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New York case raises fears of anthrax
Saturday, Oct. 13, 2001
 
• Anthrax Primer
• Testing for Anthrax
• Anthrax: Quick Facts
By Todd J. Gillman
The Dallas Morning News

Nearly three weeks after an unknown powder spilled from an anonymous letter, an aide to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw was found to have the skin form of anthrax Friday, adding a new dimension to the outbreak that killed a tabloid editor in Florida a week earlier.

The NBC employee has been on antibiotics since Oct. 1, six days after opening the letter, and is recovering well, government and network officials said. Initial tests on the powder she touched were negative, but she developed a rash and low-grade fever, and a biopsy confirmed the skin infection early Friday. The Florida death involved a more dangerous lung infection.

Federal health and law enforcement authorities urged calm, noting that the outbreaks appear to have affected only a handful of people. At the same time, they urged wariness, advising people not to open or shake any suspicious mail.

"We have to learn to be both more alert and to continue with our lives at the same time," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "We are going to be more alert to security at the airports, but we're not going to cease to fly. We're going to be more alert in a variety of aspects of our existence, but we're not going to cease to live."

He added, "We're going to be more alert to the way in which we look at mail."

A letter similar to the one sent to NBC arrived Friday at The New York Times, a few blocks from NBC's Rockefeller Center tower, addressed to a reporter who co-authored a new book on germ warfare. Parts of both newsrooms were evacuated and sealed as investigators searched for spores, and employees at both companies were tested for anthrax exposure.

FBI officials and Mr. Ashcroft said throughout the day that there was no evidence linking the outbreaks to each other or to the Sept. 11 hijackings. But Friday night, Vice President Dick Cheney said the outbreaks "could be linked" to threats the government has received. And he said Osama bin Laden, the man suspected of masterminding the hijackings, has tried for years to acquire biological and chemical weapons.

"We know that he's trained people in his camps in Afghanistan, for example. We have copies of the manuals that they've actually used to train people with respect to how to deploy and use these kinds of substances. So, you start to piece it all together," Mr. Cheney said on PBS' NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.

"We have to be suspicious," Mr. Cheney said. "Maybe it's coincidence, but I must say I'm a skeptic. ... I think the only responsible thing for us to do is proceed on the basis that it could be linked."

FBI officials wouldn't disclose the contents of either the NBC or Times letters.

Barry Mawn, head of the FBI's New York office, said both looked like ordinary business correspondence and were postmarked in St. Petersburg, Fla. The one to NBC was sent Sept. 20 and opened five days later. The one to The Times was postmarked Oct. 5. He said there were "some similarities" in the handwriting. But he said he sees "no connection whatsoever" to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Authorities aren't certain the NBC letter transmitted the anthrax, since early tests on it were negative. The federal Centers for Disease Control said the envelope "may have contained material contaminated with the spore-form of anthrax."

Inhaled anthrax and the less dangerous kind, skin anthrax are caused by the same bacterium. If enough of the microscopic spores are inhaled, they cause a lung infection that is fatal in 90 percent of untreated cases. The skin infection enters through a cut or scrape – unbroken skin is usually sufficient protection – and even if untreated, only kills in up to 20 percent of cases, experts say.

Neither form can be spread directly from person to person.

The infected NBC employee has been taking the antibiotic Cipro. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said all employees exposed to the powder will be tested for anthrax and treated with the drug.

"People should not overreact to this," Mr. Giuliani said. "Much of this is being done to allay people's fears."

One encouraging sign is that the anthrax strains that turned up in Florida and New York have responded to common antibiotics.

"So-called weapons grade anthrax is usually engineered to be resistant," said Dr. David Sullivan, an expert in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University's schools of public health and medicine.

NBC officials said that after receiving the suspicious letter, they immediately contacted the FBI, CDC and New York Department of Health. Tests by each agency came back negative. On Friday, the third floor was sealed to all but health investigators, as were parts of two other floors. The 70-story GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza is home to Nightly News, Saturday Night Live and Late Night With Conan O'Brien.

At The New York Times, reporter Judith Miller, a former Middle East correspondent and co-author of the book, Germ: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, opened an envelope Friday morning containing a white powder that a Times spokeswoman said smelled like talcum powder. Health authorities were testing the substance. Employees were moved out of the third-floor newsroom to other parts of the building near Times Square. Air tests for radioactive and chemical substances were negative, the spokeswoman said.

At the State Department, emergency services were called Friday for the second time in three days when a white powder was found in a correspondence office, said the department's chief spokesman, Richard Boucher.

In Nevada, state health officials said Friday that initial tests on a suspicious letter sent to a Reno company indicated that it might have been impregnated with anthrax, although further testing was needed to confirm the finding.

A week ago, a photo editor for The Sun supermarket tabloid in Boca Raton, Fla., died of an inhaled form of anthrax. The American Media Inc. building where several supermarket tabloids are published was sealed off after anthrax was also found on the keyboard of the editor, Bob Stevens, 63, and in the nasal passages of two co-workers. Traces of anthrax were later found in the American Media mailroom, authorities said. The other two employees are taking antibiotics, and one has returned to work.

In Washington, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson offered assurances that the chance of any widespread outbreak was remote. But he suggested that people stay alert to symptoms.

"If you have any kind of skin lesions that are growing and that are itchy and are dark in color, contact your doctor, local health officials; or if you have any kind of flulike symptoms that are causing severe inhalation problems, contact your local doctor and also your local health department," he said.

Officials in New York and Washington said there have been many false alarms and outright hoaxes of various kinds since the terrorist attacks and the disclosure of the anthrax cases in Florida.

Infectious disease experts echoed the reassurances offered by city, state and federal officials.

"The person in the street, someone working even a building or two away are at virtually no risk," said Dr. Martin Blaser, chairman of the department of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, and an adviser to Mr. Giuliani. "The general public should not be worried. These are very localized, specific events."

Still, he conceded, whoever spread the anthrax in Florida and New York may have accomplished some goals.

"This is a great weapon of terror. Fortunately for us it doesn't kill a lot of people, but it certainly frightens a lot of people," he said. "These terrorists, whether it's a Unabomber type, homegrown or foreigner, these are crazy people."

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