GUEST, I'd be more reassured if your post didn't contain at least one completely nonsensical statement:

"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."

Tell that to Jim Henson, who died of pneumonia caused by Group AStreptococcus pyogenes, a gram-positive bacterium. This bug is also popularly known as the "flesh-eating bacteria" when it causes necrotizing fasciitis, but best known as the cause of "strep throat". If gram positive bacteria are harmless, somebody should tell my patients (like the little boy in the hospital right now with a serious staph infection of the tissues around his eye) that they're imagining their infections. And let the drug companies know that the antibiotics they've been making to treat infections caused by gram-positive bacteria (like the one that's helping that little boy get better) are unnecessary.

Unfortunately, that's the problem with using the Internet as a source of information. You just don't know what's true and what's made up.

Aloha,
Mark