Anthrax was discovered yesterday on a machine in a White House’s offsite mail processing facility, officials said. One new inhalation anthrax case has been reported in New Jersey.
Spores were found at a Secret Service controlled mail facility located on military property away from the White House, according to the Washington Post. Test results found a “trace amount” of spores on a mail-opening machine at the facility, which processes mail for the White House after it passes through the Brentwood Road mail center – the site of several recent anthrax occurrences in Washington, said officials. About 20 to 50 spores were found, according to the Post.
The spores have not been linked to any suspicious package or letter, officials said. White House mail delivery has been stopped since Oct. 11 and no employees have reported any anthrax symptoms, which has led officials to believe no spores reached the White House. U.S. President George W. Bush, while refusing to say if he had been tested, did say repeatedly “I don’t have anthrax.”
Cases of the flu have been going around in the White House, according to the Post, worrying some staffers who have learned that the first symptoms of anthrax are often similar to the flu. Many staffers, however, remain unconcerned. “We have the best protective systems possible and we have it easy compared to many others,” said White House spokesman Jim Wilkinson. An e-mail sent to White House workers yesterday aby the Office of Management and Administration said “environmental tests of multiple specific areas throughout the White House complex have all been negative including all tests within the 18 acres and associated downtown facilities.” Six to eight people who worked at the facility, along with White House mailroom workers, will be given nasal swabs to test for anthrax, officials said (Mike Allen, Washington Post, Oct. 24).
Washington public health officials increased safety precautions for postal workers today after 14 checks at the Brentwood center yesterday tested positive for anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 23). The center’s 2,000 workers were upgraded from a 10-day to a 60-day antibiotic treatment. Postal workers at other stations throughout Washington were offered 10 days of antibiotics. Environmental tests have been planned for other Washington postal offices. “We need to treat and to treat quickly,” said Washington Health Commissioner Ivan Walks.
Inhalation anthrax was confirmed as the cause of death for two Washington postal workers, according to the New York Times. Two other Washington postal workers have been hospitalized for the disease. Walks said four people have shown suspicious symptoms and specialists were monitoring another 12 cases of “very low” suspicion among postal workers.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said today there would be a more thorough effort to test and treat postal workers at each point of delivery of an anthrax tainted letter. Thompson said he was more worried about a possible terrorist attack on the U.S. food supply, according to the Times. “I’m more fearful about this than anything else,” Thompson said. (Francis Clines, New York Times, Oct. 24).
U.S. senators yesterday criticized the Centers for Disease Control for its lack of response to determine if the Brentwood facility had been contaminated with anthrax, according to the Washington Times. “It seems to me something broke down here or is broken down,” said Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “Obviously people are getting sick and dying, and we can’t let this happen. Whatever happened at Brentwood, we can’t let happen anywhere else.”
Expectations are being met in spite of a “severely challenged” and “run ragged” public health system, said CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan, adding the CDC had “performed admirably” but lacks funding to meet current demands. “That’s the oldest story in the world,” said U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). “The fact is we are generous in our resources” (Jerry Seper, Washington Times, Oct. 24).
The first case of inhaled anthrax in New Jersey has been discovered, officials said yesterday. The victim is a mail handler at the Hamilton processing center, the same building where another worker contracted the skin form of anthrax last week. The recent victim is in serious but stable condition and is responding to antibiotics, New Jersey health officials said.
Officials are considering testing the air in the Hamilton center after finding anthrax spores on 33 of 82 recently tested surfaces, according to the Washington Post. Rollers and air blowers used in the center may have dispersed anthrax spores into the air, according to officials. “Now that a New Jersey postal worker has a suspected case of inhalational anthrax, we are considering air and vacuum samples in addition to the swipe samples that have been done,” said acting state Health Commissioner George DiFerdinando. At a nearby West Trenton, New Jersey, post office, a mail carrier has tested positive for skin anthrax, however, no spores have been found (Russakoff/Powell, Washington Post, Oct. 24).
