Talk:Anthrax

Fluoroquinolones

Ciprofloxacin is indeed a fluoroquinolone, but doxycycline, erythromycin, vancomycin and penicillin are NOT. 192.12.184.7 (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that was the intent of the sentence. I made a minor change to make it clearer.MartinezMD (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction: consuming infected animals

Compare paragraphs 3 and 5: "Carnivores living in the same environment may become infected by consuming infected animals." "Anthrax typically does not cause disease in carnivores and scavengers, even when these animals consume anthrax-infected carcasses." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.184.43.100 (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Page lacks US test sites

The page is biased toward recent news (poor history). In particular, it lacks US production facilities and test sites and decontamination status. 99.2.229.105 (talk) 19:24, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Necessity of including a reference for Antarctica

Does it seem necessary to include a reference that the bacilius anthracis is found specifically on antarctica? As far as anthrax is concerned, as a whole, I feel like it is an insignificant detail. So, I propose that maybe the sentence structure just be changed to only include that it is found on all seven continents, which, at least in my opinion, seems like relevant information. It may seem nitpicky, but through time little useless additions of information like this can really bog down an article. Aglo123 (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Discovery by Aloys Pollender

In the german Wikipedia entry Aloys Pollender ist listed as the one who discovered Anthrax in 1849. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloys_Pollender The Englisch article of him is very small, but in the German article of him it is proven by a source that he discovered Anthrax. Here is the first page of his study about Anthrax: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aloys_Pollender_Publizierung.jpg Maybe you guys could think about editing this article. 91.38.31.112 (talk) 19:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

These two parts of the introduction seem contradictory to me. Some clarification would be appreciated -

"Anthrax commonly infects wild and domesticated herbivorous mammals that ingest or inhale the spores while grazing. Ingestion is thought to be the most common route by which herbivores contract anthrax. Carnivores living in the same environment may become infected by consuming infected animals. Diseased animals can spread anthrax to humans, either by direct contact (e.g., inoculation of infected blood to broken skin) or by consumption of a diseased animal's flesh."

Then later... "Anthrax typically does not cause disease in carnivores and scavengers, even when these animals consume anthrax-infected carcasses" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethylfox (talk • contribs) 16:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

No contradiction. Carnivores may become infected but typically don't. It's the herbivores (cattle) that will get the disease and only sometimes that carnivores get it from eating them.MartinezMD (talk) 18:30, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 October 2014

"Until the 20th century, anthrax infections killed hundreds of thousands of animals and people worldwide each year.[4] French scientist Louis Pasteur developed the first effective vaccine for anthrax in 1881.[5][6][7] As a result of over a century of animal vaccination programs, sterilization of raw animal waste materials, and anthrax eradication programs in United States, Canada, Russia, Eastern Europe, Oceania, and parts of Africa and Asia, anthrax infection is now relatively rare in domestic animals (with only a few dozen cases reported each year).[citation needed] "

'a few dozen cases reported each year' is likely a very country(?USA) centric statement. It should be removed or qualified. I am not sure which countries operate anthrax eradication programs. Many vaccinate and maintain vaccination programs following outbreaks, but to attempt to eradicate spores in the ground does not make sense. Unreported anthrax outbreaks are common in some parts of the world. Geoff Chubb (talk) 02:11, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Done I tried to Google some info about this but couldn't find any. I've removed that from the article now. Stickee (talk) 01:26, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Moving Specific Outbreaks

Hey all! It seems like people have added information about specific outbreaks of anthrax in a hodge-podge fashion throughout the article. There is one in the lead, some in symptoms, some in causes, etc. This doesn't really seem like a sustainable plan. I'm going to make a List of anthrax outbreaks like they did for Legionnaires' and start to shift the specific outbreak info over there. I think that'll help us to organize this article a bit more easily. If anyone has any other ideas, I'm all ears (or eyes, I suppose)! Thanks! Ajpolino (talk) 04:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"Until the 20th century, anthrax infections killed hundreds of thousands of people and other animals each year"

The inclusion of the word "other" in the above sentence from the lede seems to unnecessarily emphasise the fact that humans are animals at the expense of clarity. While humans are of course animals in a scientific sense, in common usage the word "animal" doesn't generally include them. One solution would be simply saying "humans and animals", but perhaps a more accurate solution to improve readability would be to split it into separate estimates for humans and animals.

Just to note; the given citation for this sentence consistently uses the term "animal" in the common, human-excluding sense. With examples such as "periodic emergence of disease in humans and animals" and "incidents of anthrax in animals and/or humans". 122.59.140.127 (talk) 02:08, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Removing the word "other" from this sentence, since there has been no comment or objection in over three months. 203.97.181.188 (talk) 02:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Yup humans are animals. So restored. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:05, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

That may be so. But it's unusual English to specify that fact where it isn't necessary for clarity. As was pointed out, even in the cited paper the more natural form (i.e. "humans and animals") is used. 203.97.181.188 (talk) 02:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Spore or endospore?

This article uses "spore" throughout, but a hatnote on the spore article specifically excludes bacterial spores, redirecting to endospore. Is it better to replace "spore" with "endospore" throughout this article, or to just change the first wikilink to endospore?--Theodore Kloba (talk) 14:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC)