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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.

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.