“People are so scared. No one knows who or what to believe anymore,” said Valerie Williams, a postal clerk at the Hamilton center.
President Bush has ordered an immediate allocation of $175 million to improve safety at U.S. postal facilities in response to a request from the postmaster general (Sanders/Fiore, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24).
At the American Media Inc. building in Florida, where the first occurrences of anthrax were discovered (see GSN, Oct. 5), no spores have been discovered in the first floor ventilation system, environmental officials said yesterday. Tests on samples from the ventilation system came back negative, which may mean that anthrax spores did not spread around the building. “That’s cause for optimism,” said Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Peyton Fleming. “It’s good news, because it tells us those areas might be clean.”
Officials had found anthrax spores in the first-floor mailroom on the keyboard of a worker who was the first man to die from the recent anthrax cases. EPA officials said they hoped spores had not spread beyond those two places and plan to begin testing air and other surfaces on the second and third floor of the building today (Daniel de Vise, Miami Herald, Oct. 24).
A letter from the United States to Kenya that was believed to be tainted with anthrax has tested negative for the disease, U.S. officials said today. “After further testing of the Nairobi sample with technical advice from the CDC and embassy medical staff, the initial positive result cannot be replicated or confirmed,” said U.S. embassy spokesman Peter Claussen. “We now consider the sample to be negative for anthrax.”
Kenyan Health Minister Sam Ongeri said last week a U.S. letter sent to a Kenyan businessman had tested positive “by stain and smear for anthrax.” Ongeri said further tests were needed to confirm the findings. The Kenyan case was believed to be the first case of anthrax sent through the mail outside the United States (Simon Denver, RealCities.com, Oct. 24).
Congressional buildings that have tested positive for anthrax are likely to stay closed for weeks while they are cleaned, said congressional aides. Four buildings have tested positive since a tainted letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle: the Hart and Dirksen Senate office buildings, the Ford House office building and a Capitol police facility. Those buildings, as well as other House and Senate office buildings, have remained closed for a sixth day while tests for anthrax continued.
The congressional buildings are planned to be flooded with gas to clean them, said a congressional aide. “We’ve been told that the buildings have to go through a process in which they are cleaned with gas,” said the aide. “It’s impossible to work there under those conditions, and it could take a few weeks. All the buildings that tested positive for anthrax are going to be closed for some time” (Reuters/Planet Ark, Oct. 24).
Congressional members tried to adjust to the loss of their offices as they returned to work yesterday. “We don’t have a fax machine or a Xerox machine. We’re trying to hold meetings in receptions rooms and return calls on cellphones,” said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas). Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) wondered when he’d be able to get the family checkbook he left in the Hart building, according to USA Today. Some congressional mail may have to be destroyed so any bacteria cannot spread, said Senator Daschle. It is unsure when mail delivery to Congress will continue, officials said.
Several congressional activities have been disrupted since the anthrax occurrences. Votes on the nominations of an appellate court judge and several U.S. attorneys have been delayed because paperwork is in the closed offices, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). A planned House-Senate conference committee meeting on an education bill was delayed. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said she wanted to put off drafting a farm bill until next year. “The president and his people are trying to fight a war,” said Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) who favored the delay, but other farm state senators said the bill was needed this year (Kiely/Drinkard, USA Today, Oct. 24).
A House hearing on biological warfare defense was moved to the Health and Human Services Department because of the anthrax-related shutdown, according to the Miami Herald. “We convene this hearing in an unaccustomed place to discuss an unprecedented need for vaccines to protect against the most unnatural outbreaks of disease imaginable – biological terrorism,” Representative Chris Shays (R-Conn.) said (Frank Davies, Miami Herald, Oct. 24).
The Justice Department today released copies of the three anthrax-tainted letters to serve as a warning for the public to look out for similar ones and to help generate leads in the investigation. “All of these we hope will alert citizens and others to the kind of thing to look out for,” said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The three letters, one each sent to NBC News, the New York Post and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, were handwritten in large block letters that may show they had been written by the same person, said officials, although that person may have tried to disguise his handwriting. Investigators are examining evidence taken from the letters, such as the envelope, the ink and paper, the handwriting and the anthrax itself, according to the New York Times. It’s unlikely that the sender of the letters can be identified from DNA left on the glue envelope because the letters were sealed with tape, investigators said.
