Anthrax vaccine urged for some

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials Monday began urging Capitol Hill workers to take an as-yet unlicensed anthrax vaccine as part of a plan sparked by fears that deadly spores may be lurking in the employees' bodies and could erupt once antibiotic treatments end.

Two military anthrax experts met with about 70 staffers to outline the rationale for the unprecedented inoculation proposal, which could involve up to 3,000 Senate and U.S. Postal Service employees in Washington, New York and New Jersey.

Health officials are eager to begin the vaccinations as soon as possible because many of the 10,000 Capitol Hill staffers and postal workers who had been put on 60 days of antibiotics after the bioterrorism attacks this fall have begun finishing their courses.

That means they could be at risk of falling ill soon if anthrax spores are lingering in their lungs and their immune systems have not been primed to respond.

Officials want vaccinations to begin this week after Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson approves the plan.

ANTHRAX LIKELY MADE IN U.S.: The anthrax that killed five people appears to have been produced in the United States, the White House said Monday, but investigators still don't know who mailed it. On Capitol Hill, a second attempt to sanitize a contaminated Senate office building failed.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the evidence on the anthrax sent to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is increasingly "looking like it was a domestic source."

At the State Department, the FBI was called to examine a white powder found in an envelope addressed to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. The envelope moved through the regular U.S. mail system and officials assumed that it had been irradiated, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokeswoman.

Technicians, meanwhile, ran into more problems trying to sanitize a Senate office building contaminated by lingering anthrax spores from the letter sent to Daschle in mid October.

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