The Associated Press Pharmacist Amy
Sidney was forced to post signs in her pharmacy limiting
the prescription medicine Cipro Saturday in New York.
By Davis Epso
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON “”mdash; Security officials sealed off one wing of an
eight-story Senate building and dispensed precautionary antibiotics
by the hundreds on Tuesday as the FBI probed similarities between
an anthrax case in New York and a spore-spiked letter mailed to
Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
“Obviously, these are difficult times,” said
Daschle, as the Senate ““ and the nation it represents ““
grappled with the unsettling threat of bioterrorism.
A thousand miles to the south, Floridian Ernesto Blanco lay ill
in a hospital with the inhalation form of anthrax, less than two
weeks after a co-worker died of the same illness.
In New York, headquarters for many of the nation’s
high-profile news media corporations, officials said they expected
full recoveries for two people infected with a less lethal form of
the disease. They included an NBC news employee and the 7-month-old
son of an ABC producer.
And at UCLA, Chancellor Albert Carnesale sent a campus-wide
e-mail Tuesday with a message from the university’s chief of
police, Clarence Chapman, and the director of environmental health
and safety, Rick Greenwood:
“During this period, we recognize that you may have
concerns about … suspicious packages, mail, explosive devices,
and dangerous chemical or biological substances,” reads the
statement.
The message, which provided instructions on dealing with
suspicious circumstances and anthrax cases, outlined the process
for notifying campus police.
Five weeks after terrorist strikes killed 6,000 in New York and
Washington, the nation reeled under a continuing series of
disclosures involving letters tainted by anthrax bacteria, spores
discovered in a postal facility in Florida, countless innocent
scares and a few malicious hoaxes.
“As the evidence unwinds, there may end up being a formal
tie” between the anthrax cases and Osama bin Laden’s
terrorist network, said Tom Ridge, recently sworn in as the head of
the new Office of Homeland Security.
Other officials didn’t go quite so far, but said they are
looking for links between anthrax and the man suspected of
orchestrating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands
in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
FBI director Mueller told reporters there were “certain
similarities” between the letter addressed to NBC anchor Tom
Brokaw and the mail unsealed in Daschle’s office across the
street from the Capitol several days later.
The Justice Department released photos of the two envelopes,
addressed in handwritten block letters that appear similar. Both
contained a postmark from Trenton, N.J, and both also appeared to
have metered stamps.
The Brokaw envelope is postmarked Sept. 16 with no return
address. The Daschle letter is postmarked Oct. 8, and the return
address is “4th Grade, Greendale School, Franklin Park, NJ
08852.” Justice Department officials said there is no such
school.
Officials said they released the photos in hopes the public
could aid in their investigation.
Additionally, one official who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said the two letters contained threatening messages that were
similar to one another.
In one chilling development, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who
attended a closed-door briefing on the subject, said afterward the
strain of anthrax found in the letter to Daschle was “very
refined, very pure,” making it more dangerous.
Investigators dispatched to a New Jersey mail processing
facility scanned surveillance tapes and canvassed postal workers as
they sought clues about the origin of the two pieces of mail. But
officials said the letters could have started at any of 46 smaller
facilities before arriving at the main post office.
“It’s difficult but not impossible” to determine
the precise course each letter took, said Tony Esposito, a postal
inspector.
Daschle said that thus far, none of the staff aides who had been
in the area near the letter had reported positive for anthrax
exposure.
But in steps that underscored the extraordinary level of
concern, Capitol police cordoned off an entire wing of the
eight-story Senate office building around the Majority
Leader’s office so they could check for evidence of
contamination. Officials said the area that was sealed was serviced
by one of five or six separate ventilation systems in the
building.
A dozen senators’ offices were temporarily relocated for
the tests, expected to last two or three more days, and mail shut
down for the second straight day throughout the Capitol
complex.
Officials invited aides, tourists, reporters and anyone else who
might have been in the area Monday to report for nasal-swab tests.
Anyone who did was given a three-day supply of antibiotics, six
pills in all, and told to report back Thursday to obtain the lab
results.
“We have to throw out the net as widely as
possible,” said Dr. John Eisold, the Capitol’s
attending physician. “If we screen them, we treat
them.”
Authorities moved aggressively elsewhere around the nation to
trace the source of tainted mailings and to respond to fresh
threats.
Mueller told reporters that so far, federal investigators have
found no “direct link to organized terrorism.” Daschle,
S-S.D., added, “I’m not at all sure that all of this is
related directly” to bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the
Sept. 11 terror attacks.
President Bush said Monday he wouldn’t rule out a
connection to bin Laden. But administration officials said they
were also investigating to see whether there was a connection to
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
At a news conference in Washington, Attorney General John
Ashcroft condemned anthrax hoaxes as “grotesque
transgressions of the public trust.” He announced the
indictment of a Connecticut man, Joseph Faryniarz, for making false
statements to a federal agent in connection with a hoax at his
place of work.
With reports from Linh Tat, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.