Trying to stir up racial strife during a time of war is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Would you PLEASE pull the plug on these idiots at TNN (Taliban News Network) until they straighten up and fly 'right'?
Posted on 10/23/2001 7:01:18 PM PDT by jerod
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- By all accounts the mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony Williams, is a rising political star. He is very popular here in the nation's capital. His credentials are truly impressive. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale, later earned a law degree from Harvard, and, for good measure, also got a master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he held a series of public policy jobs around the country before becoming chief financial officer for the District of Columbia in 1995. He became ,mayor in 1999.
He now finds himself in the middle of a huge crisis -- namely, the spread of anthrax in Washington. For the mayor, the confirmed deaths of two postal workers from inhalation anthrax and the confirmed infections of at least two others have very personal overtones. That's because both of his parents worked for the postal service. "I feel a special connection," he told me. "They raised eight children working in the Post Office. So I don't look at the Post Office as an institution. I look at thousands of workers with hopes and dreams and families -- like everybody else."
When we spoke Monday evening, Williams was clearly upset about the fact that thousands of Capitol Hill workers were tested and treated for anthrax last week immediately after an anthrax-laced letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was detected, but thousands of postal workers were not tested. Those postal employees work at the huge Brentwood processing center. All the mail that gets to Capitol Hill goes through that facility.
Williams says that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of last week, didn't think it was necessary to test those postal workers. "Based on their experience and what they had seen in Florida, what they had seen in other places, there was no indication that one should go in and do treatment and evaluation where there wasn't a confirmed finding of anthrax," Williams said. "There was no confirmed finding of anthrax -- so they were following their experience and their science at the time."
That, of course, changed once postal workers began showing up at local hospitals with symptoms. Williams noted that everyone, including the best health care experts in the country, are clearly learning about this bacteria. "I think to blame the CDC directly may be unfounded because I think the science is changing," he said. "A lot of people are learning new things here."
In hindsight, of course, those two dead postal employees might still be alive today if they had been tested and treated early last week when the Senate staffers began receiving the antibiotic drug Cipro. That's on the minds of many postal workers here in Washington and around the country. CNN medical correspondent Rea Blakey spoke to one of them, a man named Melvin Thweatt, who was very blunt: "It was very shocking. It's very shocking. They knew it [the mail] came through the building. Before they go to Capitol, it has to come to our building anyway. You know, better safe than sorry. They should have closed it down and then say all clear."
Unfortunately, there are now some racial undertones to what some see as a double standard. The Senate staffers were mostly white; the postal workers were mostly black. At the White House press briefing, spokesman Ari Fleischer tried to dispel the notion that this tragedy had any racial motivation. He pointed out that there was no difference in the way the D.C. postal workers were treated from those in Florida and New Jersey where most of the employees are white. At the time, moreover, the scientific and health experts were apparently unaware that unopened mail containing anthrax could pose such a huge danger. They also apparently didn't realize that the entire mechanical mail sorting process -- during which the letters are shaken -- could present health risks to postal workers.
In short, we are all learning a lot as we go along in this crisis.
For Mayor Williams, the headaches are enormous, but he's got a job to do. "I've got a city to run," he told me. That is an understatement. The city he's running has many high-profile targets for terrorists, including Congress, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, our country's top public officials and so many more.
Wolf Blitzer (JERK!)
The US is a nation in crisis, and Wolf is busy trying to stir up racial annomosity regarding Anthrax testing.
You can E-Mail this puke at Wolf@cnn.com - He likes to get feedback. How about giving him some.
This is divisive bravo sierra. Postal workers are very well paid for what they do. There are lots of whites who would like to be in the postal workers pre-anthrax shoes.
Why would anyone try this divisive angle at this point in time? Isn't this anti-American?
When T. Thompson got on the tube and said there was no need to stockpile Cipro, I then became somewhat concerned. He said there was plenty to go around. However, it appears that it will be cold day in hell before the "little" people will get any.
Last time I looked there were no CDC personnel regularly charged with operating postal mail processing plants, carrier delivery units and so forth.
CDC should stick to what it does best - and the USPS people should make sure they hold it to that. Top management, observing that Tom Daschle (who didn't think there was a real threat) was having all the people on the Senate side tested for anthrax, they should have made sure everybody in the DC post office system was ALSO tested!
