Sharon, anthrax is a bacteria. Antibiotics are effective against bacteria, not viruses. Think 'colds.' Think herpes, warts, chicken pox. It's your own immunse system that cures you, although vaccines can prevent many of the diseases the viruses cause.

Bacteria are things like strep, staph, pneumonia and salmonella. Although bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics, they ARE usually susceptible to something.

Sometimes, bacteria produce toxins (poisons) and antibiotics don't work on them. Botox is the toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum. It's not the bacteria itself that can make you sick, it's the toxin it produces. Anthrax produces a toxin when it's inside a person. Antibiotics are effective against the actual bacteria, but if a person develops symptoms, the drugs don't usually work. I believe this is because it's the toxins produced by the anthrax bacteria that makes people sick and eventually kills them, and the drugs don't destroy the toxins.

One poor man died. I don't wish to belittle that, but in the grand scheme of things, one death is NOT something I'm going to get frightened about. If these guys went to as much trouble as they must have to plan, get their hands on some anthrax, take precautions while handling it, addressed and sent the letters, then sat back to watch the resulting disaster, they have to be pretty pissed off. One death, a chance for public education, and tighter security so the liklihood of any similar attempts succeeding is greatly lessened.

People will focus, and they may act in ways that are very close to superstitious - cold symptoms may scare people, folks may be afraid to go anywhere, people will wear surgical masks or be afraid to touch anything, etc. That will pass, and hopefully what will remain is the knowledge we've all gained because of this. It may not be long before monitoring devices are widely available. Then again, the probability that anyone else has the resources and the level of insanity of Osama bin Laden.