Anthrax at AMI traveled via copiers

palm beach post ^ | 9/15/02

[knak]

BOCA RATON -- FBI investigators believe photocopy machines helped spread anthrax throughout the American Media Inc. headquarters last year before the building was quarantined.

While testing the three-story building for anthrax spores, investigators found that every copy machine in the building -- more than two dozen in all -- tested positive for anthrax, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

The anthrax is believed to have gotten into the copiers from reams of copy paper that had trapped airborne spores in the company's mail room, where the paper was stored.

The FBI's theory helps explain for the first time the presence of anthrax throughout the 68,000-square-foot building.

Since AMI photo editor Bob Stevens died last October and AMI mail room employee Ernesto Blanco was hospitalized, officials surmised the anthrax might have been spread by a rolling mail cart used to deliver the letters to AMI departments.

More important, the FBI's discoveries will lay the foundation for an emerging branch of science that studies anthrax dispersal in public buildings.

Anthrax previously had been studied as a livestock disease or in the context of biochemical warfare on the battlefield.

"No doubt, whatever they discover will be significant, because it will be a onetime opportunity to see what happened," said Dr. Keith Ward, program manager in the Biomolecular and Biosystems Group at the federal Office of Naval Research in Virginia. "The problem is we don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing."

The FBI search operation, which began Aug. 27 and ended last Sunday, was the first comprehensive search of the supermarket tabloid's publishing office, the FBI said.

The Environmental Protection Agency last year had detected trace residues of anthrax in 84 spots in the building in a partial search.

One of the FBI's objectives this time was to map the entire AMI building for anthrax distribution.

The agency said it would use newly developed forensic techniques to determine how the anthrax spread through the building once it was brought in.

Officials surmised last year that anthrax entered the building in at least two letters, because of anthrax contamination at two different post offices that served the building.

Once investigators realized the copy machines were contaminated, they traced the anthrax back to its point of origin: an open storage area in AMI's first-floor mail room.

Apparently, someone in the mail room opened a letter containing anthrax, which dispersed the microscopic particles. The spores settled on the company's supply of copy paper.

Anthrax spores tend to stick to surfaces upon settling, said Palm Beach County Health Department spokesman Tim O'Connor. The spores can detach from surfaces, but loosening the particles requires sufficient force.

This adhesive quality was described to local health officials by anthrax experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during last year's anthrax crisis in Palm Beach County.

"Once it falls, it stays," O'Connor said. "It was stuck to the keyboard in Stevens' office. It stuck in the machinery that sorts the mail in post offices."

According to the FBI's reconstruction of events, AMI employees unwittingly distributed the clinging spores throughout the building when taking reams of copy paper to every department in the building, including AMI's library, executive offices and such publications as The National Enquirer, Weekly World News and National Examiner, which were published in the building.

When the copy paper was inserted into the machines and used to make copies, investigators believe, the spores dislodged and were "aerosolized" into the atmosphere by the whirring fans and other moving parts of the high-speed copiers.

FBI investigators, working with scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, removed nearly 5,000 pieces of evidence during their search of the building.

The property seizures included more than 800 letters tainted with anthrax as well as shelves and folders from AMI's mail room.

However, no copy machines were removed from the building, according to a 34-page inventory the FBI filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington.

It's not clear whether the FBI took any items from the photocopying areas. The FBI's court filing lists two vacuum samples and six carpet samples, but it doesn't disclose where they came from. The court papers also list several broom heads and mop heads.

[The Great Satan]

So, it would be interesting to know the date on the earliest photocopied documents which show anthrax conamination.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the most likely source of Stevens' exposure was the so-called "J-Lo" letter. Published reports are sketchy and somewhat contradictory, but suggest this package was received about a week before 9/11, set aside as "kook mail" until later, and Stevens was exposed to the contents on 9/19. Even if the reports of a delay between the package's arrival and Steven's exposure to the contents are accurate, it is still not clear whether the package was opened on arrival, or whether it was simply set aside in the mail room unopened, until it piqued somebody's interest.

[El Gato]

When the copy paper was inserted into the machines and used to make copies, investigators believe, the spores dislodged and were "aerosolized" into the atmosphere by the whirring fans and other moving parts of the high-speed copiers.

