All three forms are caused by the same microbe, Bacillus anthracis, and scientists say they believe that all the drugs could work equally well.
Bausch, for example, quickly confirmed that Dr. Chu's patients had been infected by Fusarium fungi, the same microbes causing a bewildering outbreak of infections among customers in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Pig remains in particular have often been used in past decomposition studies because of their similarities to human bodies (which are often hard to come by): They have the same microbes in their guts, the same percentage of body fat, and similar hair as people.
The same microbes were also collected by ETT surface swabs except in two cases, when MSSA strains were present in swab cultures but not in lavage fluids.
The same microbes were found in both kinds, however.
This allowed the team to compare the effects of the same microbes when fed a Malawian diet, or an American one, or on sugars from breast milk that have specifically evolved to feed beneficial microbes.
In 7/11 cases the same microbes were identified also in tracheal aspirates.
Cloud-borne microbes are not necessarily the same microbes that thrive in dry or humid air; therefore, they do not paint a full picture of airborne microbial ecosystems.
However, even then it was obvious that neat classifications were problematic, for it was known that a microbe could be attenuated in the laboratory, but virulence could be restored by passage in a host, suggesting that the same microbe could exist in pathogenic and non-pathogenic states.
On the other hand, the same microbe, through pure chance, may not produce that burst of channels.
