MUSEUM ACQUIRES DRUGS USED TO TREAT ANTHRAX
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When a letter sent to Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office in October 2001 was found to contain anthrax, worries of bioterrorism concerned many. As a precautionary measure Senate staffers, postal employees, and others believed to be exposed to the bacteria were tested for inhalation anthrax and prescribed Ciprofloxacin, Doxycycline, or Penicillin. The National Museum of Health and Medicine recently added a bottle of each of these antibiotics to its historical collections.

Ciprofloxacin, commonly called Cipro, Doxycycline, and Penicillin are drugs used to treat persons after possible exposure to an infection-causing bacteria. According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of Jan. 25, 2002, approximately 10,000 persons were potentially exposed to anthrax in Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York City, and Washington, D.C., and were prescribed at least 60 days of the antibiotics.

The antibiotics were recently added to the historical collections along with other items the museum acquired during this period of a threat of bioterrorism in the United States.

"We asked for these drugs from the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency," said Alan Hawk, manager of the museum's historical collections. "I requested expired samples of the antibiotics to add medicine to our collections that were contemporaneous with the event."