The letters were made public after CIA Director George Tenet met with President George W. Bush and Congressional leaders. Tenet said he suspected an organized terrorist group was behind the anthrax occurrences, but there was no concrete evidence as to whom was responsible and he did not know if authorities will find them. Law enforcement officials said the timing of the anthrax incidents, soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was highly suspicious. It was possible, however, a domestic terror group or even a single person motivated by a grievance could be responsible for the letters, officials said (David Johnston, New York Times, Oct. 24).
All three letters were dated Sept. 11, officials said yesterday. The letters had “09-11-01” written across the top of each in identical handwriting. The two letters sent to New York were postmarked Sept. 18. The Daschle letter was postmarked Oct. 9. The identical dates and the release of the letters could be indications that investigators believe they are dealing with a domestic terrorist capitalizing on the Sept. 11 attacks, said criminal profiling experts (Karen Gullo, Associated press/RealCities.com, Oct. 24).
The phrases on the letters may be intended to wrongly cast suspicion on foreign terrorists, according to some experts. The blocklike handwriting appears to belong to someone whose native language is English, rather than someone who learned to write from right to left, as in Arabic, said Vincent Cannistrano, a former CIA counterterrorism official.
The anthrax occurrences do not fit the pattern of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization, said Daniel Benjamin, a former terrorism specialist at the National Security Council. Bin Laden’s network, however, has “shown a remarkable ability to innovate tactics and to come up with a different means of attack virtually every time around,” Benjamin said. “You absolutely cannot rule them out,” said Benjamin. “At the same time, their overriding interest is mass carnage, so there is some reason for skepticism. They have not traditionally sought to scare a lot of people. Usually, they want to kill a lot of people.”
Some federal officials said there might be a link between al-Qaeda and the anthrax occurrences. “There is a suspicion that this connected to international terrorism,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, adding that a link to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been “the operating suspicion of the White House for a long time.” House of Representatives Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) said: “I don’t think there’s a way to prove [a link] but I think we all suspect that.”
U.S. Postal Service spokesman Dan Mihalko said investigators are not close to figuring out who is behind that anthrax letters. “I can’t say we have narrowed the focus,” Mihalko said. “This has the potential to be a long investigation”(Eggen/Slevin, Washington Post, Oct. 24).
Investigators said yesterday the people responsible for the anthrax letters might have infected themselves when they loaded the spores into the envelopes. “We cannot rule out the possibility that these people were willing to sacrifice themselves,” said one official. “We may be looking for a bunch of ill people. It would not be incorrect to assume they would be afraid of harming themselves.” The FBI has investigated hospitals and clinics and has questioned doctors and pharmacists in several states to try to find people who sought treatment for flulike symptoms and skin rashes – two signs of anthrax, according to the Washington Times.
The persons behind the anthrax letters displayed “a certain type of expertise” in the type of anthrax used, according to a federal law enforcement official. The anthrax is believed to be professionally produced, finely milled and electrostatically charged, according to the Times. The use of electrostatically charged anthrax meant that those who sent the anthrax tried to make sure the spores would not remain stuck to the envelope but spread out into the air when opened, according to authorities. Investigators were unsure as to how the letters were charged, but experts said several methods exist and the necessary equipment can be found in pharmaceutical or biology labs (Seper/Drummond, Washington Times, Oct. 24).
Investigators are also trying to determine whether a chemical mixture used in the anthrax matches samples of biological warfare agents from Iraq, the former Soviet Union or other sources, according to USA Today. The chemicals help the anthrax spores aerosolize, which increases the reach of the inhaled form of the disease.
“This has nothing to do with the organism itself and everything to do with how you [prepare] it,” said Alan Zelicoff, a bioweapons expert at the Sandia National Laboratory. “For the first time in my 12 years in this arcane world I’m suddenly very worried because they’ve been able to come up with aerosolized anthrax.”