I can't imagine anything more obvious.
Thanks, CNN.
This has more to do with people who are in power getting priority over people who arent. Race has nothing to do with it. Im more concerned about people of whatever background who have may not have any special privelages whastoever being able to get ahold of the proper medical treatment should a nightmare scenario happen.
I realize that the pundits need to stir things up but articles like this are reasons why people in America in general are frustrated with the ability of the press to accurately encapsulate issues.
Trying to stir up racial strife during a time of war is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Would you PLEASE pull the plug on these idiots at TNN (Taliban News Network) until they straighten up and fly 'right'?
WOOPIE BLITZER is a bonehead.
Good GOD! Every one of these employees - in congress or the post office - has the finest healthcare our tax dollars can buy. Any one of them could have gone to their doctors and been tested. Its not about race or priviledge - its about stupidity.
Helen Thomas got the ball rolling......
Partial text from Fleischer's press conference of today.....
With that, I'm happy to take questions. Helen.
Q In that respect, is there any plan to vaccinate all of the postal workers in the country against anthrax?
MR. FLEISCHER: No, there is no such plan.
Q Why not?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as was stressed yesterday by one of the medical professionals from here, the procedure that, in the estimation of the Centers for Disease Control, the scientists and the medical community, that works best is in cases where there is belief that anthrax may have occurred, to move in quickly and provide antibiotics.
For people who have no contact with anything involving anthrax, providing antibiotics can actually have a harmful effect. It can lead to a buildup of an immune system that can be counterproductive in case people do later contract an illness. Providing people with antibiotics for problems which have not occurred can lead to more problems than solutions. And that's why the medical community generally does not prescribe medicine for people who have not been impacted by any type of illness.
Q So there is no real preventive, per se.
MR. FLEISCHER: But that's the problem, according to the medical community. It's not simply a preventive step in that nature.
Q But, Ari, does the President now believe that given that these two Washington, D.C. postal workers have now confirmed -- that have died of anthrax, that these treatment protocols are too conservative, that not enough was done to test and treat postal workers in Washington, D.C., and that, going forward, they need to be more aggressive?
MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, the President believes that the cause of death was not the treatment made by the federal government or the local officials, or anybody else, that the cause of deaths was the attack that was made on our nation as a result of people mailing anthrax through the mail.
And that's why the President, working through the FBI, is determined to find out, as quickly as possible, who was behind these attacks. It's another reason the Postal Service, for example, has offered a $1 million reward for anybody who can provide information to the federal government who may be behind these attacks.
Q It was a terrible lesson learned, essentially, that the treatment protocols, limiting testing and treatment to those right close to the hot spot, that was too conservative, and that people died as a result.
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, in New Jersey, as you see, there's been announced earlier today, there's a confirmed case of inhalation anthrax, where somebody had previously been treated, and his prognosis is sound. So there is existing protocol, existing evidence, based on how people were treated in New Jersey and in Florida that was the best response.
Clearly in the case of Washington, the procedure that was in place was after the mail was received in Senator Daschle's office, to trace backwards all the points at which the mail was received. And they moved as quickly as they possibly could on that. And I think that hopefully there will not be any future incidents like this; but if there are, I think that from each incident, the government learns as best as it can from every previous incident, and takes every action based on what they've learned.
Q Ari, there have been criticisms of the government for a long time now that it was ill prepared to deal with a bio-terror attack. The fact that these postal workers have become infected, does that not represent a real sort of break in the chain here, that the Centers for Disease Control had not sought through -- not thought through completely the methods of transmission?
And again, to the question of the difference in response between what happened on Capitol Hill and what happened at Brentwood, a lot of postal workers are saying, you shut down the government, but you told us to keep working.
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, again, the procedures that were put in place were put in place the same way they were done in Florida, successfully, the same way they were done in New York City, where media outlets received anthrax in the mail.
As soon as the anthrax was received, they took all the same actions in Senator Daschle's office they did at NBC, for example, or that they did at AMI in Boca Raton, for example. So you can make it an analogous situation between the way government workers and Senator Daschle's office were treated and the media was treated.
