NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2001

Dr. Jean Malecki, director of the Palm Beach Health Department, said: "After analyzing environmental samples taken from throughout the home, we found no evidence of anthrax in his residence. On that basis we have taken the family off antibiotics that they had been taking as a preventive measure. We believe we can now rule out the residence as a source of the bacteria."

More than 60 FBI agents fanned out across Palm Beach County Tuesday trying to track down the source of the deadly anthrax exposure, but officials said the evidence was not enough to characterize it as a criminal investigation.

"We are assisting the health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in gathering evidence and preserving the evidence so that if criminal activity occurred that evidence will be useful in court," said Special agent Judy Orihuela of the FBI's Miami field office.

The investigation comes from heightened awareness over possible domestic terrorist attacks in response to strikes made by the United States and allies against Afghanistan's Taliban regime and terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

"Right now we are all trying to find the source of the anthrax and how it got into the building," Orihuela said.

The building, headquarters of American Media in Boca Raton, Fla., was sealed by the FBI and Palm Beach County Health Department officials Sunday night after authorities found anthrax spores on a keyboard inside the building and in a nasal swab taken from mailroom worker Ernesto Blanco of Miami.

In a news briefing, Malecki also said health department personnel screened and treated 770 people Monday who either worked at American Media or who had spent at least one hour in the building since Aug. 1. On Friday, Stevens, 63, an employee of the Sun tabloid, one of several publications edited at the building, died of acute inhaled anthrax infection three days after he was admitted to a nearby hospital.

Timothy O'Connor, a spokesman for the Palm Beach Health Department, said that during the screening, nose swabs that might reveal exposure to anthrax were taken from each individual, and each person received a supply of antibiotics. "No one refused to allow the sampling, and no one to our knowledge refused antibiotics," O'Connor told United Press International.

O'Connor told reporters an intern who had left messages that some people described as ominous when he left work at American Media had "been ruled out" as having any role in the anthrax outbreak.

Malecki said that the only known exposure of anthrax was to Lantana resident Stevens and Blanco, 73, from whom a single anthrax spore was isolated. O'Connor said that spore was spotted when doctors in Miami were trying to determine why the man was suffering from a respiratory illness. He is still hospitalized, but his illness is not anthrax.

While numerous scenarios have been postulated for the anthrax exposure, Barbara Reynolds, a CDC official in Atlanta, told UPI that health officials have ruled out the possibility that Stevens might have brought the anthrax into the building with him after having spent time outdoors. Stevens was described as avid outdoorsman.

"One of the reasons we have just about discarded that possibility is that we have never before had an outbreak of anthrax in a workplace unless that workplace involved work with animals or animal products," Reynolds said.

For example, wool workers often have been exposed to anthrax, which is usually associated with livestock animals such as cattle, sheep or goats. "The situation at American Media defies any natural scenario," Reynolds said. "We are working collaboratively with the FBI on this."

However, Reynolds said the CDC had so far not found concrete evidence of criminal involvement.

"What we have described as not being natural is the epidemiological nature of the exposure. We do not have laboratory evidence that the strain of bacteria is not natural or manipulated."

She said researchers at the CDC and other laboratories are scrutinizing the bacteria found at the site at the molecular level to determine if it is natural.

Palm Beach Health Department officials have reported all preliminary tests indicate the strain of bacteria is a natural strain. Dr. Malecki said the spores taken from Blanco, Stevens and Stevens' computer were identical, meaning one source of anthrax appeared to be responsible.

Orihuela cautioned, however, each scenario posed so far - the possibility anthrax was in a letter or package sent to one of the supermarket tabloids or that the substance was carried into the building unbeknown to Blanco or Stevens - "is just speculation. We just don't know."

She said the FBI was following leads, interviewing employees, including Blanco, who was hospitalized in Miami with a respiratory illness not believed to be related to anthrax, and talking to people who visited the building.

Frank Penela, spokesman for the Florida Health Department in Tallahassee, said: "There are multiple investigations going on simultaneously. Right now, this is a public health investigation being run by the State Department of Public Health with assistance from the CDC and local public health departments."

Penela said if criminal activity is uncovered the investigation would be turned over to law enforcement departments and added he would expect the FBI to take the lead, assisted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, as well as Palm Beach County and city police departments. "But right now we are a long way from that," he said.

Orihuela said the FBI is turning over what it uncovers to the CDC so health officials can determine if there appears to be suspicious activity.

"Right now we are considering that there could be criminal intent. That's why we are going in there and are trying to make sense of the facts," she said.

Orihuela said that among the 60 agents in the field are FBI personnel from Washington, Philadelphia, Tampa, Fla., and Norfolk, Va. They include FBI personnel who deal in hazardous materials' investigations. She said the West Palm Beach field office is coordinating the investigation in Palm Beach County.

The anthrax exposure has drawn intense interest from the FBI and the media. At least six of the suspected 19 hijackers allegedly involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks lived nearby in the Delray Beach, Fla., area, and a seventh, alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta, allegedly took flying lessons nearby.

Before coming to the United States, Atta reportedly met with Iraqi intelligence agents in the Czech Republic, and had an opportunity for meeting other Iraqi agents in Spain.

The State Department said Iraq deployed Scud missiles filled with anthrax and other toxins before the Gulf War, but did not launch them. The biological weapons were among the main targets of international weapons inspectors before they were forced to leave Iraq.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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