Anthrax Hoaxes Create Costly Wave of Fear By Rene Sanchez Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 11, 1999: Page A1 LOS ANGELES – The latest targets were a high school and a popular nightclub. Before that, pranksters here struck courthouses, office buildings and a busy department store, creating chaotic evacuations and mass quarantines, all with the same terrifying, one-word threat: anthrax. A wave of hoaxes involving the lethal bacteria is spreading across Southern California and turning up in states nationwide. It is a fad so alarming, so costly and so confounding to police and public health officials that some almost sound wistful for the days when they had to contend only with phony bomb scares. Since late last year, nearly two dozen anthrax threats have been reported just in greater Los Angeles. They have been sent by telephone or by mail, and all have been proved false. But not before thousands of people at the allegedly contaminated sites have been detained for hours, given urgent doses of antibiotics, even ordered to scrub themselves in makeshift showers that authorities set up in parking lots. None of the incidents appears to be the work of the same group or individual, police say, and so far only one suspect has been apprehended and charged with a hoax. He is a 53-year-old accountant who has been accused of trying to delay his appearance at a bankruptcy hearing by calling a federal courthouse and claiming that anthrax had been released into the air-conditioning system. Anthrax spores, found naturally in diseased sheep and cattle, can also exist in other media, including water and soil. They can be transmitted by skin contact or spread in biological warfare in tiny, odorless clouds of gas that can be breathed by humans. Law enforcement officials say headlines about the grave dangers of biological weapons, along with Hollywood's new fascination with bioterrorism in films and television shows, apparently is convincing madmen and pranksters that there is no better way now to frighten the public. "I think we're dealing with nuts out there who are watching 'The X-Files' too much," said Tim McNally, chief of the FBI's Los Angeles field office. "We have never seen anything like this, and it is causing enormous problems. Any time you have a chemical or biological threat, it has to take the highest priority." The spate of hoaxes here is running public health and safety agencies ragged. Responding to each threat has required extraordinary time, care and money. By some official estimates, nearly $500,000 is being spent, and more than 100 health and safety personnel are being dispatched, for almost every incident. Even after a call has been proved fake, many who were affected by it carry lingering fears that their health has been jeopardized. "This is a terrible psychological crime," said Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. "We're seeing that the public anxiety about this is tremendous." After someone phoned in an anthrax threat to a nightclub in nearby Pomona just after Christmas, scores of firefighters, hazardous material teams and biological experts swept in and shut the place down while they investigated. All 800 people there at the time were forbidden to leave the club for four hours. Just two days earlier in Palm Desert, another Los Angeles suburb, an anthrax scare at a department store sent 200 shoppers fleeing into a parking lot. Health workers rushed to the scene, laid down tarps and set up showers, then required shoppers and sales clerks to remove clothing and rinse off with a bleach solution. They, too, were stranded for hours and were even provided with new clothing. After an anthrax scare at a Los Angeles office building, employees were rushed under guard to a hospital for treatment. And an Anaheim high school was quarantined one day last week after someone – police suspect it was a disgruntled student – called to say that anthrax spores had been put in the ventilation system. Similar episodes have unfolded across the country recently, at abortion clinics in Kentucky and Tennessee, and at schools and churches in Indiana. In the District two years ago, an anthrax hoax at the B'nai B'rith headquarters closed several downtown blocks and trapped about 100 workers there all day. "A lot of these are copycat crimes," said Frank Scafidi, an FBI spokesman in Washington. "Bomb scares don't freak people out as much anymore. This is something people know less about, so there is more fear." Public alarm over bioterrorism is growing for many reasons, officials say, from a poison gas attack by a cult in a Tokyo subway 3½ years ago that left 12 people dead to charges by the United States against Iraq over its possession and past use of chemical weapons. They also cite the recent success of movies such as "Outbreak," in which the deadly spread of bacterial disease is a central element of the plot. In the West, the largest and most publicized scare over anthrax occurred last February when FBI agents arrested two men near Las Vegas who they suspected were planning to use the bacteria as a terrorist weapon. But the substances the authorities found in vials that the men were carrying turned out to be just an anthrax vaccine for animals. Before that was proved, surplus stores in the Las Vegas area sold out of gas masks. By now, so many anthrax hoaxes have struck the Los Angeles area that police and health officials are reassessing how they should deal with them. A few days ago, they decided to scale back their initial response until they find any clue that an anthrax threat has credibility. Some police officials say the criteria