Inspectors found more of the deadly bacterium anthrax in a US Senate office building yesterday, as the postal service prepared to issue masks and gloves for its 800,000 employees and was testing ways to sterilize the nation's mail.
Postmaster-General John Powers warned that the postal service could not guarantee the safety of the mails and that people should wash their hands after handling a letter or package.
Police said Wednesday night that anthrax spores were found on a first-floor freight elevator bank in the Hart Senate Office Building, the same building where an anthrax-tainted letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was opened.
Since the anthrax-by-mail crisis began, there have been six cases of inhalation anthrax, the most serious form of the disease. Two postal workers in Washington and a tabloid photo editor in Florida have died.
A story in yesterday's edition of The Washington Post quoted government sources as saying the anthrax that contaminated Daschle's office may have been made in America.
The story said the anthrax was treated with a chemical additive made only in the US, the former Soviet Union and Iraq. It quoted an unnamed source as saying that "the totality of the evidence in hand" suggests it was unlikely to have come from the former Soviet Union or Iraq.
There are 15 patients in the Washington area with symptoms suggestive of anthrax and all maybe linked to a letter sent to Daschle and handled in mail facilities from Trenton, New Jersey to Capitol Hill. However, investigators have not ruled out the possibility there was other anthrax-laced mail that has not been found.
Six cases of skin anthrax, a less dangerous form of the disease, have been diagnosed and there is a suspected case reported at the New York Post newspaper. These mostly are connected to mail sent to TV networks or to newspapers.
Officials said a female employee of an electronic news organization being treated for possible inhalation anthrax was outside Daschle's office the day the tainted letter was received -- the first time they have said a possible case of inhalation anthrax may have come from exposure inside the Capitol complex.
Surgeon-General David Satcher admitted Wednesday "we were wrong" not to respond more aggressively to tainted mail in the nation's capital.
Postal service vice president Deborah Willhite said postal workers in Washington, New York and Trenton, New Jersey -- all sites where anthrax-tainted mail was handled -- have been offered masks and gloves of a type recommended by the Centers of Disease Control. The protective coverings will be offered to all 800,000 postal workers by the end of the week on an "optional, not mandatory" basis, said Willhite.
She also said the postal service was experimenting with ways to cleanse the nation's mail.
"Tractor trailers of mail are to be sanitized," said Willhite in tests to determine the best way to kill any dangerous organisms contained in letters or packages.
Senator Bill Frist, a surgeon before becoming a senator, said the sophistication required to process the anthrax spores used in the postal attacks suggested that "more than a casual scientist is involved."
Centers of Disease Control Director Jeffrey Koplan made a similar point in a television interview. "I think that whoever did this is displaying some level of sophistication in everything from microbiology to psychology and sociology and a range of other issues," Koplan said on PBS' The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.
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