The chemicals keep the anthrax spores from clumping together and getting weighed down by humidity, according to bioweapons experts. This allows the spores to spread like a tasteless, odorless gas. Whoever has prepared the anthrax to magnify its impact “has discovered the key to the kingdom,” Zelicoff said (Sternberg/Eisler, USA Today, Oct. 24).
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week reapproved a plan to develop a uniquely potent form of anthrax bacteria to test the country’s defenses against biological attack, the New York Times reported yesterday. Before September 11, Pentagon officials had put the plan on hold to discuss concerns that it might violate the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention on germ warfare, according to the Times.
Pentagon lawyers have now determined that the plan is “fully consistent” with the BWC, and President George W. Bush is meeting this week with European allies to discuss new measures for enforcing the treaty (see GSN, Oct. 23).
According to the Times, super-potent anthrax was first engineered by Russian scientists in the early 1990s. By 1997, the scientists created a strain that overcame Russian anthrax vaccine in hamsters, sparking anxiety at the Pentagon. The Defense Intelligence Agency was told to develop a super-strain of anthrax to test the U.S. military’s anthrax vaccine (Judith Miller, New York Times, Oct. 23).
Bayer this morning was expected to sign an agreement with the U.S. government to provide the antibiotic Cipro at low cost, creating a massive stockpile against anthrax outbreaks, according to the Associated Press. The price could be less than $1 per pill, according to hints from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
“I expect that if Mr. Thompson says so, it will be close to that,” said Bayer spokesman Michael Diehl this morning, according to the Associated Press.
Bayer initially offered Cipro to the United States for between $1.75 and $1.85 per pill, Thompson told the Associated Press. The current retail price is between $4 and $5 per pill, but after a dispute over Bayer’s patent on Cipro, the company offered the antibiotic to the Canadian government for $1.30 per pill (See GSN, Oct. 23).
Thompson said Bayer told him that it could produce 200 million pills within 60 days, enough to treat 12 million people (Associated Press, Oct. 24).
Medical experts warned today that overuse of Cipro could cause as many problems as it solves. The antibiotic, which kills anthrax bacteria, could also kill bacteria that are healthy for the body, leaving patients open to infections from various sources. In addition, if too many people use Cipro, a strain of anthrax that resists the antibiotic could emerge.
“You could be creating a public health menace for somebody else — it could even be someone in your family,” said Stuart Levy, a physician at Tufts University (Jeremy Manier, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 24).
Two groups of scientists announced discoveries yesterday that could lead to drugs that could disable the deadly toxins produced by anthrax bacteria. Although drug companies would not be able to develop the new types of drugs for a year or more, they would contribute to “a whole new arsenal” of treatments against anthrax, the journal Nature reported (Helen Pearson, Nature online, Oct. 24).
Anthrax bacteria are fatal when they release toxins that kill immune cells in the blood and cause blood poisoning. The scientists shed light on how two of the toxins work. The first, called protective antigen or PA, latches onto human cells, cuts them open, and injects the second toxin, known as the lethal factor (Nature press release, Oct. 23).
“We are fortunate that there are so many areas of vulnerability. Because of the multistep nature of [the toxins’] action there really are several points at which we can attack it,” Harvard Medical School researcher John Collier, who worked with both groups, told the Washington Post.
The first group of scientists, led by John Young of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, built a decoy chemical that soaks up the PA. The decoy mimics the surface of human cells so that the PA latches onto the decoy and can no longer latch onto living cells. The scientists have already tested some treatments against PA toxin in cell cultures and in rats.
The second group, led by Robert Liddington of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, deduced the structure of the lethal factor. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute have been screening chemicals to see if any could block the lethal factor (David Brown, Washington Post, Oct. 24).
Several drug companies said they might need regulatory changes to produce enough smallpox vaccine to meet the U.S. goal of 250 million new doses by the end of 2002.