Then, they walked backwards to determine where the letter could have come from. And as a result of what they learned, they started treating in Trenton, for example -- the postal workers there were given the antibiotics as they identified the hot spots in the facilities there.
Q Well, why --
Q So you're denying any implication that there might have been a discrimination in the way a certain group was treated versus the other?
MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, I don't see any evidence to support that, Helen.
Q Even as recently as Thursday, though, even as recently as Thursday, there were postal workers in Trenton who were discovered with possibly having skin anthrax, and there wasn't any action on the part of Washington, D.C., federal or state or local officials to treat postal workers here. If there are some handlers in Trenton that may have skin anthrax, there was really nothing in terms of testing antibiotics, even any advisory to the postal workers here. Why?
MR. FLEISCHER: It all depends on tracing back the source of the letters. And in the case of Trenton, of course, based on the postmarks, people knew where the letters had come from. In the case of the mail that Senator Daschle's office, it took an amount of time to trace back where the letters had come through, which post offices it came through.
They traced it back from Senator Daschle's office to the P Street postal station, to the Brentwood facility, and that took some time.
Q But they always know, all mail, they know that all mail goes from that central mail facility at Brentwood to Capitol Hill. So any mail that would end up in Senator Daschle's desk, they would know right from the outset that mail starts in Brentwood.
MR. FLEISCHER: And they traced it back as quickly as they could, and took the steps that they did, based on what took place in Florida and in New York City.
Q Even after what happened at this Brentwood facility, you're saying that the government will not change its protocols in terms of where and when the testing occurs?
MR. FLEISCHER: No, I indicated that with each case, the government takes a look at every step that was taken to try to be as helpful as possible to move as quickly as possible.
Q So the protocol will be changed?
MR. FLEISCHER: As I said, as with each case, the government analyzes what took place, and tries to learn from one incident to the next incident; hopefully, there won't be.
Q But you're not speaking definitively here. Why can't you say specifically?
MR. FLEISCHER: Because these are determinations that are going to be made on the ground depending on considered judgment from the Centers For Disease Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, the law enforcement officials on the ground, to try to determine what steps need to be done to trace it where.
For example, there can be cases where mail arrives via courier, mail arrives via sources other than the Postal Service. And so, it's always important for the people on the ground and the incident affected, to analyze what the possible links could be and to go backward and explore those links quickly.
Q Isn't it reasonable for people watching you now to say we've lost two people because of anthrax in these postal centers; why haven't these protocols been changed already? What more do they need?
MR. FLEISCHER: For just the reason I gave. And as I indicated, with each incident, the government is always going to take a careful look about what was done and try to move as rapidly as possible to move backwards in any chain, wherever the chain may be established, to get antibiotics to people who have been affected.
Q At this point, nothing is going to be done differently?
MR. FLEISCHER: No, I didn't indicate that. I said with each incident, the government is going to take a look to determine --
Q So the protocols have been changed, or they haven't, as we sit here now?
MR. FLEISCHER: The protocols are going to depend on the evaluations made on the ground by the relevant officials. And every incident will have its own set of protocols, but the guiding rule is going to be to get help to the people who need help as quickly as possible, wherever they may be.
Q Ari, you didn't answer the first part of the question that I asked you, if I could just come back to that for a second. Does this not represent, the infection at Brentwood, a lack of understanding by the Centers for Disease Control of the route of transmission of anthrax; that they missed this idea that it could have gotten puffed out of an envelope as it went through a sorting machine?
Is that really an indication that they don't fully know what they're dealing with?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think they're also reviewing exactly what the cause is at the Brentwood facility. As you know, there's speculation about whether this is the letter received by Senator Daschle, or whether there could be other mail that is received at the facility, and so all these are the matters that they are looking at.
Obviously, nobody wants to see any loss of life, whether it's a loss of life in the first case of Mr. Stevens at AMI in Boca Raton, or any of the people who have lost their life now in Washington, D.C. at the postal facility, where a letter went through on its way to Senator Daschle's office. And the fact of the matter is, with each one of these cases, the government is going to continue to review all its protocols and to make all available adjustments as necessary. And the decisions will continue to be made by all the people on the ground.
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