By David Espo
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON “”mdash; A State Department mail handler lay ill with
inhalation anthrax Thursday and the besieged Postal Service set up
spot checks at facilities nationwide as the bioterror scare
widened. “We still don’t know who is
responsible,” said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.
At a White House news conference, Ridge also disclosed that the
anthrax contained in mail addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle had been altered to make it more of a threat. “It is
highly concentrated. It is pure and the spores are smaller,”
he said. “Therefore they’re more dangerous because they
can be more easily absorbed in a person’s respiratory
system.”
Ridge said the type of anthrax used in the U.S. attacks is
called Ames. Anthrax researchers have identified Ames, named for
the city in Iowa, as the strain used in American bioweapons
research. It also is used to test vaccines.
Three weeks into the nation’s unprecedented bioterrorism
scare, lawmakers were permitted to return to several of their
office buildings on Capitol Hill. And White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer said there had been no evidence of anthrax exposure among
officials there who came in contact with mail that went through an
off-site machine where anthrax was detected earlier in the
week.
“We are here to conduct the nation’s business. We
will not be frightened,” said Secretary of State Colin Powell
as he appeared before a Senate committee.
But there were words of caution elsewhere. “We are very
concerned about additional letters. We would be naive to think this
is over,” said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
There was further jolting news, a disclosure from officials in
New Jersey that a postal worker was being watched for suspected
inhalation anthrax, and then the announcement from the State
Department.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said a department employee who works
at a mail handling site in suburban Virginia had become the
nation’s latest victim of a disease last seen more than two
decades ago.
Dr. Ivan Walks, head of the Washington public health department,
said the man was hospitalized in guarded condition with inhalation
anthrax. Unlike other area residents who have been hit, this
patient had been asked whether his job required him to go to the
Brentwood postal facility that serves as the main mail processing
center for the nation’s capital. “His answer was
“˜never,”’ Walks reported.
However, mail to federal agencies passes through the
contaminated Brentwood facility.
The announcement came in addition to 12 confirmed cases of
anthrax in the past three weeks, most of them linked to
anthrax-spiked mail that has passed through New Jersey, New York or
the nation’s capital.
One such letter was addressed to Daschle; others are known to
have been sent to NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw and to the New York
Post. Anthrax has also been found in Florida, where one man died,
although authorities have not yet found tainted mail there.
At his White House news conference, Ridge said tests on the
anthrax found to date confirmed it is all of the same strain and
responds to antibiotics, meaning that “people who are exposed
can be treated.”
At the same time, he added, the substance in Daschle’s
mail “has some different characteristics” that make it
more easily taken into a victim’s lungs. He said that based
on the latest lab reports, “It is clear that the terrorists
responsible for these attacks intended to use this anthrax as a
weapon.”
In all, 28 people were exposed to anthrax in and around
Daschle’s office, and all Senate office buildings were shut
down. The discovery of anthrax on a mail machine in a House office
building prompted the closure of additional office buildings.
Daschle said one wing in the building that houses his office
would remain sealed off for the indefinite future. “I am very
confident that we will be able to seal it in a way that will
provide us complete confidence that we can access the rest of the
building without any hazardous exposure,” he told reporters
in the Capitol.
Officials learned Wednesday of additional anthrax in the same
building when tests taken from a freight elevator turned out
positive. Congressional sources, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said the elevator is used routinely to convey express
mail to the Hart Building, connected by underground tunnel to the
Senate’s main mail room in the building next door.
Thus far, an estimated 10,000 people have been given antibiotics
as a precaution against contracting anthrax, many of them postal
workers in New York, New Jersey and the nation’s capital. And
in recent days, the Postal Service and Bush administration have
launched an intensive effort to assure the safety of the mail
system.
Ridge said that as of midday, officials had begun environmental
testing at 200 postal facilities along the Eastern corridor,
presumably the region from New York to Washington.
“I want to reiterate, there is no indication of any new
exposure at this time at these sites,” he said.
There was enough of that already.
Anthrax had been discovered at the central mail facility in the
nation’s capital, the place of employment for two men who
died of the disease in recent days.
In addition, authorities have said there were multiple positive
tests for the bacteria at a mail processing facility in the Trenton
area.