WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Investigators focused on Washington Tuesday as anthrax spores were found in a mail-opening machine that served the White House.
Also Tuesday two D.C. postal workers who had died and two others who were hospitalized -- all connected to the same postal facility -- were found to be victims of the more serious inhaled form of anthrax infection; two other similar cases were pending.
Another postal worker, a New Jersey mail handler, also has a suspected case of anthrax, health officials in that state said Tuesday. The middle-aged woman was in serious but stable condition and was being treated with antibiotics.
The two postal workers who died worked at Washington's Brentwood postal facility near Capitol Hill. Two other connected with Brentwood were hospitalized "with flu-like, cold-like symptoms," Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., announced Tuesday afternoon.
The two at Holy Cross were in addition to two other postal employees -- also workers at Brentwood -- who were hospitalized earlier this week at Inova Fairfax Hospital in suburban Virginia. Their condition, however, declined Tuesday from serious to critical but stable.
The concern is that the two individuals at Holy Cross, a 35-year-old male and 41-year-old female, might have contracted inhalation anthrax --
the most deadly form of the infection. Test results, however, had not confirmed this.
"Since we are following (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) CDC and state guidelines we began treatment and tests," said Mike Hall, manager of media and community relations for Holy Cross.
Both patients were in good condition, Hall told United Press International in an interview. They were being treated with Cipro and two other antibiotics. Results on the first tests indicating whether they do, in fact, have anthrax should be available in 72 hours he said.
Tests also were to begin at the White House with the discovery of anthrax spores in a machine that opens mail destined for there. The mail facility with that machine is "located some miles away from the White House," Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. Mail room employees at the White House were being
tested for exposure to the spores.
President Bush told reporters at a photo session Tuesday security personnel were "making sure that the West Wing (the office part of the
White House)" is safe.
"Let me put it this way, I'm confident when I come to work tomorrow that I'll be safe," the president said. He declined to answer whether he and Vice President Dick Cheney had been tested for anthrax, but reassured reporters that "I don't have anthrax."
Testing and antibiotic treatment for postal workers in both New Jersey and Washington continues and is being expanded to include people who may have been at facilities where anthrax spores have been found.
Expanded efforts are being made in New York as well, where more than 7,000 postal workers are to be treated with Cipro. Four media outlets in New York -- NBC, ABC, CBS and the New York Post -- either received anthrax-laced letters or had a person test positive for an anthrax infection. In the case of ABC, the person infected was the 7-month-old child of an ABC employee.
A letter sent to Tom Brokaw at NBC Nightly News and one sent to the Washington offices of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., were released to the press Tuesday night. Both were dated Sept. 11 -- the date of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Both were mailed from Trenton, N.J., had similar handwriting and contained the same phrases, "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."
Health officials and workers in New Jersey, in conjunction with the CDC, are being asked to look back as far as Sept. 11 for reported illnesses that -- in light of recent events -- might actually be anthrax.
The most recent cases of hospitalized postal workers came to light under just such watchfulness. The initial tests on the New Jersey postal worker had been negative for anthrax. Doctors decided to take a second look given the fact she was a postal worker and her symptoms were
consistent with the time frame in which anthrax spores were found at the Hamilton postal facility near Trenton, N.J.
"Given this suspected case of inhalation anthrax, those workers who have not seen a physician or nurse so far, absolutely must see a
physician or a nurse" for anthrax testing, said Dr. George Diferdinando, of the New Jersey Department of Health.
The effort to catch infections before they become serious is being expanded in Washington, as well.
"We are asking everyone, be they a postal worker, be they a contractor, or be they an individual who had a reason to visit the mail process area of a postal facility that receives mail from the Brentwood mail processing plant to please go to D.C. General Hospital to get your treatment of Cipro," said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman
Debbie Willhite.
Willhite said out of 29 swabs taken from inside the Brentwood facility, 14 indicated hot spots within the plant. The mail-processing area within
Brentwood was tested and the CDC tested additional areas as well -- including the ventilation system -- but results were pending.
Earlier Tuesday, following a meeting with President Bush, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said it was time to stop parsing
words about the type of anthrax found on Capitol Hill and in the nearby postal facilities.
"This is weapons-grade material. This is serious material and we've got to err on the side of caution," Gephardt said.
Gephardt's comments were yet another twist in the debate over the nature and source of the anthrax. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thompson, along with other congressional leaders, has said in the past week the anthrax was "garden variety," without any indication of being
altered to make it a weapon, because it was responsive to antibiotic treatment.
When asked about evidence linking the anthrax cases to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Gephardt said, "I don't think there's a way to prove that but I think we all suspect that." At a later news briefing, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer would not confirm a link but said it has been the White House's suspicion.
Also, though health officials are looking back to Sept. 11, there is no clear connection between the two sets of events, Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters Tuesday.
The Capitol was open for business Tuesday, although House and Senate office buildings remained closed as security officials continued to
sweep for anthrax spores. Anthrax was confirmed in the Hart building office of Daschle, in the Hart mailroom, in the mailroom of the House
Ford building and at the Brentwood mail facility that serves Capitol Hill.
Congressional staffers were using temporary offices Tuesday while their buildings were being evaluated. Two House office buildings were to reopen Wednesday.
Twenty-eight congressional staff members and Capitol Hill police have been exposed to anthrax, according to Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols,
the number unchanged for days despite the testing of more than 5,000 people.
At least 13 people in New York, Florida, Washington and New Jersey were diagnosed with anthrax infection. Six -- two in Florida and four in Washington -- came down with the more deadly inhaled form, while the rest have the type that is contracted through cuts or abrasions on the
skin. Along with the two deaths in Washington, Robert Stevens, 63, the photo editor for American Media's Sun tabloid in Boca Raton, Fla., also died of inhaled anthrax infection Oct. 5.
The Brentwood postal facility and an airmail postal site near Baltimore Washington International Airport remained closed Tuesday while
workers checked for additional anthrax spores.
In South Florida, the Postal Workers Union said it was planning to sue the U.S. Postal Service and perhaps postal officials to force them to test its 3,300 members.
"Why are the postal workers the first to touch this mail and the last to be tested?" asked Judy Johnson, president of the union local.
Health officials said only tiny amounts of anthrax spores were found in three Palm Beach County mail facilities that serve American Media.
(With additional reporting by Nick Horrock in Washington and Chanan Tigay in New York.)
