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Bush mourns postal worker victims
Friday, Oct. 26, 2001
 
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By LAURA MECKLER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — President Bush mourned the anthrax-related deaths of two postal service workers Friday and said they had died in the line of duty in a two-front war against terrorists.

The government already had begun testing more than 200 postal service facilities in the Eastern United States. "We will move quickly'' to treat any workers deemed at risk, Bush promised.

A top federal health official said there was probably another anthrax-tainted letter waiting to be discovered.

The president spoke at the White House as his spokesman said officials had concluded that anthrax found last week in a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was not necessarily the work of a foreign government.

It "could be produced by a Ph.D. microbiologist in a sophisticated laboratory,'' said spokesman Ari Fleischer.

A day earlier, Sandra Carroll, a New Jersey-based FBI agent, said tests on the anthrax also indicated that homegrown culprits could be responsible. "It could be locally produced given the right circumstances,'' she said. Three tainted letters have turned up with postmarks from Trenton, N.J.

Three weeks into an unprecedented bioterrorism threat, officials at the Central Intelligence Agency reported a trace amount of anthrax spores had been discovered at a mail handling building at its headquarters in suburban Virginia. And Supreme Court officials were checking out a suspicious substance found at the court's offsite mail facility.

That followed the disclosure Thursday that a State Department mail handler who works at a remote site was hospitalized with inhalation anthrax — the latest in a series of cases linked to the mail. A co-worker was declared free from anthrax after overnight tests.

The big question is how the State Department worker could have been exposed to the deadly spores. Is another anthrax-tainted letter floating around, or did State Department mail pick up bacteria as it mingled with the Daschle letter in Washington's main post office?

Such cross-contamination "would be highly unlikely to virtually impossible,'' said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Without an incriminating letter in hand, my working assumption would be there is such a letter somewhere that this person was exposed to.''

In remarks made as he signed anti-terrorism legislation into law, Bush cited the recent "anthrax attacks through our postal service as evidence of an unprecedented war.''

"We mourn the loss of lives,'' he said, referring to Joseph P. Curseen Jr., 47, and Thomas L. Morris Jr., 55. The two men "died in the line of duty,'' he said.

Bill Harlow, a CIA spokesman, said the anthrax at the agency's suburban Virginia headquarters was "medically insignificant,'' but the mail-handling building at the headquarters was closed for additional tests. The agency's two main buildings at the same location remained open.

"It's not enough to cause inhalation anthrax,'' he said. Even so, several agency employees who handle mail are taking antibiotics as a precaution. Experts believe it takes at least 8,000 spores to cause this deadly form of the disease.

Thus far, officials have discovered only one piece of anthrax-tainted mail in the Washington area, the letter sent to Daschle's office. They are searching for more though, since evidence of the bacteria has been confirmed in several places where that letter never traveled, including mail rooms serving the House, White House, the distant Virginia location that processes State Department mail and at the CIA.

Asked on CBS' "The Early Show'' whether that meant other tainted letters were in circulation, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said, "That's the $64,000 question right now.''

Two other anthrax letters have been opened in New York City, and evidence of anthrax has been found in Florida, too.

The circle of infection widened with the diagnosis of the State Department mail supervisor, who worked more than 20 miles from Brentwood, Washington's central mail processing facility. Until Thursday, all those infected in the nation's capital had been tied to this central plant, which handles mail for federal agencies.

The 59-year-old man, hospitalized in guarded condition with inhaled anthrax, worked in Sterling, Va., where about 90 percent of the State Department's mail is processed, some of which comes from Brentwood.

Doctors asked him if his job ever took him to Brentwood. "His answer was 'never,''' reported Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington's chief health officer.

The State Department's mail facility was being tested for anthrax exposure Friday, as were 250 to 300 workers, with about 80 of them immediately given preventive antibiotics. Another half-dozen State Department locations also were to be tested, including two inside the Foggy Bottom headquarters.

Also, a test for anthrax in a mailroom in the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., came back positive Thursday. The institute, which doesn't care for patients, is three miles from the hospital at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Trying to get ahead of the spiraling threat, the Postal Service began anthrax testing at hundreds of facilities along the East Coast and at every government mailroom, and did spot checks nationwide. Washington health officials asked virtually everyone involved with mail handling to report for antibiotics, and thousands of New York postal workers were prescribed the drugs too, even though further evidence of anthrax has not been found there.

And attempting to reassure anxious customers, the Postal Service was purchasing new irradiation equipment to kill any germs in the mail in selected areas. The equipment, similar to that used in food processing, uses electron beams and X-rays to kill bacteria.

The number of confirmed infections reached 13, all linked to the media or the mail, all in Florida, New York, New Jersey or metropolitan Washington.

Among those with inhalation anthrax, three had died, three were hospitalized and one had recovered. Another six people have been diagnosed with the highly treatable skin form of the disease.

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