The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency needs more time to prepare information to answer congressional questions about the costs of cleaning up the anthrax-contaminated Hart Senate Office Building, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 28).  Meanwhile, former researchers at a U.S. Army facility have disclosed more details about the security of pathogen stockpiles there, according to reports (see GSN, Jan. 24).

In a letter yesterday to Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), EPA Associate Administrator Edward Krenik wrote that the agency would not be able to meet Grassley’s Thursday deadline for providing information on anthrax decontamination of the Hart building.

“Your letter requests a considerable amount of contracting and financial information concerning the cleanup,” Krenik wrote.  “EPA personnel will continue to work expeditiously to complete this task.”

Grassley has requested information from the EPA on the costs and contracting processes related to the Hart building cleanup operation.  An initial estimate of the cost is more than $15 million, but the EPA will provide a more detailed report soon, said Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Alfonso Lenhardt (Washington Post, Jan. 29).

“Inventories Were Pretty Much a Joke”

Two former researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md., have alleged that the discipline and security conditions at the facility were poor, Time reported this week.

“7-Eleven had better inventory controls than USAMRIID,” said microbiologist Richard Crosland, who has filed a lawsuit against the facility for discrimination after his 1997 layoff.  “The inventories were pretty much a joke.  People often just filled them in using last month’s forms.”

News reports last week said nearly 30 samples of deadly pathogens, such as anthrax and Ebola, were found to be missing from USAMRIID during a 1992 inventory.

“In my 11 years there, they never once asked for my botulinum toxin records,” Crosland said.  “If I had taken it all home — which of course I didn’t — no one would have known.”

Army documents released due to a 1998 lawsuit indicated that discipline and morale conditions at USAMRIID were poor, according to Time.  There were allegations of incompetence, research theft and sexual and racial harassment.  The documents were released in a discrimination lawsuit filed by another former USAMRIID researcher, Ayaad Assaad.

Assaad said he received a call from a facility security guard last year about a power outage in a freezer.  When Assaad told the guard he had not worked at the facility in three years, the guard said Assaad’s name was the only one listed on the security roster.

USAMRIID Commander Col. Edward Eitzen said the charges of poor conditions at the facility are exaggerated. 

“It would be very difficult to stop a determined insider from removing samples even if you were stopping everybody on their way out,” Eitzen said.  “Even prior to Sept. 11, we were as good or better than any other laboratory in terms of our security and our safety” (Michael Lemonick, Time, Feb. 4).

Symptoms but No Signs

The case of a Washington postal worker who appears to be suffering from the symptoms of anthrax, but has tested negative for other evidence of the disease in his body, has baffled researchers, the Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA reported this week (see GSN, Jan. 9).

William Paliscak inspected equipment at the Brentwood Road postal facility that handled one of the anthrax-tainted letters.  After spores were discovered at the facility, Paliscak was given the anthrax antibiotic Cipro.  He only took the antibiotic for one day and missed two doses after that.  Paliscak soon became ill and has remained ill for more than two months, according to the Letter.

Both a blood test and a chest x-ray showed no signs of anthrax in Paliscak’s body.  His doctors, however, said they believe he is suffering from anthrax and his case could help change the definition of what constitutes an anthrax infection.

“It raises the question of:  Is there a range of illness?” said Tyler Cymet, head author of Paliscak’s case study for the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. “Can you get very ill just by being exposed and not getting the disease?”

Physicians are accepting of the idea that patients can react differently to the same infection and there could be different ways that anthrax might affect the body, said Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic.

“The likelihood of this being all or nothing — that you get exposed and without treatment you die — is likely not going to be the full story here,” Poland said (Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA, Feb. 3).

Is Ames in Texas?

Federal officials have said the Ames anthrax strain, which was the strain used in the attacks, did not originally come from Ames, Iowa, but instead was cultured from a Texas cow, the Washington Post reported today.

The U.S. Army obtained what came to be known as the Ames strain in 1981 in a search to find anthrax strains to use in testing a new vaccine, according to the Post.  It was unnamed until a 1985 paper written by USAMRIID researchers. 

It was dubbed “Ames” because the shipping package the strain had arrived in had a return address from the U.S. Agriculture Department Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, said former USAMRIID scientist Gregory Knudson.  It was believed that was where the strain was from and the new name stuck, the Post reported.

Agriculture Department officials in Iowa, however, found no records of anthrax outbreaks in the 1980s or anthrax shipments to the army after the Post requested documents on the strain’s origins. 

“When we went back and checked, there was no record of a bacterial culture coming from a cow in Iowa in 1980-81,” said Tom Bunn, chief of the USDA Diagnostic Bacterial Laboratory.  “If the army asked for something we would have given it to them.”

Army documents later showed that the Ames strain was originally cultured from a cow in Texas, where there was an anthrax outbreak in 1980, according to the Post.  A Texas A&M University laboratory sent the anthrax to USAMRIID in 1981.  The shipping container used by the Texas laboratory, provided by the USDA to veterinary laboratories throughout the country, had the Ames laboratory return address on it (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Jan. 29).

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