for a full-tilt deployment should be much more stringent because getting and using anthrax as a weapon is a fairly sophisticated crime – one that a caller with a teenager's voice is not likely to pull off. Health officials also say that even if an incident turned out be real, there would be time – at least a few days – to treat people who were at the site before fatal consequences. Left untreated, someone with the bacteria is likely to die, but health officials say that antibiotics are often effective and that the disease is not extremely contagious among humans. Still, some officials say the hoaxes put them in a difficult, dangerous bind. Overreacting to a threat drains budgets and manpower and may cause unnecessary panic. But nonchalance even once could prove to be a terribly deadly mistake. "It's very frustrating," said Darrell Higuchi, deputy chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. "We can't keep taxing our resources like this, but we definitely have to treat every threat as the real thing." In response to the hoaxes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging local governments to develop a more consistent blueprint for addressing the threats and is working on one of its own. Some officials say that there has been great confusion among police and health officials at the scenes of some of the incidents. A Los Angeles city council member also has proposed legislation that would require anyone responsible for making an anthrax threat to pay the cost of responding to it. Law enforcement officials are also hoping that aggressive prosecution of the accountant they just arrested will deter other pranksters. The man already has been slapped with the toughest charge available: threatening to transmit a biological agent, a violation of a federal antiterrorism act. If convicted, he could face life in prison.<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=GENERATOR> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2><BR> Anthrax Hoaxes Create Costly Wave of Fear </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> By Rene Sanchez <BR> Washington Post Staff Writer <BR> Monday, January 11, 1999: Page A1 </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> LOS ANGELES – The latest targets were a high school and a<BR> popular nightclub. Before that, pranksters here struck courthouses,<BR> office buildings and a busy department store, creating chaotic<BR> evacuations and mass quarantines, all with the same terrifying,<BR> one-word threat: anthrax. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> A wave of hoaxes involving the lethal bacteria is spreading across Southern<BR> California and turning up in states nationwide. It is a fad so alarming, so<BR> costly and so confounding to police and public health officials that some<BR> almost sound wistful for the days when they had to contend only with phony<BR> bomb scares. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Since late last year, nearly two dozen anthrax threats have been reported<BR> just in greater Los Angeles. They have been sent by telephone or by mail,<BR> and all have been proved false. But not before thousands of people at the<BR> allegedly contaminated sites have been detained for hours, given urgent<BR> doses of antibiotics, even ordered to scrub themselves in makeshift showers<BR> that authorities set up in parking lots. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> None of the incidents appears to be the work of the same group or<BR> individual, police say, and so far only one suspect has been apprehended and<BR> charged with a hoax. He is a 53-year-old accountant who has been accused<BR> of trying to delay his appearance at a bankruptcy hearing by calling a<BR> federal courthouse and claiming that anthrax had been released into the<BR> air-conditioning system. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Anthrax spores, found naturally in diseased sheep and cattle, can also exist<BR> in other media, including water and soil. They can be transmitted by skin<BR> contact or spread in biological warfare in tiny, odorless clouds of gas that<BR> can be breathed by humans. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Law enforcement officials say headlines about the grave dangers of<BR> biological weapons, along with Hollywood's new fascination with<BR> bioterrorism in films and television shows, apparently is convincing madmen<BR> and pranksters that there is no better way now to frighten the public. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> "I think we're dealing with nuts out there who are watching 'The X-Files'<BR> too much," said Tim McNally, chief of the FBI's Los Angeles field office.<BR> "We have never seen anything like this, and it is causing enormous<BR> problems. Any time you have a chemical or biological threat, it has to take<BR> the highest priority." </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> The spate of hoaxes here is running public health and safety agencies<BR> ragged. Responding to each threat has required extraordinary time, care and<BR> money. By some official estimates, nearly $500,000 is being spent, and more<BR> than 100 health and safety personnel are being dispatched, for almost every<BR> incident. Even after a call has been proved fake, many who were affected<BR> by it carry lingering fears that their health has been jeopardized. