Authorities Admit Little is Known About Anthrax
WASHINGTON, D.C.–After hours of questioning by House members, public officials admitted yesterday that little is still known about the outbreak of new anthrax cases and that they have little new information with which to try to ease an anxious country.
“The Postal Service should have done emergency planning before the recent attacks that would provide a blueprint for how to respond,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform. “As a result, the Postal Service is now trying to do emergency planning at the worst possible time–in the midst of an emergency.”
More than a dozen people have been diagnosed with anthrax around the country. On Monday, a non-postal employee, a female stockroom employee at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax.
Dr. Mitchell L. Cohen, director of the division of bacterial and mycotic diseases for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified that little is known about anthrax because the country has had little experience with the disease. He said that a person would have to inhale 8,000 to 50,000 anthrax spores to contract inhalation anthrax. He said he did not know the number of spores that had to come in contact with the skin for someone to contract cutaneous anthrax.
“We are in the midst of an unprecedented attack on our nation’s mail system,” chief Postal inspector Kenneth C. Weaver said. “Never in our history has the mail been used to deliver biological terror as we have experienced this month. Postal employees have been placed directly in harm’s way.”
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., asked what the standard is to determine whether to close a post office when anthrax spores are detected. She pointed out that the Brentwood Post Office in the capital was closed after anthrax spores were found, but that other post offices were not closed after anthrax spores were discovered.
“A lot of it depends on the facility, square footage and the size of the facility we find anthrax in,” Weaver responded. If the spores are confined and there is a chance that it could spread in a small location, then the building would be more likely to be closed, he said. Cohen said that each location should be looked at on a “case by case basis.”
Committee chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., asked Cohen why the CDC did not anticipate an anthrax attack on the public even though the military long ago took precautions against an attack on troops. Cohen said there had been “interdepartmental activities” at which people from the CDC have tried to discuss the possibility of an attack like this one.
“From the CDC’s perspective, one of the critical elements was trying to build and rebuild the public health infrastructure so we could better detect these kind of phenomenons,” he said, including building a network of laboratories that could produce quick test results and stockpiling medicines to combat anthrax.
Cohen said the CDC, under congressional mandate, is doing research on an anthrax vaccine, including possible side effects, and is studying “new regimens” for distributing the vaccines. Other institutions are trying to develop new anthrax vaccines.
“I think the advice we give out is often very generic,” Weaver said of the current recommendations to the public about characteristics of suspicious mail. The problem, he said, is that all suspicious mail shares similar characteristics, and that every time the country runs into a situation such as this, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service needs time to adjust.
“We have a message for those who use this time to contribute to the unrest and terror,” Weaver said. “If we find you, we are going to prosecute you and send you to jail.”
Cohen said the Inspection Service is screening mail at various locations, not just on Capitol Hill, and it is nearly impossible for the average person to look at powder in a package and know whether it’s anthrax without a test being done.
“I’m not certain you could feel with a high degree of comfort that a particular material did not represent anthrax unless it was appropriately examined by the laboratory,” he said. He added that people should be “alert and cautious,” heed the enumerated suspicious characteristics and call the police if they receive a mysterious package.
Massachusetts 6th District Congressman John F. Tierney, D- , when it was his turn to ask a question at the hearing, said, “I am satisfied with these witnesses” and he did not have any questions for them.
