Anthrax Found at Agriculture Dept. Facility

Reuters | 10/29/01

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anthrax spores have been discovered in the mailroom of an off-site U.S. Department of Agriculture office in Washington, the department said in a statement late Monday.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed that trace amounts of anthrax have been identified in the mailroom of USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) offices," the statement said. The mailroom has been closed for further testing.

The USDA said it had already advised people who work in and around its mailrooms to get antibiotics while the facilities were being tested.

Initial testing of U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities in Washington, Maryland and Virginia found no traces of anthrax, the department had said earlier Monday.

A large amount of USDA mail goes through Washington's Brentwood postal processing facility, where two employees died last week after inhaling anthrax. Anthrax also killed a Florida photo editor earlier this month.

Tens of thousands of people are taking preventive antibiotics in case they were exposed to anthrax-tainted mail.

The Agriculture Department said it began checking all of its Washington-area mailrooms last Thursday, amid signs that anthrax, apparently spread through the mail, was contaminating government buildings.

Traces of anthrax have been discovered in mailrooms in a number of federal buildings in Washington, including the White House, U.S. Supreme Court, the State Department, Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Federal investigators have not been able to link the discovery of the potentially deadly bacteria in the mail system with the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited.

 

[formernyer]

When will this stop being a "scare" and just be an out-and-out attack by a WMD?!@#%$? Obviously this is completely out of control. We should nuke the ME into oblivion... not to mention kick all MEers out of the country. I can only think that the reason why nukes not currently an option is cuz OBL actually has those suitcase things!

[First_Salute]

Disgruntled Clintonistas, up to and including Hillary, using the "Los Alamos Security Rules" for over eight years worth of pining away what should otherwise be secure material.

[snopercod]

While Los Alamos was posting our nuclear secrets on the internet, Sandia was developing a decontaminant for Anthrax. The stuff is now commercially available.

NEW PRODUCT KILLS ANTHRAX

[LostPassword]

What does "traces of anthrax" mean? If they tried to find traces all over DC a year ago, would they have found any? I'm not trying to minimize what's going on. But I'd really like more details about what's really being found in all the gov't buildings ("trace" is a meaningless word). If this "trace" (and others) are worth shutting down a building and dishing out pills, then every home/buisness that got mail from the same USPS machines should get the same attention assumming this trace came that way rather than a direct letter.