New Tests Detect Anthrax on NYC Mail Machine

Traces of anthrax have been found again on a mail sorting machine that tested positive in October, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service said Saturday.

The machine, at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center here, had been testing negative since October, but a new round of tests conducted Dec. 23 came back positive on one machine Friday night, postal officials said.

New York Metro Area Postal Union President William Smith said he will tell Morgan employees not to return to work until the extent of the contamination is clear.

“I’m going to advise the workers to look out for their own safety because it’s clear the Postal Service is not looking out for it,” Smith said.

It was not immediately clear whether any of the more than 5,500 workers had refused to return to work in the building.

Postal officials said that despite widespread testing in the facility, which handles 12.5 million pieces of mail a day, the third-floor machine was the only one to test positive.

The machine will be cleaned and retested, but the facility will not be closed, U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Pat McGovern said.

“That’s a question for the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” McGovern said. “We’re not the authority on health. We need to follow the people who have the most experience in the field.”

A spokeswoman for the CDC said the agency played no role in this round of testing and was serving in an advisory position.

“The postal union has insisted that they do another round of testing, so the Postal Service used a private contractor to do the work,” spokeswoman Kathy Harben said.

No case of anthrax has been confirmed among New York’s postal workers, but mail that likely went through Morgan is blamed for four cases of skin anthrax in the city, all of them nonlethal.

In Washington on Saturday, anthrax fumigation of a key Senate building was taking longer than expected as cleanup crews attempted to rid the huge facility of the bacteria once and for all.

The Hart Senate Office Building, which houses the offices of 50 U.S. senators, has been shut since shortly after a letter laced with anthrax spores was opened Oct. 15 in the offices of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Fumigation efforts were suspended Dec. 17 when a series of problems prevented a cleanup team from pumping in chlorine dioxide gas, which experts expect will kill the last traces of anthrax in the building.

Lt. Dan Nichols, spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police, said it could be some time before senators and their staffs can return to the Hart building. After fumigation is completed, “there are some more procedures that we have to go through” to make sure the building is safe, Nichols said.