|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Anthrax: Hart Senate Office Building Reopens After more than three months, the Hart Senate Office Building reopened yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 22). Meanwhile, investigators on the anthrax case focused their efforts in New Jersey, according to reports (see GSN, Jan. 15). The Hart building yesterday reopened after an intense decontamination effort to rid it of anthrax spores discovered in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). While most senators and their staff members were allowed to return to their offices, Daschle and his staff will still work out of temporary quarters until carpeting and furniture can be replaced (see GSN, Oct. 16, 2001). “It’s good to be back,” Daschle said. “It’s good to be confident that we can return to normalcy” (U.S. State Department release, Jan. 22). Daschle’s office suite is expected to be ready for reoccupancy in mid-March, the Washington Post reported today. “I feel completely safe,” Daschle told reporters, adding that no member of his staff quit over the anthrax letter. “I think we’ve done everything possible to remediate this building, and I believe it has been a complete success.” Extensive testing of the Hart building, using culture samples and thousands of test strips laced with bacteria, helped officials decide when it was safe to reopen the building. “People should feel comfortable and confident about reentering the building,” said Patrick Meehan, director of the emergency and environmental health systems division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Every room was tested” (Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, Jan. 23). Exposed to 3,000 Times the Lethal Dose Daschle’s staff was exposed to up to 3,000 times the lethal dose of anthrax when the tainted letter was opened in mid-October, said doctors who treated staffers. “We are in completely uncharted waters,” said physician Greg Martin, of the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. He said the analysis of exposure levels for Daschle’s staff was based on a prior Canadian study on exposure levels after simulated anthrax was released in a room. On the second day after the tainted letter was opened, doctors became so concerned over the rapid growth rate of cultures taken from Daschle staff members’ nasal swabs that they reserved beds at the naval hospital to prepare for a large number of aides contracting the disease, USA Today reported today. Martin wanted to inoculate 70 Daschle staffers to protect them from any lingering spores in their bodies after their 90-day regimen of the antibiotic Cipro ran out, according to USA Today. The CDC, however, waited two months before making the anthrax vaccine available for such a purpose. Immediate knowledge of exposure and quick antibiotic treatments played a large part in preventing Daschle and his staff from contracting anthrax, according to USA Today. “People say, ‘Well, nobody got sick,’” said Laura Petrou, Daschle’s administrative assistant. “That’s not luck. Nobody’s gotten sick because we worked very hard at it” (Laura Parker, USA Today, Jan. 23). New Jersey May Hold the Key The key to solving the “Amerithrax” investigation into who is responsible for the anthrax attacks might be discovered in central New Jersey, law enforcement officials said yesterday. The FBI and U.S. Postal Service are expected to hold a press conference today in Trenton, N.J., to appeal for help from the public and to announce a doubling of the reward in the anthrax case to $2.5 million, officials said. All four of the anthrax-tainted letters were postmarked from Trenton. “This is a targeted effort toward central New Jersey,” said an FBI official. “Investigators and others associated with the case continue to believe that whoever did this has a relationship with central Jersey, whether they lived there, worked there or just spent a lot of time there. The key to the case could be there” (Eggen/Warrick, Washington Post, Jan. 23).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