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> "This is a terrible psychological crime," said Jonathan Fielding, director of<BR> the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. "We're seeing that the<BR> public anxiety about this is tremendous." </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> After someone phoned in an anthrax threat to a nightclub in nearby Pomona<BR> just after Christmas, scores of firefighters, hazardous material teams and<BR> biological experts swept in and shut the place down while they investigated.<BR> All 800 people there at the time were forbidden to leave the club for four<BR> hours. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Just two days earlier in Palm Desert, another Los Angeles suburb, an<BR> anthrax scare at a department store sent 200 shoppers fleeing into a parking<BR> lot. Health workers rushed to the scene, laid down tarps and set up<BR> showers, then required shoppers and sales clerks to remove clothing and<BR> rinse off with a bleach solution. They, too, were stranded for hours and<BR> were even provided with new clothing. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> After an anthrax scare at a Los Angeles office building, employees were<BR> rushed under guard to a hospital for treatment. And an Anaheim high school<BR> was quarantined one day last week after someone – police suspect it was a<BR> disgruntled student – called to say that anthrax spores had been put in the<BR> ventilation system. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Similar episodes have unfolded across the country recently, at abortion<BR> clinics in Kentucky and Tennessee, and at schools and churches in Indiana.<BR> In the District two years ago, an anthrax hoax at the B'nai B'rith<BR> headquarters closed several downtown blocks and trapped about 100<BR> workers there all day. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> "A lot of these are copycat crimes," said Frank Scafidi, an FBI spokesman<BR> in Washington. "Bomb scares don't freak people out as much anymore. This<BR> is something people know less about, so there is more fear." </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Public alarm over bioterrorism is growing for many reasons, officials say,<BR> from a poison gas attack by a cult in a Tokyo subway 3½ years ago that left<BR> 12 people dead to charges by the United States against Iraq over its<BR> possession and past use of chemical weapons. They also cite the recent<BR> success of movies such as "Outbreak," in which the deadly spread of<BR> bacterial disease is a central element of the plot. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> In the West, the largest and most publicized scare over anthrax occurred<BR> last February when FBI agents arrested two men near Las Vegas who they<BR> suspected were planning to use the bacteria as a terrorist weapon. But the<BR> substances the authorities found in vials that the men were carrying turned<BR> out to be just an anthrax vaccine for animals. Before that was proved,<BR> surplus stores in the Las Vegas area sold out of gas masks. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> By now, so many anthrax hoaxes have struck the Los Angeles area that<BR> police and health officials are reassessing how they should deal with them.<BR> A few days ago, they decided to scale back their initial response until they<BR> find any clue that an anthrax threat has credibility. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Some police officials say the criteria for a full-tilt deployment should be<BR> much more stringent because getting and using anthrax as a weapon is a<BR> fairly sophisticated crime – one that a caller with a teenager's voice is not<BR> likely to pull off. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Health officials also say that even if an incident turned out be real, there<BR> would be time – at least a few days – to treat people who were at the site<BR> before fatal consequences. Left untreated, someone with the bacteria is<BR> likely to die, but health officials say that antibiotics are often effective and<BR> that the disease is not extremely contagious among humans. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> Still, some officials say the hoaxes put them in a difficult, dangerous bind.<BR> Overreacting to a threat drains budgets and manpower and may cause<BR> unnecessary panic. But nonchalance even once could prove to be a terribly<BR> deadly mistake. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> "It's very frustrating," said Darrell Higuchi, deputy chief of the Los Angeles<BR> County Fire Department. "We can't keep taxing our resources like this, but<BR> we definitely have to treat every threat as the real thing." </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> In response to the hoaxes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<BR> is urging local governments to develop a more consistent blueprint for<BR> addressing the threats and is working on one of its own. Some officials say<BR> that there has been great confusion among police and health officials at the<BR> scenes of some of the incidents. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> A Los Angeles city council member also has proposed legislation that would<BR> require anyone responsible for making an anthrax threat to pay the cost of<BR> responding to it. Law enforcement officials are also hoping that aggressive<BR> prosecution of the accountant they just arrested will deter other pranksters. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2> The man already has been slapped with the toughest charge available:<BR> threatening to transmit a biological agent, a violation of a federal<BR> antiterrorism act. If convicted, he could face life in prison.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
