Friday November 16 7:12 PM ET Anthrax Letter Sent to Sen. Leahy KAREN GULLO, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators have found an anthrax-tainted letter addressed to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, the second bearing the deadly germ sent to Capitol Hill, law enforcement officials said Friday. The contaminated letter was postmarked from Trenton, N.J., as was the one sent to Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and contains similar handwriting, the sources said. Four people, including two Washington postal workers, have died from inhaled anthrax from previously discovered letters. But until Friday, only one letter carrying the germ inside the envelope had been found in Washington. Investigators have said for weeks that there may be another antrax-tainted letter. They have been hunting through unopened mail that has been under quarantine since postal workers were diagnosed with inhaled anthrax. No new cases of anthrax infection have been reported for more than two weeks, though traces of the bacteria have continued to turn up, particularly around Washington. The most recent hot spots were in mailrooms at Howard University in Washington, in several more congressional offices and at the State Department's mail facility in Sterling, Va. Three other letters with anthrax inside have been found, all of them bearing similarities. Letters to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appear to be photocopies. The third letter went to Daschle, D-S.D. All had block lettering and used the date style of 09-11-01. Investigators also believe the anthrax in those three letters is the same Ames strain that is common to the United States. However, the anthrax in the newspaper's letter was in a heavier, grainier state and the material in Daschle's letter was light and buoyant. The letter to Daschle contained about two grams of anthrax. If that were pure anthrax, one expert said that would amount to about 20 billion spores, or enough to sicken about 2 million people with the most deadly form of the disease. ``FBI and U.S. Postal Service investigators examining sequestered congressional mail have another letter which appears to contain anthrax,'' the FBI said in a statement Friday night. The letter was postmarked Oct. 9 in Trenton and ``appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters,'' the FBI said.
The letter was located in one of more than 250 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery of an antrhax letter to Daschle on Oct. 15, the FBI said. Hazardous materials experts began the process of sorting the quarantined congressional mail earlier this week at a facility in northern Virginia, the FBI said. Further testing will be conducted in an effort to confirm the presence of anthrax and examine its contents to compare it with that found in the other letters, the FBI said. A team was working Friday to decontaminate a postal distribution center in Raleigh, N.C., where a trace amount of anthrax was found on a shrink-wrapped pallet. The pallet had carried stamps from the Brentwood postal facility in Washington where two postal workers died. Postal Service spokesman Bill Brown said the pallet had been in a vault at the Raleigh facility for about a month, meaning that anyone likely to be sickened by anthrax probably would have shown symptoms by now, and no one has. In Boca Raton, Fla., where the anthrax attack first hit, testing found anthrax in more than 30 spots inside the American Media building. Health officials suggested there must have been more than one tainted letter sent to the tabloid publisher, although none has been found. Members of the House Commerce Committee were working on a bioterror plan. It was unclear whether Democrats would join Republicans in sponsoring the bill, but there was widespread agreement on the problem. Virtually every member of the panel wanted more attention and more money devoted to fighting bioterror. Many cited the crumbling facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the lack of training on the local level. Across the Capitol, Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., unveiled a $3.2 billion bioterrorism spending plan. The money would help stockpile vaccines and antibiotics, reinforce public health laboratories, increase food inspections and help state and local governments plan for bioterrorism. Kennedy, who has proposed spending as much as $10 billion to counter bioterrorism, suggested he would be looking for more in the future; he called Thursday's plan a ``down payment.'' The Bush administration had proposed $1.5 billion as part of its larger $40 billion emergency measure. Asked about the Senate bill, Thompson repeated President Bush's pledge not to exceed his total price tag. Thompson said he would ``absolutely'' support the bill, but only ``if we can work out the dollars.'' He suggested that the spending might be spread over at least two years. Thompson told the House Commerce Committee that his staff was working virtually around the clock to negotiate an agreement to buy smallpox vaccine. The Bush budget assumed it would cost about $2 per dose, but manufacturers were asking for significantly more. And Thompson's top bioterrorism adviser, Dr. D.A. Henderson, tried to calm members of the committee, and the public, who worry that the highly contagious smallpox virus could be released before the government has bought enough vaccine for every American. ``We can respond quickly enough with the vaccine we have,'' said Henderson. He said Americans should not worry that smallpox will spread like the flu or like a wildfire across the country. ``It does not do that.'' Henderson, who led the worldwide campaign that eradicated smallpox, won a standing ovation from the committee for his work, a tribute virtually never seen. Fallout from the anthrax attacks continued. Officials at the CDC issued a detailed list of who must take antibiotics for a full 60 days. That includes about 5,000 people who may have been exposed to anthrax and could still get sick if they were to stop taking the medication. The CDC also made it clear that environmental cleanups at anthrax-infected buildings may leave trace amounts of the bacteria that would pose no risk. ``We have to use a little common sense here. We don't live in sterile households. We don't work in sterile buildings,'' said the CDC's Dr. Julie Gerberding. In an interview on CNN's ``Larry King Live,'' Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said Thursday that investigators have not excluded the possibility that a ``foreign agent'' committed the attacks, but are ``more intensely looking at the possibility of a domestic individual.'' At the State Department, a spokesman, Philip Reeker, said a new mail facility was being set up near Dulles airport in Fairfax County, Va. The one in Sterling, Va., was closed after a supervisor was hospitalized with anthrax. He recovered and was released. All mail operations, including to and from U.S.diplomatic posts overseas, were suspended. But Reeker said they would resume soon. -