Seven companies have expressed interest in producing smallpox vaccines, said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. HHS sent a letter to potential companies on Oct. 19 inquiring into their ability to produce enough vaccine quickly (see GSN, Oct. 23). Several companies said the government would have to waive or modify standing federal regulations to allow companies to produce the vaccines by the end of next year.
No U.S. company currently produces the smallpox vaccine; the companies would have to start from the beginning, including installing equipment and developing expertise. “We don’t even have the technique to quickly produce smallpox vaccine by today’s standards. We don’t know what standards would apply,” said Len Lavenda, spokesman for Aventis Pasteur, a company considering participation in the smallpox vaccine production program.
The Food and Drug Administration said it would maintain its quality and safety standards for the vaccine. “The FDA is committed to work long and hard if that is what is required, but the FDA will still uphold its same high standards,” said FDA spokesman Larry Bachorik (Paul Recer, Associated Press/RealCities.com, Oct. 24).
The old method of deriving smallpox vaccines from pus from sores of calves infected with vaccinia virus would not meet current FDA standards, said Lance Gordon, CEO of the biotech company VaxGen. Companies would instead make the virus by growing vaccinia in culture using human cell lines. The new method allows fairly fast vaccine production, said Gordon, but it has never been tested on humans. Scientists generally assume the new vaccine is as safe and effective as the old vaccine, but “until you do the experiment, you don’t know,” said Gregory Poland of the Mayo Vaccine Research Group (Manning/Rubin, USA Today, Oct. 24).
Meanwhile, many Canadians have been asking doctors and medical authorities if they can receive smallpox vaccinations to protect themselves against a possible biological terrorist attack. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Where can I get the vaccine?’” said Ken Brown of the Toronto Public Health Department yesterday.
Canada, like the United States, does not offer the vaccine unless there is an outbreak. “The vaccine is not available. There is no point in going and seeking a vaccination,” said Paul Gully of Canada’s Center for Infectious Diseases.
Canada has a stockpile of 380,000 smallpox vaccine doses hidden in a secret location only available to a handful of scientists (Ingrid Peritz, Globe and Mail, Oct. 24).
Sweden has been preparing for a possible mass smallpox vaccination program. Swedish authorities said they would have enough vaccine to protect the entire Swedish population within six months.
Norway has said it currently has no plan to vaccinate its population against smallpox (Norway Post, Oct. 23).
Smallpox was eradicated worldwide by 1980, but the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and recent anthrax cases (see GSN, this issue) have raised concerns terrorists could release the smallpox virus in a terrorist attack. Terrorists could infect themselves and spread the disease to others, although a more effective method would be to spray the virus. “You simply take the material and put it in a sprayer. It’s not that difficult. There are plenty of aerosolizers out there, and they’re getting better all the time … Getting the material would be difficult – it’s harder to get than anthrax,” said D.A. Henderson of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.
Experts said smallpox is a frightening disease because it has no treatment and is fatal in about 30 percent of cases. It is also contagious, although less so than chickenpox or measles. Smallpox instead requires somewhat close contact to spread through coughing or sneezing, said Don Francis, who worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the effort to eradicate smallpox (Manning/Rubin, USA Today, Oct. 24).
Scientists should tighten security at laboratories that deal with bacteriological and other material that could potentially be used by terrorists in biological attacks, said Patricia Lewis, head of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research.
Many scientists regularly transport small amounts of undeclared bacteriological substances through customs, and many university laboratories do not have locks on doors or on refrigerators containing biological cultures, Lewis said. Also, scientists often exchange material internationally without serious consideration of the potential consequences. Such deficiencies in security make it relatively easy to transport agents used in small-scale biological weapons, she said.
“Within the scientific community there is this culture of transparency and openness that would have to change if you wanted to stop that small source [of bacteriological material] disappearing,” she said.
Controlling several test tubes of potentially dangerous biological agents transported around the world would be difficult, but educating scientists about legal restrictions and international nonproliferation agreements and increasing security in university labs would be positive steps, Lewis said (Agence France-Presse, Oct. 22).
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