Cases of deadly inhalation anthrax grow

The new cases are reported in three, and possibly as many as five, postal employees at facilities in Washington, D.C., and Trenton, N.J.

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 24, 2001

WASHINGTON -- An anthrax crisis already in high gear escalated again Tuesday, striking uncomfortably close to the White House. The confirmed death toll rose to three.

The Secret Service reported that anthrax traces were detected Tuesday on a letter-opening machine at the offsite facility that handles White House mail. New cases of suspected inhalation anthrax were reported in three -- and possibly as many as five -- postal employees who work at Washington, D.C., and Trenton, N.J., mail processing centers through which anthrax-laced letters have passed.

In hopes of obtaining help from the public -- and possibly to avert the opening of future dangerous mail -- the Justice Department released copies of the anthrax-containing letters that were mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post. All three, written in block handwriting and bearing the date of Sept. 11, contained the same expressions: "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is Great."

The NBC and Post letters were identical, down to the misspelling "penacilin." They also were postmarked in Trenton on Sept. 18. The Daschle letter, the most chilling of the three, said: "You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid?" That letter, also sent from Trenton, was postmarked Oct. 9.

Postal employees remained on the front line of the anthrax attacks that have occurred along the East Coast, accounting for two of the three fatalities and most of the inhalation anthrax cases, confirmed and suspected.

District of Columbia and U.S. Postal Service officials said Tuesday that inhalation anthrax was confirmed as the cause of death for two Brentwood processing facility employees who died this week: Joseph P. Curseen, 47, and Thomas L. Morris Jr., 55. The first casualty was Sun tabloid photo editor Bob Stevens, who died Oct. 5 of inhalation anthrax in Florida.

Public health officials sought Tuesday to address criticism that they were overly slow in ordering anthrax testing and precautionary treatment for postal employees working in the Brentwood facility and other locations that handled the Daschle letter -- or possibly other anthrax-bearing envelopes.

Thousands of postal workers in the nation's capital have been directed in the last day or two to take antibiotics as a preventive measure, with federal and local public health officials extending the order Tuesday to thousands of additional people in the area. The Postal Service also offered antibiotics Tuesday, as a precaution, to 7,000 employees of six Manhattan post offices that may have been in the path of contaminated letters.

"Let me say that something went wrong, obviously," Daschle said, when asked if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had erred in not reacting more swiftly to the possibility of anthrax exposure in Washington postal facilities. "And it's clear that we have to try to take whatever remedial action to ensure that protections are put in place for everybody. And I think that's what the CDC and other officials are now trying to do."

The series of events unfolded rapidly as officials announced additional confirmed and suspected cases of inhalation anthrax, Congress returned to work, and the administration pledged a more aggressive testing and treatment program if additional tainted letters are discovered.

Before the current outbreak, "We had had no cases of inhalation anthrax in a mail sorting facility," said Jeffrey Koplan, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There was no reason to think this was a possibility."

Outside the White House, House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt said "weapons-grade material" was responsible for spreading infections. Overseas, the State Department issued a worldwide alert warning U.S. citizens to be mindful of the risk of anthrax or other biological or chemical agents.

In a related development, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., said it may be "a few days or a few weeks" before investigators are able to determine the "fingerprint" that will allow them to identify the source of the anthrax attacks.

Appearing on Fox News, Graham was asked whether Saddam Hussein might be behind the anthrax attacks because it is known that Iraq was working on developing anthrax as a biological weapon.

Graham noted that there are "30 or 40 places within the United States that could have produced this anthrax and there are more than that around the world."

Saying he was confident the source would be known, Graham said, "I don't think we need to speculate."

Six weeks after terrorists killed thousands in Washington and New York, administration officials drew a rhetorical connection to the outbreak of anthrax. The FBI released the text of three anthrax-tainted letters -- each of them dated Sept. 11, the date that hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

Bush believes the spread of anthrax "is another example of how this is a two-front war: that there are people who would seek to do evil to this country; that there are people who mean us harm," Fleischer said. "And they have mailed letters, obviously, to high impact places -- the news media, to Majority Leader (Tom) Daschle, perhaps, in this case, to the White House."

The administration has been buffeted by criticism for waiting several days after the discovery of the letter addressed to Daschle before ordering testing at the central postal facility for the nation's capital. Without acknowledging shortcomings, several officials pointed to changes in their outlook.

"We're going to err on the side of caution in making sure people are protected," said Thompson.

"When a case of anthrax does emerge we will immediately move in at any and all postal facilities that might have handled that piece of mail," he said. He spoke as the U.S. Postal Service offered antibiotics as a precaution to 7,000 employees of six Manhattan post offices that may have been in the path of contaminated letters.

Koplan, appearing before a separate panel, said, "the public health system of the United States is severely challenged at this moment."

The latest evidence of that was in the Washington area and New Jersey, at postal facilities known to have processed one or more anthrax-tainted letters in the past few weeks. Both were closed after the presence of anthrax was detected.

Postal Service Vice President Deborah Willhite said of the Washington facility: "It's a crime scene because someone has been murdered."

Earlier, New Jersey officials announced that a female postal worker had been hospitalized in the Trenton area and was presumed to be suffering from the inhalation form of the disease. "She's holding her own," said Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, the state epidemiologist.

Congress snapped back into session in the Capitol on Tuesday after being shuttered since last week's discovery of anthrax in a Senate office. One of six congressional office buildings will reopen Wednesday, but some tainted congressional offices may stay closed for weeks.

- Knight-Ridder newspapers and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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