WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- More anthrax hot spots have been found in the Hart Senate Office Building and in one House office building, a U.S. Capitol Police spokesman said Saturday night, but none pose new health risks nor will trigger new antibiotic treatments.
Lt. Dan Nichols said environmental sampling has found anthrax contamination in the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. and Rep. Elijah Cummings, all apparently residual traces of previously discovered anthrax contamination.
Traces of anthrax had earlier been found in four more postal facilities in New Jersey, all attributed to cross contamination from mail that had passed through perhaps weeks before.
In Florida environmental testing at American Media Inc., where the anthrax scare began, is wrapping up and officials are soon to return control of the building to the tabloid publishing company.
Testing by the New Jersey Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention turned up four "isolated positive samples" at four post offices that feed into the Route 130 Mail Processing Facility.
Dr. Eddie Bresnitz, state epidemiologist, said 896 samples were taken at 49 post offices on Nov. 3, with the positive samples being found at post offices in Rocky Hill, East Trenton, Princeton and Jackson.
"Given that we found just four isolated positive samples, this is most likely a case of cross-contamination from letters that came from the Hamilton Mail Processing Facility in October," Bresnitz said. "This risk of any workers at these post offices developing anthrax diseases at this point is extremely low."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it does not believe inhalation anthrax infection can be contracted from cross contamination and the risk of contracting cutaneous or the skin form of the infection is very low.
Anthrax spores have been detected at seven New Jersey post offices and in the mail bin at one private business served by the Hamilton processing center, which remains closed. Hamilton is where the anthrax letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, NBC and the New York Post are believed to have been mailed.
Another center in Bellmawr, which handles mail for much of South Jersey and all of Delaware, reopened Friday after negotiations between union and management. A judge closed the facility Wednesday at the union's request. It had been shut down briefly on at least two occasions since anthrax spores were found there.
In Boca Raton, Fla., tests by the Environmental Protection Agency on the American Media building were winding down.
The Washington Post Sunday reported that, a week after the death of New Yorker Kathy T. Nguyen because of inhalation anthrax the investigation has only theories to go on. She is the only anthrax victim who was not linked to postal facilities or the media.
Investigators are still interviewing friends, acquaintances and anyone else who saw Nguyen in the last half of October in hopes they may know where, or how, she caught the disease.
The two hypotheses remain that either Nguyen was so anthrax-prone that she contracted the disease by inhaling a tiny number of spores from a contaminated letter or other object intended for someone else; or, she became infected after an encounter -- accidental, or perhaps even deliberate -- with the person or persons responsible for spreading the bacteria that have infected 17 people with anthrax, killed four and prompted the treatment with antibiotics of varying duration of 32,000 people so far.
