WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The Health and Human Services Department is finalizing a memo to government agencies about how to go about environmental testing for anthrax, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said Thursday.
The announcement comes on the heels of the discovery of anthrax at four mailrooms in Food and Drug Administration buildings in the Rockville, Md. area.
Thompson said the memo would make recommendations based on how HHS approached testing of its buildings, resulting in the finding of anthrax in at least two areas. HHS hired a private firm to do the testing and then sent the results to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for final confirmation.
"Hopefully, it will be adopted by the other departments," Thompson told reporters. He said the memo may go out as early as Friday morning and that private companies that have questions on environmental testing would get the same information.
The recommendations also are to include when to provide protective antibiotics for workers, based on what was found during the environmental scans.
Four of five FDA mailrooms that were tested indicated positive for anthrax, officials said, including the mailroom at the main FDA headquarters in Rockville. Other agency buildings were not tested because they do not have mailrooms.
FDA mail is downstream from the Brentwood postal facility near Capitol Hill that handled the one known anthrax letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Dashcle, D.S.D.
"As a result of these test results, FDA is closing all of its Rockville area mailroom facilities, effective immediately, until they can be cleaned and sanitized," said acting FDA Commissioner Bernard A. Schwetz in a statement. "As a precaution, all mailroom employees will begin receiving the appropriate antibiotics this morning. No new mail from the U.S. Postal Service will enter the FDA system until the mailrooms reopen."
The CDC said Thursday its number of anthrax cases remains at 16 confirmed and five suspected. In New York that breaks down to one confirmed inhalation case, three cutaneous or skin infections and three suspected cutaneous cases. In New Jersey, there are five confirmed cases of anthrax, including two inhalation and three cutaneous and two suspected cases of cutaneous. In Washington, there are five confirmed cases of inhaled anthrax infection, including two postal workers who died. In Florida there have been two confirmed cases of inhalation anthrax, including one death.
Dr. Julie, Gerberding, acting deputy director of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, said the agency is investigating "at a furious pace" the death Wednesday of Kathy T. Nguyen, 61, a stockroom employee at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. New York officials have declared the woman's death from inhalation anthrax infection as a homicide.
Gerberding said investigators have no clues as to the source of her infection but are "reviewing the routes that mail might have traveled to reach her in her home or her mailroom."
The woman was on a respirator and sedated during the three days she was in the hospital so she was too sick to talk to investigators trying to track down where she could have been exposed to anthrax.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said additional tests on the woman's clothing came back negative for anthrax. Initial tests had shown possible anthrax. Environmental tests for anthrax at the hospital where she worked have been negative and Giuliani said, "Everything that we have available is negative."
Another woman, a co-worker of Nguyen, who had an undiagnosed lesion consistent with skin anthrax symptoms, so far has tested negative for infection.
Elsewhere, anthrax also has been reported in trace amounts at a Kansas City postal facility but officials said no employees are exhibiting symptoms of the disease and there probably is no risk to the general public.
The spores were found at the Stamp Fulfillment Services Center, which does not process regular mail and has been closed until officials can determine the threat has been eliminated. The center cancels stamps for collectors.
Gary Stone, who manages the center, said since Oct. 19, the facility has received about 7,000 pieces of mail from Washington's Brentwood facility -- a location that was contaminated with anthrax and where two workers died following exposure. Stone said he was unsure whether any of the mail received by the Kansas City facility was sent out after the Brentwood contamination was discovered.
A Miami federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Friday on a request by a local postal workers union to force the U.S. Postal Service to address worker protection issues.
At a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz suggested a powerful figure similar to the nation's anti-drug czar be appointed to lead a crisis management team to deal with anthrax issues. The postal service responded they already have a task force working on the problems.
"I hope a miracle happens between now and Friday," Seitz said. "I can see the concern that there's no one in charge."
The Miami chapter of the American Postal Workers Union filed suit this week seeking tests on employees in areas where anthrax has been found and tests on postal facilities. The facilities would be closed while the tests are conducted.
"I can see why the union is concerned," Seitz said. But she added that the union will have to prove "the threat of irreparable harm" before she rules in their favor.
Palm Beach County, Fla., health department spokesman Tim O'Connor said it appears more than one anthrax-laced letter made its way through the county post offices before ending up at American Media Inc., where it killed one employee and infected a second. A third employee was exposed but not infected.
The Environmental Protection Agency completed most of the testing of the second floor of the American Media building Wednesday. It plans to finish up Thursday and move on to the third floor.
(With additional reporting by Marcy Kreiter in Chicago and Les Kjos in Miami)
