Anthrax?

[Annie]

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?sid=445865&nid=116

Signs of Anthrax at Two Pentagon Mailrooms
Updated: Monday, Mar. 14, 2005 - 10:22 PM

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sensors at two military mail facilities in the Washington area detected signs of anthrax on two pieces of mail Monday, but Pentagon officials said the mail had already been irradiated, rendering any anthrax inert.

Officials weren't sure if this was an attack. Additional tests and other sensors at the two facilities, one of them at the Pentagon and the other nearby, found no presence of the bacteria, which can be used as a biological weapon. There were no initial reports of illness.

The Pentagon's mail delivery site, which is separate from the main Pentagon building, was evacuated and shut down Monday after sensors triggered an alarm around 10:30 a.m. EST, spokesman Glenn Flood said. It was expected to remain closed until at least Tuesday while the investigation continued.

Hours later, sensors at the second Defense Department mailroom were triggered. Firefighters in the nearby Bailey's Crossroads section of Fairfax County, Va., reported that a military mailroom had been shut down after a hazardous-material alert. No one was allowed to leave a high-rise complex that houses the facility until mid-evening Monday.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell said mail at both facilities were irradiated before arriving at either one. The radiation treatment would kill any anthrax bacteria, but sensors would still be able to detect it.

She had no information about the origin of the two pieces of mail.

About 175 people work at the Pentagon's mail facility, and another 100 may have been in contact with deliveries for the Pentagon, officials said.

Medical personnel took cultures from anyone who may have had contact with those deliveries, and those people were also offered a three-day course of antibiotics and told to watch for the signs of anthrax exposure: fever, sweats and chills.

Follow-up tests were being conducted at the U.S. Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Dietrich, Md., officials said. They would take two to three days to complete.

General operations at the Pentagon appeared unaffected.

Anthrax can be spread through the air or by skin contact. Officials noted that sometimes anthrax sensors can give false-positive results.

Several cases involving letters laced with killer substances remain unsolved.

In October 2001, someone sent anthrax in letters through the mail to media and government offices in Washington, Florida and elsewhere, raising fears of bioterrorism. Five people were killed and 17 more sickened.

In October 2003, two letters containing the poison ricin, sent to the Transportation Department and White House, were intercepted before they reached their destinations. The letters objected to new rules for long-haul truckers.

A small amount of ricin was discovered Feb. 2, 2004, on a mail-opening machine in the office suite of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. The discovery led to a shutdown of three Senate office buildings for several days, and about two dozen staffers and Capitol police officers underwent decontamination.

and another:

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=446226

Hazmat Teams at Defense Department Mailroom
Updated: Monday, Mar. 14, 2005 - 5:42 PM

BAILEYS CROSSROADS, Va. - A tense situation Monday inside Skyline Towers near Baileys Crossroads.
Hazardous materials teams are in an office building that handles the mail for the Department of Defense inside Five Skyline Drive.

An alarm that indicates a biological or chemical agent went off inside the mailroom.

The ventilation system has been shut down, and everyone has been told to stay in the building while the Fairfax County Fire Department conducts air tests.

A Fairfax County Fire Department spokesman says no one is hurt. But as a precaution, no one is being allowed to leave the facility.

A similar alarm went off this morning inside a Pentagon mailroom, but it's unclear whether the incidents are connected.

 

[musicman]

The Islamofascists are getting desperate. I look for more to happen soon. The fact that this ain't Spain seems to be lost on them.

Let's pray hard and keep alert!

 

[Annie]

Cipro being distributed:

http://www.nbc4.com/health/4286042/detail.html

Feds Close Another Postal Facility
Health Officials Distribute Antibiotics

POSTED: 10:36 am EST March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service confirms that it has shut down the V Street postal facility in northeast Washington.

A spokesman said testing is under way to see if there is any contamination in that building.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams said in a news conference outside D.C. General Hospital that all mail headed to the Pentagon comes through the V Street facility at 3070 V St., N.E.

Williams said about 250 people are employed there.

Dr. Gregg Pane, chief medical officer for the District employees will be given the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution against possible biohazards.

Pane said the antibiotic would be distributed from D.C. General and health officials will continue giving it out until all it has been received by all employees.

But health officials said it is up to the individual employee to decide whether they would start taking it.

Three federal mailroom facilities in Fairfax County, Va., have been closed indefinitely until officials in Virginia learn what caused sensors that detect hazardous materials to sound off Monday.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue spokesman Dan Schmidt said a lab is testing the substance right now and officials hope to have results sometime on Tuesday.

Schmidt said right now authorities don't know what triggered the alarms and they won't know until final testing is complete.

Virginia Department of Health officials said there were signs of a suspicious substance at both a Pentagon mail facility and a Fairfax County military mailroom in the Bailey's Crossroads area.

 

[Annie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35943-2005Mar15.html

Pentagon Mail Facility Tests Positive for Anthrax
Officials Trying to Determine if Bacteria Were Live

By Jamie Stockwell, Allan Lengel and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 15, 2005; 11:49 AM

Samples taken at a Pentagon mail facility have tested positive for anthrax, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services reported today, but officials do not yet know if the anthrax bacteria were live and thus capable of transmitting disease.

The spokesman, Bill Hall, said that further tests are being conducted at Fort Detrick to determine if the anthrax was live or if it was just a component of anthrax. Such testing normally takes 24 to 48 hours, but initial tests may be available by this afternoon. The anthrax confirmation was done through intricate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing overnight and confirmed the alert initially reported by a defense contractor laboratory in Richmond last week.

Federal, state and local health officials are preparing to release a health bulletin to doctors, clinics and hospitals this morning to be on the alert for patients with possible anthrax exposure, Hall said.

In addition, federal health officials have recommended a course of antibiotics for about 200 workers at the facility in the District that processes Department of Defense and other government mail. They also shut down the mail center, on V St., NE, which means that little government mail will be moving for the time being, according to postal service spokesman Gerry McKiernan...

 

[Annie]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...p/20050316/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_anthrax

Tests Negative in Mailroom Anthrax Scare

22 minutes ago Top Stories - AP


By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Anthrax tests from two Pentagon (news - web sites) mailrooms came back negative Tuesday, a day after initial testing indicated the deadly spores might be present, prompting nearly 900 workers to take antibiotics as a precaution.

Responding to what now appear to have been false alarms, officials handed out antibiotics and closed three mail facilities — two that serve the Pentagon and one in Washington that handles mail on its way to the military.

"We had some preliminary results that were positive but subsequent additional tests have determined that the sample that we had was in fact negative," said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

He said tests that have been completed on samples from both facilities have all come back negative, though some additional tests are still incomplete...

 

[musicman]

Thank God. Safe beats sorry every time, though.