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from Plain Dealer; Cleveland, Ohio
Anthrax cases appear linked
10/17/01
From wire reports
Washington- The anthrax that arrived in the office mail of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, on Monday is a highly potent, finely milled variety that spreads easily by air and is similar to the spores that killed a Florida photo editor almost two weeks ago, senior government officials said yesterday.
The officials also said the letter sent to Daschle bears striking similarities - including references to Allah and a warning that the envelope contained anthrax - to another contaminated envelope sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.
It has yet to be established that the anthrax sent to Brokaw and Daschle is the same high-grade variety, but FBI investigators believe that the three cases - in Florida, New York and now Washington - probably are connected, officials said.
"Mr. Stevens [the Florida editor] died of pulmonary anthrax, which is the finely milled anthrax, which is what we believe we see in the Daschle letter," an official said. "We're looking at the NBC case to see if it's the same kind. . . . We think we're going to see a connection among the three."
After tests confirmed the presence of anthrax in the letter sent to Daschle, authorities yesterday sealed the southeast wing of the Hart Senate Office Building, where his office is.
Authorities said the growing web of connections among the bioterrorist episodes has deepened suspicions that they may be linked, and may be connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They emphasized that there is no firm evidence to tie them to Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden.
Yesterday's most striking disclosure initially came from Daschle. After receiving a briefing on the investigation, he said - on the basis of tests conducted Monday night in a military lab in Fort Detrick, Md. - that the letter contained "a very strong form of anthrax, a very potent form of anthrax that was clearly produced by someone who knows what he or she is doing."
A federal official said last night that the anthrax was of a potency capable of killing thousands of people if dispersed in the air and appeared to have been developed for purposes of biological warfare. Capitol police and Daschle emphasized, however, that there was no evidence that the anthrax in the envelope had contaminated Daschle's office, the Hart building or anyone in it.
Authorities already had indicated a connection between the Brokaw and Daschle letters, both of which were postmarked in Trenton, N.J. The letter to Brokaw was opened by an assistant, Erin O'Connor, 38, who has fallen ill with a skin-transmitted form of the disease that is less serious than the pulmonary, or inhaled, variety that killed Robert Stevens Oct. 5 and has afflicted one of his co-workers, Ernesto Blanco, 73.
The infant son of an ABC producer in New York also has been diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax, though the source of that infection remains unknown. He is expected to recover. Nine other people may have been exposed to the bacteria in Florida and New York.
Copies of the Brokaw and Daschle letters were released yesterday to alert the public to similar mailings. Both featured similar block-like, childish script sloping down and to the right. The Daschle letter was postmarked Oct. 8. Both letters were about 6 lines long, stated that their envelopes contained anthrax and made reference to Allah. FBI officials noted that both came with fake return addresses.
"As the evidence unwinds, there may end up being a formal tie" between the anthrax cases and bin Laden's terrorist network, said Tom Ridge, who was recently sworn in as the head of the new Office of Homeland Security.
Also yesterday, police said a letter addressed to a Planned Parenthood location 60 miles north of Boca Raton, Fla., tested positive for anthrax in a preliminary screening but was being retested because the first test was not conclusive. Police said the letter had not been opened and no one was exposed.
Three Florida abortion clinics received suspicious letters Monday, but no preliminary tests were done on them. About 110 abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide received such letters, and postal officials were warned to look out for letters to clinics that name the U.S. Secret Service in Atlanta in the return address.
In steps that underscored the level of concern, Capitol police cordoned off an entire wing of the eight-story Senate office building around the majority leader's office so they could check for evidence of contamination.
A dozen senators' offices were relocated temporarily for the tests, which are expected to last two or three more days, and mail delivery was shut down for the second straight day throughout the Capitol complex.
Six members of the staff of Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, who work on the same floor as aides to Daschle, were among those tested for anthrax. They are not believed to be at risk, but were given antibiotics as a precaution while awaiting results of the tests.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh said the anthrax threat was a "wake-up call" for the federal government.
Allbaugh said he wanted to set up a joint information center, so all federal agencies could feed data into a central office, where it could be sorted out and clarified for public consumption.
Authorities moved aggressively elsewhere around the nation to trace the source of tainted mailings, and to respond to fresh threats.
The apparent recovery of a Florida newspaper mailroom worker from inhaled anthrax raises the possibility that fast, all-out treatment with the latest antibiotics may be more effective than experts had assumed.
Plain Dealer reporter Tom Diemer contributed to this report.
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