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U.S. Health Officials Underestimated Anthrax Risks During 2001 Mail Attacks, GAO Finds
Efforts to protect U.S. postal workers during the 2001 anthrax mailings were delayed because public health agencies underestimated the danger from the spore-laden letters, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report issued yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 19). Nine postal workers in Washington and New Jersey contracted anthrax in fall 2001 after four letters carrying the biological agent were sent to media outlets and the offices of two U.S. senators. Two employees at the Brentwood postal distribution center in Washington were among the five people who died after being infected. The U.S. Postal Service primarily considered the danger to its personnel when deciding whether to close potentially contaminated facilities, according to managers, union representatives and public health agencies. However, the health agencies that the Postal Service relied on for assessments underestimated the health risks until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed anthrax cases at the Brentwood and Trenton, N.J., distribution centers, according to congressional investigators. The Washington and New Jersey facilities were closed, but tainted distribution centers in Florida, Connecticut and New York City remained open during decontamination efforts. “Public health agencies underestimated the health risks to postal employees, in part, because they did not know that anthrax spores could leak from taped, unopened letters in sufficient quantities to cause a fatal form of anthrax,” the GAO report states. “The Postal Service kept the three other facilities covered by the GAO’s review open because public health officials had advised the agency that employees at those centers were at minimal risk. CDC and the Postal Service have said they would have made different decisions if they had earlier understood the health risks to postal employees.” Postal workers questioned information supplied by their employer on anthrax due to problems with “accuracy, clarity and timeliness,” the report states. Problems included incomplete details about the health risk of anthrax and the delayed release of anthrax spore counts at one facility. The report notes that the Postal Service since the attacks has established an information coordination center for its facilities and has developed guidelines for responding to any future attacks. While it has also revised its response guidelines, those rules still do not include terms on which a facility would be evacuated or specify what steps would be taken between an anthrax diagnosis for an employee and confirmation of infection, the GAO report states. It recommends further updating of the Postal Service guidelines. In a response to the report, the Postal Service said it has or is in the process of revising its emergency response guidelines. The CDC, in its response, noted that the previous major anthrax outbreak occurred in the 1970s. That left “agencies with very little to rely on in terms of protocol for handling these types of issues,” the response states (Government Accountability Office report, Sept. 9).
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