Seems kind of iffy to me. The reams of paper are sealed, by more paper and some glue. I could see the spores settling onto the outside of the reams, but not much getting onto the sheets on the inside, there to be "aerolized" by the fans and other moving parts. The wrappers end up in the trash or recycle bin, not in the copier.

[M. Thatcher]

Alternative theory: Florida anthrax terrorist got in to the building thru real-estate wife of editor and used those very copy machines.

[Miss Marple]

Good thinking! Were the "We have this anthrax " letters photocopies or originals?

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I'm afraid to touch my FAX machine now- what if someone has FAXed anthrax to me?????

[The Great Satan]

That wouldn't explain contamination of two dozen machines.

While I would take anything the FBI says with a grain of salt, bear in mind that this copier contamination may have been very, very light. It's seems almost certain that the anthrax letter was opened, based on the pattern of exposure, which would make it odd if the real letter was completely unremembered. The more important question is how Bob Stevens received a lethal bolus, and how his keyboard came to be contaminated. That strongly suggests -- but does not prove -- that he was directly exposed to the opened letter. All of which is, again, consistent with the J-Lo letter being the likely source of the exposure, just as the New England Journal of Medicine reported last November.

[The Great Satan]

Copies. But, as I mention above, that wouldn't explain the contamination of 24 copiers.

[ClancyJ]

The more important question is how Bob Stevens received a lethal bolus, and how his keyboard came to be contaminated

What if a person picked up the top open ream of contaminated paper and loaded the copy machine? Many people fan the sheets they load into the machine to prevent them sticking. He then goes to his keyboard and does his normal work and contaminates the keyboard from his hands.

[motexva]

I thought that now they did not think the J-Lo letter was the carrier of anthrax. The last time I heard anyone from the Feds discussing the letter (and it seems like this was back in Dec. 2001 or so) the investigators said they no longer felt this was the letter containing anthrax.

I'm wondering if the AMI offices were the primary anthrax target all along, and the other letters to senate, etc. were decoys.

I'm also wondering how hard it would be to contaminate reams of copier paper. Think about it - you place spores in the copier paper at the factory, seal it in, then the ream is opened, dislodging spores, flipped through before being placed in the copier (dislodging even more spores), then used by everyone in the office as memos are copied, distributed, etc. My only question is if the heat of the copying process would kill the spores.

[Ranger]

Copiers tend to develop a lot of static. I wonder if they then concentrate the spores that might be in paper or ambient atmosphere?

Wasn't there a mail-room clerk/intern of middle eastern descent that was initially under suspicion?

[Miss Marple]

Good memory! You are correct! It was an intern, if I remember correctly.

[cookcounty]

Didn't the press report last fall that the Florida anthrax was not highly refined, unlike the DC and NY variety? Yet according to this it seems that the Fla sample was, in fact, very capable of being suspended in air..

[The Great Satan]

My guess is they've known all along that the J-Lo letter was the source of Stevens' exposure, just as the New England Journal of Medicine reported, but they know that the 9/4 arrival date irrefutably connects the anthrax letters to the 9/11 hijackers, and that is a "bad truth" -- for now, anyway. Even though the feds have derogated the possible connection to the J-Lo letter (without providing any reason), they also reportedly told AMI employees not to talk about it to the press. If it was merely crank mail about a movie star, why the secrecy?

Aside from the fact that the J-Lo letter was inferred to be the source of Stevens' exposure by his co-workers and treating physicians, there are other interesting factors pointing to it as the source. One of the Delray Beach hijackers, Ahmed Alghamdi, reportedly subscribed to an AMI publication called Mira! devoted to Latin celebrities:

The Sun is a rather obscure target for an anthrax attack, whatever the source, but it is notable that the main hijacker nest in Delray Beach was rented to the hijackers by Gloria Irish, the wife of The Sun's editor, Michael Irish. Gloria Irish had multiple contacts with the hijackers over the months preceding 9/11. Michael Irish is a private pilot who flies out of the small Lantana airfield where Mohammed Atta brushed up his skills for knocking down the WTC.

The J-Lo letter was reportedly received on 9/4, seven days before 9/11. On that basis, if it had been opened immediately, people would have been coming down with anthrax at AMI just about the time of the attack.

