Anthrax confirmed as cause of postal workers’ deaths

By Laura Meckler

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Officials confirmed anthrax today as the cause of death in two local postal workers, the latest victims in the nation’s bioterrorism scare. A mail employee was hospitalized in New Jersey, also believed to be suffering from the inhalation form of the disease.

“We now know the two deaths that were reported to you now are confirmed cases of inhalational anthrax,” District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams said at a news conference.

He spoke as a Postal Service official said roughly 3,400 employees across the nation’s capital had been evaluated and given antibiotics in 72 hours.

Ivan Walks, the city’s top health official, also announced an expansion in the number of people who should be treated as a precaution.

In all, Walks said, the city knew of two patients hospitalized with inhalation anthrax; two postal workers confirmed dead of the disease and four cases listed as suspicious. He said another 12 cases are being watched but are of “very low suspicion” for anthrax.

In addition, Walks said environmental testing proves anthrax spores are in the back work areas of the city’s central Brentwood mail facility. That means all employees need treatment, he said.

“We do not need to do further testing, but we need to treat and we need to treat quickly,” he said.

Not just postal workers but anyone who visited the back mail-processing area of any Washington postal facility that received mail from Brentwood needs to get the antibiotic treatment, added Deborah Willhite of the U.S. Postal Service.

She said the Brentwood facility has been declared a crime scene.

The disclosure came as New Jersey Health Commissioner George DiFerdinando said a postal worker in his state had contracted inhalational anthrax was hospitalized in serious but stable condition. She works at a facility that processed at least three anthrax-tainted letters mailed to Washington and New York.

The twin developments came as Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson pledged a more aggressive testing and treatment effort if additional tainted mail is received. He spoke after federal officials had spent time on Monday defending a delay in testing at the Brentwood facility.

“We’re going to err on the side of caution in making sure people are protected,” Thompson told Congress, one day after federal officials had been forced to defend a delay in testing at Washington’s central postal facility.

Thompson spoke as Congress returned to work for the first time since an anthrax scare struck Capitol Hill. Office buildings that house lawmakers and their staffs remained closed for continued testing. The Capitol itself was found to be safe for occupancy after follow-up tests allayed fears that anthrax had been located in three spots.

“Exhaustive environmental tests have been completed at the Capitol, and all results are negative,” said Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols. “There is no evidence of anthrax contamination or exposure in the Capitol building.”

At the same time, the FBI confirmed it is investigating whether other anthrax letters were processed through the Brentwood facility. The only known tainted letter was delivered to the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Investigators have been unable to explain the presence of anthrax on a mail handling machine that serves the House.

The central facility handles mail not only for congressional offices, but for the entire District of Columbia.

Postal workers from as far away as Baltimore lined up outside a district hospital for testing and a supply of antibiotics. “We have not been treated right,” said Veola Jackson, a spokesman for the postal workers’ union at the Brentwood facility.

“I think this could have been avoided when they first saw that first piece of mail on the Hill.”

Several days elapsed between the discovery on Monday of anthrax-tainted mail in Daschle’s office and initial testing at the Brentwood facility. Officials explained their decision by saying that initial testing was negative at one of the postal facilities that the letter had passed through after leaving Brentwood.

Thompson told a congressional hearing that if other cases of anthrax emerge, officials would begin testing and treatment not only at the site where it was discovered but at every postal facility that the letter passed through.

In comments at the White House, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt expressed frustration with a recent statement by Tom Ridge, director of Homeland Security, that the anthrax had not been “weaponized.”

“The words are not particularly helpful,” said Gephardt, D-Mo. “Obviously this stuff gets in the air and stays in the air. … You can call it anything you want to call it. This is not safe stuff.”

He added, “This is weapons-grade material.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that thousands of mail workers from 36 post offices around the nation’s capital undergo testing and receive antibiotics.

Walks, interviewed on NBC’s “Today” program, said the tainted letter received in Daschle’s office was not the only one that passed through the city postal system. “It’s clear more than one letter was sent,” he said.

Two postal workers with inhaled anthrax remain hospitalized – resting comfortably, but in serious condition.

Officials identified the two men who died of inhalational anthrax as Joseph P. Curseen, 47, and Thomas L. Morris Jr., 55.

On Monday, the Postal Service defended a delay in looking for anthrax at the city’s central processing facility and considered new precautions for workers nationwide.