WASHINGTON, Conn., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The anthrax investigation in the nation's capital widened Friday after officials confirmed bacteria were found in the mail-handling areas of the CIA and Walter Reed Army Research Institute, as well as additional sites in the Senate Hart office building.
The anthrax found in Washington traces back to the Brentwood mail sorting facility near Capitol Hill, where 14 areas have tested positive for it.
Two postal workers from Brentwood died of inhalation anthrax infection earlier this week and two remain hospitalized with the disease. At least seven others are hospitalized with suspicious symptoms.
President Bush, in signing anti-terrorism legislation Friday, said more than 200 postal facilities along the East Coast, including some 100 in the Washington area, are undergoing testing for anthrax.
"Our country is grateful for the courage our Postal Service has shown," Bush said.
In Washington, the anthrax scare began when a spore-laden letter handled at Brentwood was sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., whose staff opened it Oct. 15 at his Hart building offices. Daschle said Thursday night additional spores were found in an air-conditioning filter on the ninth floor and a stairwell between the eighth and ninth floors.
"The experts say this is neither a surprise nor a concern," he said.
Anthrax also was found earlier in the Hart mailroom and near a freight elevator on the opposite side of the building from Daschle's office.
Anthrax also has been found at the Ford office building and Daschle said in all, more than 6,000 swabs of people who may have come in contact with anthrax have been tested but the only positive tests are the 28 staffers and Capitol Police officers from Hart originally diagnosed as exposed to anthrax shortly after the letter was received.
Elsewhere around the Washington area, a trace of anthrax was found at Walter Reed Institute for Research in Silver Spring, Md.
"There was one spore found in the mail distribution room," said spokesman Dr. Ron Goor. "The room is closed and we are currently testing the facility and the people who worked there. Those employees have been given prophylactic drugs."
The CIA building in Langley, Va., was closed Friday for environmental testing. Only one of 31 areas tested was positive for anthrax.
"There were trace amounts (of anthrax) found at our material inspections or mail-handling facility, here at the CIA compound," Tom Chrispell, a CIA spokesman, told United Press International. "But this was just a trace amount."
A CIA statement said it was possible other tests will show additional amounts of anthrax and that the amount found was "medically insignificant" or well below levels needed to cause inhalation infection.
The State Department announced Friday a second man being examined for possible anthrax is not infected.
"Appropriate precautions have been taken," a State Department official said. "There is no longer a suspicion of anthrax for the second case."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced Thursday a dockworker from the department's mail-handling facility in Sterling, Va., had been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax.
The Sterling facility receives mail from the Brentwood postal unit in Washington, where two mail workers died from inhalation anthrax earlier this week.
All employees at the Sterling mail-handling facility were put on a 10-day prescription for Cipro, the antibiotic specifically prescribed for anthrax. The Sterling facility was closed, Boucher said.
Ninety percent of the State Department's mail comes from the Brentwood facility. Approximately 80 percent of that mail is then shipped to overseas embassies, while approximately 20 percent is then sent to the State Department and its annexes in Washington, Boucher said.
Regular mail service for the State Department, including unclassified diplomatic pouches, was suspended, while delivery of classified diplomatic pouches continued.
The anthrax investigation also continued in South Florida. Crews in moon suits with oxygen tanks moved through the American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton, looking for anthrax spores that killed one employee, infected another and exposed at least one more.
The workers swabbed surfaces with cloth swabs and placed them in a plastic bag for testing. The swabs are being sent to a laboratory set up in Lantana, Fla., by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The tests will take 18 hours for each sample.
American Media is looking for a new home. A broker handling the search said the firm, which publishes supermarket tabloids, is seeking a five- to seven-year lease. Company officials said this week they are considering moving back into the old building, but it may not be ready for years.
The anthrax scare began at AMI when Bob Stevens, a 63-year-old photo editor, died of inhalation anthrax on Oct. 5.
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(With Kelly Hearn and Eli J. Lake in Washington, and Les Kjos in Miami)
