Officials admit postal anthrax blooper

EWING -- New Jersey health officials yesterday retracted a statement issued earlier this week which said samples taken inside the West Trenton postal facility were negative.

The 20 samples, which officials initially thought were taken inside the West Trenton facility on Sunday Oct. 21, were actually taken from the main Trenton Post Office on Route 130 in Hamilton, officials said.

"The 20 out of 20 (West Trenton) samples, which were reported negative for anthrax, were from the Route 130 Mail Processing Facility in Hamilton Township -- not the West Trenton facility as previously reported," New Jersey Department of Health acting commissioner George DiFerdinando said in a printed statement yesterday.

DiFerdinando's statement contradicted an Oct. 21 FBI statement which said a preliminary study of West Trenton showed it to be negative for anthrax.

DiFerdinando yesterday said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took additional environmental samplings inside the West Trenton facility on Thursday Oct. 25.

Those 20 samples have been sent to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRID) in Maryland and are still being analyzed.

The results are expected in the near future and will be made public as soon as possible, DiFerdinando said.

"Like the Hamilton Township facility...the West Trenton facility remains closed and all postal employees and business visitors are receiving antibiotic treatment," saidDiFerdinando.

Meanwhile, a top federal health official yesterday said cross-contamination of anthrax letters is "highly unlikely to virtually impossible.''

Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued the assurance days after Tom Ridge, America's chief of home security, said it's possible mailmen delivered anthrax-tainted letters that haven't been discovered yet.

Ridge's comment came the day afterinvestigators admitted that West Trenton letter carrier Terri Heller apparently got skin anthrax from a secondary source and not from a letter she picked up on her route.

Officials believe Heller was exposed to anthrax while handling equipment at the main Trenton Post Office in Hamilton days after the same equipment processed an anthrax-laced letter addressed to NBC's Tom Brokaw passed through the facility on Sept. 18.

Heller was not at the Hamilton facility on Sept. 18.

Ridge, on NBC's "Today Show,'' said it's possible more tainted letters are out there. Later on the CBS "Early Show'' he wouldn't answer directly, calling it "the $64,000 question.''

Thus far, officials have discovered only three anthrax letters which passed through the Hamilton facility, all postmarked Trenton. They are searching for more since evidence of the bacteria has been confirmed in several places where letters known about never traveled, including the a remote facility that processes mail for the White House, State Department and CIA.

Whatever the prospect for more anthrax letters in the mail-- or the chance one was delivered in West Trenton three weeks ago -- Koplan said "none would be tainted enough to cause inhalation anthrax.''

Koplan said it would take about 8,000 anthrax spores, a small cloud of it, to do damage to the lungs of someone breathing it in.

I have a feeling that most of our "Public Health" leaders, after a couple of decades of increasing political correctness, are best equipped to deal with things like handing out condoms in the schools, teaching kids how to fit them over bananas, and ensuring that teenage girls can get abortions without consulting with their parents.

These public health officials and their political bosses dropped the ball big-time with the AIDS epidemic, which was permitted to spread unchecked. In fact strict confidentiality laws were passed to help it spread more easily.

The kind of health leaders who used to understand how to deal with epidemics and medical emergencies have no doubt long retired. Now our public health organizations are led by people like Surgeon General Satcher--an abortionist and a public liar.

The Great Anthrax Scare

The Great Anthrax Scare is exactly that, a scare and little more>Yes, it is terrorism of the worst kind. Yes cross-contamination is possible and yes, we must all be careful.

But a look at the facts says there is nothing to be scared about.

Since the Great Anthrax Scare began; three people have died. We have lost about 5500 Americans to traffic accidents since the first infected letter arrived. We have lost more people to lightning strikes, tornados, airplane accidents and drownings in bathtubs every week since this began than we have lost to anthrax in the entire two months.

Part of this is the media's fault. They love to hype any "Chicken Little - The Sky Is Falling Story." Such sorties build TV ratings and newspaper readership. Increased ratings and readership build media revenues. The reporter with the "hot story" gets the raises.

This anthrax scare reminds me of TV coverage of approaching hurricanes. The first station says "Danger - 2 foot flood tide!" Then the second station needs to attract viewers, so they broadcast "Warning - 4 foot flood tide." Then the third station reports, "Alarm - 6 foot flood tide!" By the time you go back to the first station, in order to recapture their viewers, they are reporting "10 Foot Flood Tide - Run For Your Lives!"

When the storm finally hits, it's a tide two feet higher than normal, just as the first station reported.

I'm not speaking about the relative danger of hurricanes, only the fictional theatrics the media is now willing to use to attract viewers. So it is with this current scare.

Take for example the dangers facing a 75-year-old woman in West Wapakoneta. Let's call her Zelda. Zelda's a bit frail and hasn't been eating well. She's too scared about anthrax to eat.

Say for a moment that Zelda could be exposed to one of two germs. Give Zelda the choice of being exposed to the flu or anthrax, Zelda and most Americans would take flu every time. But look at the reality. Anthrax is much harder to get. Of the thousands who have tested positive for anthrax, less than two dozen contracted the disease. The flu on the other hand has a 40% exposure to infection rate.

But even is she got full blown anthrax, Zelda is in better shape than she would be with the common flu. Doctors can only treat symptoms of the flu and thousands of elderly people in the US die from it every year. Anthrax, caught early, is very treatable with a wide range of antibiotics. Not only will an anthrax-infected Zelda get well, but also she will have something to gossip about at the Bridge Club. Strangers will offer to buy her free lemonade for years! The local TV station will stage a telethon and raise more than $100,000 for this little old lady. She won’t spend a dime of it and when she finally dies 17 years from now at 92, the money will go to the local Save The Cats Society!

Is anthrax dangerous? Yes. Do we need to stop the national panic and get on with our lives, an even more emphatic yes. As far as purposeful infection, I doubt whatever terrorist is doing this has actually targeted the Zeldas of the world, or you.

It’s time to zip 'em up, lock and load, and wipe out the countries that support this type of warfare on us, rather than continue the ratings-inflating panic.

Cross contamination of letters is not the issue. Once a quantity of anthrax powder is released in a flat or letter tray, and maybe gets sucked into the plastic corrugated material, the tray becomes a delivery vehicle itself - letters or not - and that's how anthrax contamination shows up in places so far from the handling of the letters.

Again, I have warned everyone in FR repeatedly about listening to CDC and FBI people concerning how the mail is handled. If it's not a postal operations manager, a long time postal analyst, or a postal inspector with a bit of gray in his or her temples, don't listen to them about what does or does not happen with mail.

I repeat, CDC and FBI people do not understand how the USPS works. Whatever they say, cross reference it with something by a postal person.

I have a horrible feeling that the truth is not being disclosed. I have bad feeling about all this and don't trust some "manager" whom was promoted for all the qualities of an "insurance actuary."

There is a HORRIBLE lack of leadership, which is NOT managerial, political, or media experience.

The stories if followed don't add up.

It is military grade, it is not... It is... it is the same as the other letters... blah blah blah.

The damn sad fact is that the cumulative wealth of knowledge here surpasses what is being offered by the "managers" whom act as "leaders" when interviewed by the "media."

I wonder... if it had not been sent to newsrooms and the capital if national security would have have put a lid on it and these deaths would have been natural causes.

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