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Anthrax trace found in Connecticut
Friday, Nov. 30, 2001
 
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By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press Writer

HARTFORD, Conn. — Investigators searching for the source of the anthrax that killed a 94-year-old woman said Friday that they had found the germ on a letter sent to a nearby home.

Gov. John Rowland said a direct connection had not been made between the letter sent to the home in Seymour and Ottilie Lundgren, who lived a mile away in Oxford and died Nov. 21.

But he suggested that her mail may have somehow come in contact with contaminated letters.

``I don't think that anyone suspects that Mrs. Lundgren was a target,'' Rowland said. ``We all believe, again unscientifically because it's not proven, that she was a victim of cross-contamination.''

Investigators are trying to determine how Lundgren, a retired widow who rarely left home, came in contact with anthrax.

Using bar codes printed on the envelopes, authorities have been able to determine that a small amount of mail destined for the Oxford area passed through a postal facility near Trenton, N.J., that handled anthrax-tainted letters sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in Washington.

None of the letters went to Lundgren. But it is possible her mail had come in contact with the letters.

``Supposition on my part is that Mrs. Lundgren, at age 94, had an immune system far less than yours or mine, and that you and I could have handled her same piece of mail and not gotten sick,'' Rowland said.

He said the amount of anthrax was tiny: ``It was so insignificant that no one in contact with the letter could have gotten anthrax or even become ill.''

Authorities described the Seymour letter only as a personal piece of mail. They did not immediately disclose the date it was sent, its postmark or details about the addresses.

Investigators began looking at the envelope after they started probing the death of an 84-year-old Seymour man. Tests by the CDC and others concluded he did not die of anthrax.

``As a precaution we looked around to see if any mail had been delivered,'' Rowland said. ``We kind of stumbled into this through the investigative process.''

Cross-contamination in the mail is believed responsible for at least one case of skin anthrax, in New Jersey. Lundgren died of the much more serious inhaled form of the disease in becoming the fifth person to die in the East Coast outbreak that began in early October.

Investigators with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Connecticut health department have taken dozens of environmental samples from places Lundgren visited in the two months before she was infected.

The presence of anthrax in any of those places could help explain how and where she was exposed.

Among the places tested: Lundgren's mail, her mailbox, her neighbor's mail, area post offices, her church, doctor's office and a beauty shop. All the tests have come back negative for anthrax, though more results were pending.

Investigators are also looking for any similarities to the baffling case of a 61-year-old New York woman who died Oct. 31 from inhaling anthrax. Both women lived alone and spent a lot of time by themselves.

In the New York case, puzzled investigators have yet to report any positive environmental samples.

In Washington, the Bush administration said it was sticking by its $1.5 billion request for bioterrorism preparation, even as its top health officials and key senators suggested twice that much was needed.

Bioterrorism must compete with other funding priorities, meaning everything cannot be paid for in the coming year, said Bill Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

CDC Director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan was asked at a Senate hearing Thursday how much money was needed this year. He listed needs totaling $3 billion.

For instance, while President Bush has asked for about a half-billion dollars to buy smallpox vaccine, Koplan said even more — $600 million to $700 million — was needed to help local and state officials store it and learn how to use it properly.

Other needs include stockpiling antibiotics, upgrading state and local health departments and improving lab security.

Also on Capitol Hill, authorities had prepared a first-of-its-kind fumigation of part of the Hart Senate Office Building, where the anthrax-packed letter to Daschle, the Senate majority leader, was opened last month.

Beginning Friday, they planned to fill Daschle's office with chlorine dioxide gas, while carefully monitoring the air around it to ensure that none of the deadly chemical escapes.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Associated Press Writer Laura Meckler in Washington contributed to this report.

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