Mohammed Atta had a sick sense of humor and apperantly enjoyed giving Americans a veiled heads up on what was coming -- see reports of his interview with the USDA loan manager. He also had a penchant for visual metaphors and riddles, viz:

"It was August 29 and my phone rang. It was Mohammed Atta. He said "I need your help with a puzzle". A puzzle? I said. Is this the right time to be talking about a puzzle? He replied "But only you can help me with this puzzle. What dooes 2 sticks, a dash and a cake and a stick mean? And he was talking about September 11."

In addition to the lewd letter addressed to Jennifer Lopez, the "J-Lo" letter also apperantly contained a tobacco tin holding a Star of David buried in powder, a cheap cigar in its cylinder, and a laundry detergent package (presumably of the small, coin-op dispenser type). The brand of the latter is unknown, but if it looked like this, it would make a certain amount of sense:

All in all (no pun intended) I don't think the publicly-available evidence is definitive. But for myself, I regard the J-Lo letter as guilty until proven innocent.

[The Great Satan]

What if a person picked up the top open ream of contaminated paper and loaded the copy machine? Many people fan the sheets they load into the machine to prevent them sticking. He then goes to his keyboard and does his normal work and contaminates the keyboard from his hands.

It's possible, but I think the levels of contamination we are talking about on the copier sheets must have been miniscule. You can grow a culture from a single bacterium, but you have to breath in about 10,000 spores, typically, to contract an infection. If we didn't already have a good candidate for the means by which Stevens was exposed, I might go for it as an explanation, but we do: it's called the J-Lo letter. That seems like a much better candidate.

[okie01]

"Copiers tend to develop a lot of static. I wonder if they then concentrate the spores that might be in paper or ambient atmosphere?"

That the static charge on the copiers would attract anthrax spores sounds like a more reasonable proposition to me than spores being spread by the copy paper. As pointed, the reams of copy paper are wrapped and sealed -- and the wrapping isn't placed in the copier. Moreover, wouldn't only the top packages on the storage racks be exposed to the spores?

In any event, what we're really looking for is probably referenced in these sentences:

"FBI investigators, working with scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, removed nearly 5,000 pieces of evidence during their search of the building.

"The property seizures included more than 800 letters tainted with anthrax as well as shelves and folders from AMI's mail room.

5,000 pieces of evidence...including 800 letters. How the anthrax was spread is an incidental issue, compared to how it came to arrive...

[okie01]

Ping for an update.

[The Great Satan]

Didn't the press report last fall that the Florida anthrax was not highly refined, unlike the DC and NY variety?

There have been contradictory reports on that. The fact that Stevens got inhalation anthrax and that the anthrax was widely distributed (even if it hopped a ride on a mail cart or copy paper ream) tell you it was weaponized, unlike the brown, granular anthrax sent to the NYC media outlets, which caused only non-life-threatening cutaneous anthrax. That is, in itself, rather remarkable, because it makes AMI even more of an odd-man out in the media-directed letter campaign. Why send lethal anthrax to a Boca Raton tabloid, but innocuous granular anthrax to the New York media? I believe the resolution to that question is provided by the fact that the AMI hit was a completely separate leg of the anthrax campaign -- it came from the 9-11 hijackers themselves, and was mailed before 9-11 as a kind of sick joke calling card from Mr. Atta. The two New Jersey waves were to remind us that the sleepers are still here, and they still have "THIS ANTHRAX."

[cinFLA]

Seems kind of iffy to me. The reams of paper are sealed, by more paper and some glue. I could see the spores settling onto the outside of the reams, but not much getting onto the sheets on the inside, there to be "aerolized" by the fans and other moving parts. The wrappers end up in the trash or recycle bin, not in the copier.

Once a single spore got onto the copier glass, it was replicated onto each copy thus distributing it around. Of course, as each copy was recopied.. and so on. :)

[The Great Satan]

5,000 pieces of evidence...including 800 letters.

Note that, having taken almost a year to get around to searching the building, they can now plausibly spin the investigation out for many more months without providing us an answer, and still pull a rabbit out of a hat should it be deemed necessary to do so down the road. This is a play in three acts, remember...