WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The White House denied Wednesday it had covered a Secret Service interception last year of a ricin-filled letter or had committed missteps in notifying appropriate agencies and personnel of the find.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who declined to identify the letter's substance as the deadly poison, said the letter's contents never posed a public health hazard.
"We obviously take public health risks very seriously, and if there is information that needs to be shared, we share it appropriately," he said.
"The letter was deemed by public health officials not to be a public health threat."
News reports Wednesday quoted unidentified government sources as saying the letter, addressed to the White House and containing a small quantity of low-grade ricin, was spotted at an offsite facility, but that the Secret Service delayed by days, if not weeks, notifying other relevant agencies.
McClellan, however, said the Secret Service notified the White House of the letter late Nov. 12 and a conference call with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Postal Service was conducted the next day.
Testing on Nov. 14 showed the substance was not a health risk, he said.
President George W. Bush was not told, but had since been apprised of the investigation.
The public and media were never informed.
Ricin, for which there is no known antidote, is derived from the castor bean. It is a powerful toxin that when inhaled can cause fever, seizures, heart and lung damage and death. When injected, even an amount as small as the head of a pin is fatal.
In the late 1970s, a Bulgarian dissident was killed in London when a man wielding an umbrella tipped with ricin stabbed him in the back of the leg.
Three U.S. Senate office buildings were closed Tuesday, and remain closed, after a letter containing ricin was found in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. No one was reported to have been exposed enough to the substance to become ill. The buildings were to be reopened later in the week.
In October, another envelope with ricin was seized at a mail sorting facility in South Carolina.
The letter accompanying the ricin was signed "Fallen Angel" and complained of transportation regulations.
The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward in regard to the South Carolina letter.
Reports Wednesday indicated the envelopes sent the White House and Frist came from the same source.
McClellan would neither confirm nor deny the envelope contained ricin, although he repeatedly answered questions in which it was identified as ricin.
"That's getting into specific questions relating to an ongoing investigation," he explained.
Two-and-a-half years ago letters containing anthrax were sent to Capitol Hill offices and elsewhere. Two mail workers at a facility in suburban Maryland and three other people elsewhere in the country died as a result of the anthrax blitz, for which no one has been arrested.
