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Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004

Between 40 and 50 Capitol employees were quarantined briefly and decontaminated, said Senate aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. Federal health officials said they were reassured that none of them had turned up sick, since ricin is likely to affect victims soon after exposure.

Frist said he was positive the substance was ricin, and officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said several tests identified it as the poison. They were awaiting the results of additional confirmatory testing.

The discovery forced the Senate to cancel much of its business Tuesday, although the chamber's leaders initially made a show of going forward. Senate office buildings where 6,200 people work were closed and the much of the Capitol Hillarea was eerily quiet. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said it would be four or five days before the buildings would be reopened.

Police told lawmakers not to open mail. As a precaution, the Postal Service closed its facility that handles government mail.

One Senate aide said that up to 50 people, including 10 police officers, were quarantined _ and then decontaminated _ Monday night in a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Other aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that dozens of employees went through the process.

Frist told senators at their weekly luncheon Tuesday that the powder apparently came from a stack of 40 letters being opened by a machine, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters.

All three Senate office buildings were closed to permit inspection even though the powder found Monday was only in the Dirksen building.

Some Senate employees had been cleared to go home Monday after the powder was discovered, only to be telephoned later by their colleagues and advised to put their clothes in a plastic bag and rinse themselves off as a precaution, Senate aides said.

But federal health officials said it was good news that none of them had become ill.

"As each minute ticks by, we are less and less concerned about the health effects," said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. If the ricin were pure, she said, "We would expect very early onset. The fact that we haven't seen that is reassuring."

President Bush was briefed on the situation, and the administration established an interagency team to investigate what Frist told colleagues was a chilling crime.

Buildings were eerily quiet, underscoring the sense that the area has essentially been under a terrorism threat since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Police told lawmakers not to open any mail. Mail to congressional offices has been irradiated since the 2001 anthrax attack, but radiation would not have an effect on ricin, Frist said.

A simple "Closed" sign was tacked onto one of the main, ornate doors of the Dirksen office building that housed Frist's office. Through a window of the Dirksen building a pile of red, plastic bags could be seen in the hallway. Yellow sheets were erected to cordon off areas off the hall.

Adding to the tension was the discovery later Tuesday of a white powdery substance on the first floor of the Capitol building itself, prompting a partial shutdown and evacuation. A corridor was reopened after preliminary tests were negative, said Capitol Hill police spokeswoman Contricia Ford.

Frist said he had been told "the definitive test" on the powder "said it was ricin for sure." Frist said he was referring to a type of testing known as PCR or polymerase chain reaction, that detects a gene from the castor plant from which ricin is made.

The CDC planned additional PCR tests to confirm if the powder contained ricin. Also, Army scientists were to inject samples of the powder found in Frist's office into laboratory animals to see if they become ill, said a federal health official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no threatening letter or note linked to the powder has been found.

Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota, majority leader in 2001 when deadly anthrax was found in letters sent to his office and the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the ricin discovery "obviously a criminal act."

"I believe that it is an act of terrorism," Daschle said. "It certainly is criminal. I don't draw a distinction between the two, frankly."

Frist told colleagues at the opening of the Senate session, "Somebody in all likelihood manufactured this with intent to harm." Frist told his colleagues at the opening of the Senate session.

Some senators opened temporary work areas in the Capitol on Tuesday.

"There's sort of an odd sense of deja vu with the anthrax and that this is happening again," said Tessa Hafen, a spokeswoman for Sen. .Harry Reid of Nevada, the senate's No. 2 Democrat.

In 2001, an anthrax-laced letter shut down Congress briefly and closed the Hart Senate Office Building for months of expensive cleaning. Five people were killed and 17 sickened nationwide after coming into contact with letters containing anthrax. An investigation continues.

A clue to ricin poisoning is a suddenly developed fever, cough and excess fluid in the lungs, a fact sheet from CDC says. These symptoms could be followed by severe breathing problems and possibly death, it said. There is no known antidote.

© 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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