Second anthrax-tainted envelope to Capitol Hill found

WASHINGTON -- Investigators have found an anthrax-tainted letter addressed to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, the second bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill.

The contaminated letter was postmarked from Trenton, N.J., as was the one sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and contains similar handwriting, FBI investigators said Friday.

Four people, including two Washington postal workers, have died from inhaled anthrax. But until Friday, only one letter carrying the germ inside the envelope had been found in Washington.

The letter to the Vermont senator was discovered Friday afternoon in a batch of sequestered mail away from Congress, said Susan Neely, speaking for the Office of Homeland Security. She said the letter had not sickened anyone.

Investigators have said for weeks that there may be another anthrax-tainted letter. They have been hunting through unopened mail that has been under quarantine since postal workers were diagnosed with inhaled anthrax.

"FBI and U.S. Postal Service investigators examining sequestered congressional mail have another letter which appears to contain anthrax," the FBI said.

The letter was postmarked Oct. 9 in Trenton and "appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters," the FBI said.

It was found in one of more than 250 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery of an anthrax letter to Daschle on Oct. 15.

Anthrax response said hampered by long neglect

ATLANTA -- The nation's response to anthrax bioterrorism was hampered by a long-neglected, money-starved public health system, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

The country's readiness for more such attacks also is weakened by old labs, crumbling buildings and outdated technology that slows the detection of outbreaks, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan said.

"We've had 30-plus years of neglect of the public health system and underinvestment in it," he said. "If we want to be as effective as we can be, whether it's a bioterrorist threat or an infectious disease, we've got to make that investment."

Koplan also asserted that CDC's quick response prevented far more deaths and hospitalizations.

"I think we've done a highly competent, very effective job," he said. "We've all learned a huge amount in six weeks. You could speak to a 12-year-old in the street and have him give you pretty reasonable information about anthrax."

He said the weakest links in the system are far-flung -- state and local health departments that are not trained to recognize bioterrorism outbreaks and that are lacking in the proper technology to alert each other quickly.

Postal irradiation plan may put medicines at risk

WASHINGTON -- The doses of radiation the Postal Service plans to use to sterilize mail that may contain anthrax could destroy some prescription drugs and other medical products, a federal health expert said Friday.

The Postal Service pledged to find a way to separate shipments from mail-order pharmacies so that drugs aren't irradiated.

But that may not be enough to protect all medical shipments, said Food and Drug Administration physicist Orhan Suleiman, who is advising the Postal Service on irradiation.

"It's very obvious that many pharmaceuticals can't be irradiated, especially not at the radiation doses being used here," he said. "We have been drumming this message home."

So far, only a small portion of letters -- not the packages most medical products would be shipped in -- is being irradiated: mail gathered from anthrax-tainted post offices and government buildings.

But the plan is to eventually sterilize far more mail. The Postal Service is developing a way to identify and isolate shipments from mail-order pharmacies so that drugs are not irradiated, said spokesman Jerry Kreienkamp.

But Kreienkamp couldn't answer how the Postal Service would handle other shipments, such as Internet companies that often mail a bottle of pills in an unmarked padded envelope or patients mailing medical samples from home.

"These are all new processes we're going to have to work out," he said.

In other developments ...

HART REOPENING DELAYED: Plans to reopen the Hart Senate Office Building shortly after Thanksgiving have been delayed indefinitely as the Capitol Police and the Environmental Protection Agency continue to wrestle with the problem of eradicating anthrax spores throughout the facility.

Senior senatorial aides were told Friday at a meeting with EPA and other government officials that it would take three to four weeks to finish the cleanup of the least contaminated offices.

TRACES FOUND IN FRANCE: Small traces of anthrax were found in letters and packages sent through France's mail system, the first such cases in the country.

AND IN RALEIGH, N.C.: A team is decontaminating a postal distribution center in Raleigh, where a trace amount of anthrax was found on a shrink-wrapped pallet. The pallet carried stamps from the Brentwood postal facility in Washington where two postal workers died.

SEARCHING OUT WEST: Government scientists headed to North Dakota and Texas to find out how much anthrax is safe. The two states had naturally caused outbreaks of anthrax in animals, and CDC scientists are to study how much anthrax contamination is present in those environments.

SMALLPOX STOCKPILE KEPT: The Bush administration said it will keep the government's stock of smallpox virus in case it should be needed to develop new vaccines or treatments, putting off yet again a commitment eventually to destroy it.

The virus is supposed to be held in only two locations worldwide: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a similar facility in Russia.

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