By JESSE HOLLAND and EILEEN PUTMAN, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday that a white powder found in his office tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, forcing closure of Senate office buildings and close scrutiny of congressional mail. It was the second such scare from a lethal toxin to hit the nation's capital.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, said officials were somewhat reassured because none of the 16 people who went through a decontamination process had turned up sick from exposure to ricin.
"As each minute ticks by, we are less and less concerned about the health effects," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC director. If the ricin were pure, she said, "We would expect very early onset. The fact that we haven't seen that is reassuring."
President Bush was briefed on the situation, and the administration established an interagency team to investigate what Frist told colleagues was a chilling crime.
On Capitol Hill, buildings were eerily quiet, underscoring the sense that the area has essentially been under a terrorism threat since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Police told lawmakers not to open any mail. Mail to congressional offices has been irradiated since the 2001 anthrax attack, but radiation would not have an effect on ricin, Frist said.
Building entrances were locked. A simple "Closed" sign was tacked onto one of the main, ornate doors of the Dirksen office building. Through a window of the Dirksen building a pile of red, plastic bags could be seen in the hallway. Yellow sheets were erected to cordon off areas off the hall. Elsewhere, a Senate staffer carried plastic bags from the building.
Some senators opened temporary work areas in the Capitol. Staffers for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., retreated to a room in the Capitol basement known as the "hideaway." They had used it during the anthrax scare in 2001.
"There's sort of an odd sense of deja vu with the anthrax and that this is happening again," said Tessa Hafen, a spokeswoman for Sen. .Harry Reid of Nevada, the senate's No. 2 Democrat. "But people here are working."
A senior government investigator, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the powdery substance was found in an area where mail is opened in Frist's office but has not yet been traced to any specific piece of mail.
"The assumption is it must have come from mail but we can't say for sure it is from mail," the investigator told AP.
The investigator said both field tests and some lab tests had confirmed the substance was ricin but more sophisticated tests are being done to determine how potent the particular substance is.
Another U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that although ricin is a harmful toxin, the situation in the Frist's office does not bear the marks of international terrorism. Law enforcement is leading the investigation to determine the substance's origin.
Gerberding said that although several tests have indicated the substance is ricin, laboratories at the CDC in Atlanta and in Washington are conducting "gold standard" tests that involve inoculating lab animals to confirm initial results.
The jarring discovery of the suspicious powder came Monday, in the mail room of Frist's office in the Dirksen office building. None of those who underwent decontaminated became sick, according to Senate sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials shut down tours of the Capitol, close Senate restaurants and gave Senate pages the day off. But the Senate mounted a show of business as usual, turning to a highway spending bill. But its hearings were canceled and all three Senate office buildings were closed.
As the Senate convened Tuesday for regular business, Frist told his colleagues that tests confirmed "that this was ricin."
"Somebody in all likelihood manufactured this with intent to harm," Frist said. He said that "all air sampling and all environmental studies today are negative with the exception of what was found in that single office at that site," which he said "was ultimately determined to be ricin."
Across from the Capitol, officials at the Supreme Court ordered an "additional level of review" of mail, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.
In 2001, an anthrax-laced letter shut down Congress briefly and closed the Hart Senate Office Building for months of expensive cleaning. Five people were killed and 17 sickened nationwide after coming into contact with letters containing anthrax. The FBI labeled a bioweapons expert, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a "person of interest" in that case, and searched his home and circulated his photo. No charges have been filed.
Though Frist and other lawmakers vowed to keep the Capitol open, meetings across the complex were canceled and work on legislation was postponed.
"Folks are scrambling," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. "Unfortunately, we've been though this before."
In Connecticut, meanwhile, a postal worker found an unidentified powder leaking out of an envelope addressed to the Republican National Committee, and inspectors were trying to identify it.
A clue to ricin poisoning is a suddenly developed fever, cough and excess fluid in the lungs, a fact sheet from CDC says. These symptoms could be followed by severe breathing problems and possibly death, it said. There is no known antidote.
Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota was majority leader in 2001 when deadly anthrax was found in letters sent to his office and the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in the Hart Senate Office Building. No one was ever arrested in those incidents.
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