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Post office boosts reward in anthrax case, mailing industry offers its support
Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2001
 
• Anthrax Primer
• Testing for Anthrax
• Anthrax: Quick Facts
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Postal Service upped its reward offer in the anthrax-by-mail attacks. The advertising company Advo chipped in $250,000 to boost the reward to $1.25 million, Postmaster General John E. Potter announced Wednesday.

Potter spoke at a gathering of top executives of the mailing industry, where companies offered their support to the beleaguered agency.

"The anthrax attacks are changing the way all of us do business," Potter said. The business leaders "explored new avenues for making the mail they send to American households and business even safer than it is today."

He said Advo President Gary M. Mulloy had contributed the extra funds for the reward in hopes of encouraging the public to come forward with clues.

Mail-related industries ranging from catalog sales to greeting cards to film developing employ 9 million Americans and contribute $900 billion to the national economy annually, Potter noted.

While more than 30 billion pieces of mail have been delivered since Sept. 11, just three letters are known to be anthrax-tainted, though others are suspected.

Those letters "have done damage to the psyche of the American public when it comes to handling mail," Potter said. "We are going to work together to ensure that we restore confidence in the mail."

Michael P. Sherman, president of the mail-order catalog company Fingerhut, said his business has changed its packaging to make the name of the company more visible on both parcels and advertising pieces.

"We want people to understand what it is that we're sending them and that it's from us," he said.

Sherman and others said they have not encountered major problems getting mail delivered. Postal officials have said service is normal in most of the country, though there have been some delivery problems in areas affected by anthrax, such as Washington.

L.L. Bean President Chris McCormick said his company is also working on changes in packaging and labeling to help boost public confidence in the safety of mailed items.

And C. Hamilton Davison Jr., president of Paramount Cards, encouraged people to put a return address on items.

"That's a big help when the recipient gets a package or envelope from you they're going to recognize that name and they're going to recognize that address," he said.

Matthew Kissner, a group president for the mail management company Pitney Bowes, said the postal system is fundamentally safe.

Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan said postal workers are selectively screening mail dropped into corner boxes and post office mail slots.

"We've got 800,000 people looking every day for something that looks strange," he said.

He said the industry group is also looking at ways to ensure the sanitization of mail without damaging items such as film, laboratory samples and credit card chips. A task force is looking into other ways to improve security and sanitization of the mail.

The post office was also analyzing its finances before going before a Senate committee Thursday to discuss how much taxpayer help will be needed. Estimates have ranged from $3 billion to $7 billion or more.

The agency faces two major expenses – upgrading the system to prevent a repeat of the spread of anthrax and the loss of business during the terrorist attacks.

In other developments:

_ Postal inspectors are responding to an average of 600 incidents of suspicious mail every day, many of them hoaxes; 25 people have been arrested and other charges are pending in the hoaxes.

_ Four contaminated postal facilities remain closed: Washington's Brentwood and the Trenton, N.J., processing centers, a small postal station in the Pentagon and the specialty mail-order facility in Kansas City, Mo.
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