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Vice Blog

It Happened - The Drums Of Death

Remember a little while back some guy died in Dalston from exposure to anthrax? No not the band, this stuff. Fernando Gomez was the first guy to cop it in this country from anthrax poisoning in 32 years. Now, if you lived next door to a guy who'd killed himself by skinning drums filled with anthrax spores you'd be pretty freaked out right? Well Fernando's neighbour got in touch with us and all things considered he seems pretty relaxed about the whole living next door to anthrax thing.

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On the morning of Mr Gomez's death I received a letter from the Health Protection Agency of North East & Central London (below) informing me that there was going to be "Work At: 94 Dalston Lane". The letter went onto explain that there would be testing in the above property for anthrax, adding that there is "no risk to your health". Twice. In bold.

Leaving my house I was confronted by something resembling the upsetting scene out of ET, where the titular star lies quarantined in new bff Elliott's room, minus the cute alien plus the bleary eyed hacks from the Hackney Gazette; as men in biohazard suits were carrying ominous containers to and from a portacabin in my next door neighbours' garden. It was a pretty bizarre scene to wake up to.

This week I received another letter confirming that testing "went very smoothly", also revealing "one drum out of five and some of the animal skins tested positive for anthrax." Phew! Imagine if the whole lot had been spewing the stuff. Perhaps a little churlishly there was no mention of Mr Gomez's death in neither correspondence. He had been the third drum-maker in recent years to have died after inhaling the lethal bacterium spores. Dependent on how infection is acquired there are three forms of anthrax that can affect humans; cutaneous (skin), inhalation (as was the case of my next door neighbour) and ingestion – which basically fucks up all your internal organs while you vomit blood trying to avoid the painful sores covering your mouth and the inside of your throat. There isn't really a 'best of the bunch' with anthrax so it is no wonder that terrorists and friendless, psychotic, high school students alike have used anthrax spores as deadly biological weapons.

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I guess the main message is: next time you go to 'find yourself' in East Asia, leave the bongos in Bangkok.

DAVID KANE