Posted on 11/16/2001 1:10:45 PM PST by classygreeneyedblonde
NEW EVIDENCE FOUND AT VIRGINIA FACILITY
WASHINGTON -- Additional evidence emerged Tuesday that there is an additional letter tainted with anthrax bacteria in the U.S. postal system, as the dangerous spores were found at eight of 55 locations tested at the State Department's mail-sorting facility in Sterling, Va.
Since other contaminated letters did not pass through the facility, the contamination is unlikely to be the result of cross-contamination
The newly discovered anthrax bacteria, plus the fact that no State Department personnel have contracted anthrax since a worker at the Sterling facility was hospitalized with the disease Oct. 25, convinced authorities that there may be anthrax bacteria in the huge cache of mail the department has impounded since Oct. 24.
If a letter containing bacteria is found at the State Department, or in impounded mail at an embassy overseas, it would be the fourth in six weeks, and could offer clues to the sender's identity. Investigators are stymied now.
The State Department's positive results for anthrax bacteria, from samples collected Nov. 6, were found on three mail-sorting machines, with six samples on one sorter, State Department press officer Richard Boucher said Tuesday. The results ``support the theory that there is a letter like the one sent to Senator Daschle that has moved through our mail system,'' Boucher said.
The ailing State Department employee, who was released from the hospital Friday, contracted inhalation anthrax, the most severe form of the disease. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention think inhalation anthrax results from exposure to a large number of spores
We have said for quite a while that one of the potential explanations for the inhalation-anthrax case in that employee was that there was an unrecognized additional letter that went through that system,'' said Dr. Steven Ostroff, a CDC anthrax expert.
The State Department shut down its mail system Oct. 24 and notified all its posts to seal all their pouch mail
If there had been a letter that had gone beyond that into our system or delivered to a desk, we assume that by now we would have seen it,'' Boucher said. The evidence would have been either a suspicious powder-containing letter or an infected worker.
There are three known letters: two mailed on Sept. 18 (one to Tom Brokaw and one to the N.Y. Post) and one mailed on Oct. 9 (to Sen. Daschle). It is thought that there was a letter in Florida, mailed to American Media, but this letter hasn't been discovered. Here's a link to a web page at the FBI with information on the anthrax case, including the three known letters.
Counting the possible Florida letter, the new letter hypothesized in this article would be the fifth letter.
I'm also putting this on the anthrax bump list.
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