and the level of exposure to bodily fluids which caused the secondary cases were unknown.)(2) It was asserted that "sharing a small, primitive, native hut with a patient was not a risk factor." But over one third of the secondary victims were either morgue workers or health care workers, which had "multiple contacts with multiple fluids."(3)"