NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001

Also Tuesday, two D.C. postal workers who had died and two others who were hospitalized -- all connected to the same postal facility -- were found to be victims of the more serious inhaled form of anthrax infection; two other similar cases were pending.

Another postal worker, a New Jersey mail handler, also has a suspected case of anthrax, health officials in that state said Tuesday. The middle-aged woman was in serious but stable condition and was being treated with antibiotics.

The two postal workers who died, worked at Washington's Brentwood postal facility near Capitol Hill. Two others connected with Brentwood were hospitalized "with flu-like, cold-like symptoms," Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., announced Tuesday afternoon.

The two at Holy Cross were in addition to two other postal employees --also workers at Brentwood -- who were hospitalized earlier this week at Inova Fairfax Hospital in suburban Virginia. Their condition, however, declined Tuesday from serious, to critical but stable.

The concern is that the two individuals at Holy Cross, a 35-year-old male and 41-year-old female, might have contracted inhalation anthrax -- the most deadly form of the infection. Test results, however, had not confirmed this.

"Since we are following CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and state guidelines, we began treatment and tests," said Mike Hall, manager of media and community relations for Holy Cross.

Both patients were in good condition, Hall told United Press International in an interview. They were being treated with Cipro and two other antibiotics. Results on the first tests indicating whether they do, in fact, have anthrax should be available in 72 hours, he said.

Tests also were to begin at the White House with the discovery of anthrax spores in a machine that opens mail destined for there. The facility is at a military installation several miles from the White House, Fleischer said. A "small concentration" of anthrax was reported found on a slitter, a mechanical device that opens mail.

The site "has been closed for further testing and contamination." Mail workers at the remote facility and the White House are being tested for exposure to anthrax, he said.

President Bush told reporters at a photo session Tuesday security personnel were "making sure that the West Wing (the office part of the White House)" is safe.

"Let me put it this way, I'm confident when I come to work tomorrow that I'll be safe," the president said. He declined to answer whether he and Vice President Dick Cheney had been tested for anthrax, but reassured reporters that "I don't have anthrax."

"The evildoers are continuing to try to harm America," the president said later. "... The evil ones continue."

He said he would not be surprised if Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization was involved in the anthrax attacks.

The president reassured Americans that the government was doing everything possible to protect against terrorism.

America will beat the enemy, he said. "We're making great progress on the ground in Afghanistan."

"Confidence at the White House is high," Fleisher told reporters earlier at his news conference.

" ... The first step is to determine the source."

Testing and antibiotic treatment for postal workers in both New Jersey and Washington continues and is being expanded to include people who may have been at facilities where anthrax spores have been found.

Expanded efforts are being made in New York as well, where more than 7,000 postal workers are to be treated with Cipro. Four media outlets in New York -- NBC, ABC, CBS and the New York Post -- either received anthrax-laced letters or had a person test positive for an anthrax infection. In the case of ABC, the person infected was the 7-month-old child of an ABC employee.

A letter sent to Tom Brokaw at NBC Nightly News and one sent to the Washington offices of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., were released to the press Tuesday night. Both were dated Sept. 11 -- the date of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Both were mailed from Trenton, N.J., had similar handwriting and contained the same phrases, "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great." Health officials and workers in New Jersey, in conjunction with the CDC, are being asked to look back as far as Sept. 11 for reported illnesses that -- in light of recent events -- might actually be anthrax.

The most recent cases of hospitalized postal workers came to light under just such watchfulness. The initial tests on the New Jersey postal worker had been negative for anthrax. Doctors decided to take a second look given the fact she was a postal worker and her symptoms were consistent with the time frame in which anthrax spores were found at the Hamilton postal facility near Trenton, N.J.

"Given this suspected case of inhalation anthrax, those workers who have not seen a physician or nurse so far, absolutely must see a physician or a nurse" for anthrax testing, said Dr. George Diferdinando, of the New Jersey Department of Health. The effort to catch infections before they become serious is being expanded in Washington, as well.

"We are asking everyone, be they a postal worker, be they a contractor, or be they an individual who had a reason to visit the mail process area of a postal facility that receives mail from the Brentwood mail processing plant to please go to D.C. General Hospital to get your treatment of Cipro," said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Debbie Willhite.

Willhite said out of 29 swabs taken from inside the Brentwood facility, 14 indicated hot spots within the plant. The mail-processing area within Brentwood was tested and the CDC tested additional areas as well -- including the ventilation system -- but results were pending.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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