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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 7, 2001
WASHINGTON -- A top FBI official told Congress on Tuesday that 7,000 agents tracking the nation's deadly anthrax threat still do not know where the bacteria originated.
FBI deputy assistant director J.T. Caruso also conceded, under persistent questioning from members of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating the federal bioterrorism response, that the government cannot pinpoint how many labs and research facilities have access to anthrax and other lethal biological agents.
"The bottom line is this: As of now you don't know where the anthrax came from, and you have not been able to identify all the people who may have access to it? Is that fair?" asked Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
"That's correct," Caruso replied.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee's technology, terrorism and government information subcommittee, questioned the pace of an investigation that began early last month when the first case of inhalation anthrax was detected.
"I have been very surprised the FBI has not made more progress," she said. "This has been a big puzzle to me. I would have thought ... that there was a limited amount of this quality (anthrax) out there, that it would be fairly easy to determine the number of sources, go directly to them, you know, get lists of everybody that has handled them, run it down, and come up with some conclusions."
The problem, Caruso said, is narrowing down the hundreds of research facilities, labs and individuals with access to anthrax.
"We think that there are many people that have the potential, that have the knowledge to be able to produce deadly biological agents. The question then is do they have the actual facilities and laboratory to do it," he said. "It's a very, very big population and universe to look at."
In a satellite address Tuesday to an anti-terrorism conference in Poland, President Bush expressed confidence in the government's response to the crisis to date. "Our government is responding to treat the sick, provide antibiotics to those who have been exposed, and track down the guilty, whether abroad or at home," he said.
While no new developments is proving vexing on the investigative front, it is being welcomed elsewhere. As an eighth day passed without reports of anthrax infection, federal and state health officials breathed a sigh of relief.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and other officials acknowledged however, that they remain stymied by the source of infection in the case of a New York hospital worker who died Oct. 31 of inhalation anthrax. Of the 17 confirmed anthrax cases to date, only that of Kathy T. Nguyen can't be traced to the mail. Investigators continued their intensive review of the Bronx woman's final days, using her subway card to establish her travel patterns into and out of Manhattan.
In other developments:
Anthrax infection became part of doctors' daily repertoire Tuesday as the world's most influential medical journal published detailed guidelines on diagnosing and treating the deadly bacteria.
Doctors are now expected to consider anthrax as a possible cause for the thousands of skin lesions and flu-like symptoms they encounter every day, according to the guidelines published by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Plans were abandoned to pump chlorine dioxide gas into the Senate office building where an anthrax-laced letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was opened
Experts once believed the gas would be the most efficient way of decontaminating the sprawling building, but shelved the plan amid fears it may it might damage computers and artwork but not kill all the anthrax. The Hart Senate Office Building will not reopen before Nov. 21.
-- Information from the Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe and Houston Chronicle was used in this report.