Probe Centers on Fla. Tabloid Offices Where 3 Worked
By Peter Slevin and Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 11, 2001; Page A01
BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 10 -- Anthrax has been discovered in a third person
who worked at the headquarters of a tabloid newspaper company here, federal
authorities reported tonight. Prosecutors formally opened a criminal
investigation into a case that has left a photo editor dead, but they have no
evidence linking the anthrax outbreak to the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings. The third person to test positive is a 35-year-old woman who worked in the
building housing the National Enquirer and five other tabloids. A swab test
turned up the bacteria in her nasal passages, but she has not developed symptoms
of the disease. As in the case of another infected worker, doctors expect
antibiotics to eliminate the infection. More than 1,000 newspaper employees, contract workers and their relatives
have been tested for exposure to the disease. Health officials announced tonight
that roughly 700 nasal swab tests have come back negative. All people given the
test were offered antibiotics. Photo editor Robert Stevens, 63, whose symptoms
signaled the first case, died on Friday. Friends and co-workers remembered him
warmly at a memorial service today, speaking of his laughter and his generous
heart. At a late evening news conference, FBI special agent Hector M. Pesquera said
investigators in protective suits will be sweeping the three-story American
Media Inc. building again in an attempt to trace the movements of the third
person infected, a woman who asked to remain unidentified. He said agents have
found nothing connecting the anthrax contamination to any terrorist
organization, but are ruling nothing out as they continue to investigate.
Several of the Sept. 11 hijackers had lived in recent months in nearby
communities. U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis told reporters that investigators do not know how the
AMI offices became contaminated. Promising to "bring every resource we have to
bear," he said authorities have not developed "what I'd characterize as
conceivable theories about how the bacteria got into the building." Authorities said anthrax, which is not contagious, has not been found outside
the AMI building, now evacuated and sealed. Lewis said the criminal inquiry aims
to learn how and where the bacteria was introduced, and by whom. Investigators working to track the particular variety of anthrax found in the
three employees and on Stevens's keyboard are testing a theory that it
originated in the United States, perhaps in an Iowa laboratory in the 1950s.
Because the strain found in Florida has so far responded to antibiotics, U.S.
authorities suspect it was not engineered as a biological weapon, but emerged
from a medical research lab. The Iowa variety, dubbed the "Ames strain," was shipped by scientists to
countless laboratories across the country in past decades as a benchmark for
identifying anthrax. The strain was passed around freely because it grows well
in culture dishes, said Norman Cheville, dean of Iowa State's college of
veterinary medicine. Researchers at the Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland have studied it for years and
have distributed it periodically to university researchers. Indeed, the strain is so widespread in laboratories around the world that
confirming it was the variety that killed Stevens would tell little about where
the Boca Raton spores came from, says Ronald Atlas, dean of the University of
Louisville graduate school and president-elect of the American Society for
Microbiology. As the investigation of the Florida outbreak continued today, fears about an
anthrax threat reverberated around of the country. Pharmacies reported an
increase in requests for ciprofloxacin (brand name Cipro), an antibiotic usually
effective against the disease, and the State Department ordered all U.S.
embassies around the world to store precautionary supplies of the drug for their
employees. Hospitals and emergency rescue switchboards across the nation have received
telephone calls from worried people complaining of the flu-like symptoms that
often accompany anthrax in its early stages. Fire-rescue teams have rushed to
examine powder and packages that callers found suspicious, but have discovered
no anthrax. Part of the State Department was evacuated this afternoon after a woman in
the mailroom opened an envelope that contained an unknown powder. She sounded an
alarm when some of the powder fell on her shoes, said Washington fire department
spokesman Alan Etter. A city hazardous materials team and members of the FBI
terrorism task force determined that the substance was not hazardous. "We're walking a fine line between prudence and panic here," Etter said. Working to calm jangled nerves, federal and state health authorities in
Florida have expressed confidence that the bacteria responsible for the
infection of Stevens, mailroom worker Ernesto Blanco and the 35-year-old woman,
who has not been named, were confined to the three-story building where they
worked. Tests of Stevens's home and garden, as well as of his favorite bicycle
routes and fishing spots, revealed no anthrax spores. Similarly, no anthrax cases, or suspected anthrax cases, have been identified
elsewhere in the country. As the AMI employees wait for results, some have warned that conventional
tests for anthrax can easily give a false positive signal in the presence of
closely related bacteria belonging to the same family as the anthrax germ. It
was not clear as of last night whether the gold-standard test, a genetic
analysis known as PCR (polymerase chain reaction), had been applied in the
Florida cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising people not to
hoard antibiotics or take them without cause, and not to lay in supplies of gas
masks. The government agency, which shipped antibiotics to nearby Delray Beach
for the people connected to American Media Inc., controls a supply large enough
to treat 2 million individuals. Drugs from the federal stockpile can be shipped
quickly in case of an outbreak. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson urged the health care
community to resist pressure to prescribe antibiotics such as Cipro. HHS
spokesman Kevin Keane said, "People should not be hoarding medicine. If it is
needed, there will be plenty." Public health officials have notified doctors and hospitals to be alert to
possible cases of anthrax. The disease typically responds to antibiotics taken
before major symptoms develop, leaving doctors confident that any widespread
attack could be thwarted. Several Washington area pharmacies, however, have reported increased Cipro
sales since Monday, when more than 300 staff members of American Media, which
publishes supermarket tabloids including the National Enquirer, the Globe and
the Star, were seen on national television lining up for an anthrax test. Responding to worried readers, American Media Inc. Chairman Chairman David
Pecker said in a written statement that readers will not contract anthrax from
the newspapers themselves. The Boca Raton building, about an hour north of Miami, housed only AMI
editorial operations and senior management, Pecker said. "No printing or
shipping of publications was done from Boca. The printing and shipping of AMI
tabloids is handled by five plants around the country, none of which are in
Florida," he said. Pharmacist Bola Adeolu, at a CVS store in downtown Bethesda, said Cipro
prescriptions have climbed sharply over the last two days. People are buying the
antibiotics in large quantities -- packages of 100 to 150 capsules. Others are
asking what they need to do to get a prescription, he said. "Cipro usually doesn't fly off the shelf. What we had on the shelf should
have lasted us two weeks. It sold in two days," Adeolu said. CVS spokesman Todd Andrews said the increase in Cipro sales has been most
pronounced in the New York metropolitan area. Bayer AG, the largest drug manufacturer in Germany, announced today that it
will reopen a shuttered production plant to increase its output of Cipro by 25
percent after Nov. 1. The plan is a response to increased U.S. demand amid
anthrax worries, said spokesperson Christian Sehnert. At a congressional hearing today, Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.) accused Bush
administration officials of being slow to release details of the investigation
into the American Media case, particularly during a time of high anxiety. "The press accounts look like something out of a bad movie," Deutsch said,
waving a fistful of articles from local newspapers. "People are calling up the
hazmat teams every time they see a packet of dust. . . . You're not clearing up
an awful lot." Staff writers Ceci Connolly, Terence Chea, Petula Dvorak, Sue Anne
Pressley and Rick Weiss contributed to this report.
• Anthrax. ()
THE END
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