The anthrax scare “had begun on October 4 [2001], when news broke that a Florida man had contracted pulmonary anthrax, which Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, instantly dismissed as ‘an isolated case’ that was ‘not contagious’ and was most likely environmental in origin. ‘We do know that he drank water out of a stream when he was traveling to North Carolina last week,’ the secretary said during a White House briefing. The victim died the following day, but it wasn’t for another week…that it dawned on the White House that the crisis had nothing to do with streams in North Carolina.”
– Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Page 34