Anthrax found in letter to senator

By KAREN GULLO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Investigators have found an anthrax-tainted letter addressed to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, the second bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill, the FBI said today.

The contaminated letter was postmarked from Trenton, N.J., as was the one sent to Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and contains similar handwriting, investigators said.

Four people, including two Washington postal workers, have died from inhaled anthrax from previously discovered letters. But until today, only one letter carrying the germ inside the envelope had been found in Washington.

Investigators have said for weeks that there may be another anthrax-tainted letter. They have been hunting through unopened mail that has been under quarantine since postal workers were diagnosed with inhaled anthrax.

“FBI and U.S. Postal Service investigators examining sequestered congressional mail have another letter which appears to contain anthrax,” the FBI said in a statement tonight.

The letter was postmarked Oct. 9 in Trenton and “appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters,” the FBI said.

The letter was located in one of more than 250 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery of an anthrax letter to Daschle on Oct. 15, the FBI said.

Hazardous materials experts began the process of sorting the quarantined congressional mail earlier this week at a facility in northern Virginia, the FBI said.

Further testing will be conducted in an effort to confirm the presence of anthrax and examine its contents to compare it with that found in the other letters, the FBI said.

Traces of anthrax have been found in about a dozen senators’ offices in the Hart Senate office building across the street from the Capitol. That building remains closed for cleaning with chlorine dioxide gas.

Leahy’s office is in a different building, but it’s not clear where the letter was when mail deliveries to Congress ceased Oct. 15.

The most recent hot spots were in mailrooms at Howard University in Washington, in several more congressional offices and at the State Department’s mail facility in Sterling, Va.

Three other letters with anthrax inside have been found, all of them bearing similarities. Letters to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appear to be photocopies. The third letter went to Daschle, D-S.D. All had block lettering and used the date style of 09-11-01.

Investigators also believe the anthrax in those three letters is the same Ames strain that is common to the United States. However, the anthrax in the newspaper’s letter was in a heavier, grainier state and the material in Daschle’s letter was light and buoyant.

The letter to Daschle contained about 2 grams of anthrax. If that were pure anthrax, one expert said that would amount to about 20 billion spores, or enough to sicken about 2 million people with the most deadly form of the disease.

A team worked today to decontaminate a postal distribution center in Raleigh, N.C., where a trace amount of anthrax was found on a shrink-wrapped pallet. The pallet had carried stamps from the Brentwood postal facility in Washington where two postal workers died.

Postal Service spokesman Bill Brown said the pallet had been in a vault at the Raleigh facility for about a month, meaning that anyone likely to be sickened by anthrax probably would have shown symptoms by now, and no one has.

In Boca Raton, Fla., where the anthrax attack first hit, testing found anthrax in more than 30 spots inside the American Media building. Health officials suggested there must have been more than one tainted letter sent to the tabloid publisher, although none has been found.

Fallout from the anthrax attacks continued. The government issued a detailed list of who must take antibiotics for a full 60 days. That includes about 5,000 people who may have been exposed to anthrax and could still get sick if they were to stop taking the medication.

The government also made it clear that environmental cleanups at anthrax-infected buildings may leave trace amounts of the bacteria that would pose no risk.

“We have to use a little common sense here,” said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We don’t live in sterile households. We don’t work in sterile buildings.”

At the State Department, spokesman Philip Reeker said a new mail facility was being set up near Dulles airport in Fairfax County, Va. The one in Sterling, Va., was closed after a supervisor was hospitalized with anthrax. He recovered and was released.

All mail operations, including to and from U.S. diplomatic posts overseas, were suspended. But Reeker said they would resume soon.