Anthrax Discovered in N.J. Mailbox, Letters in Asia

Traces of anthrax were found in the office mailbox of a New Jersey bookkeeper Friday, a discovery federal authorities said may “shed light” on one of two troubling cases of women who contracted anthrax despite having no direct connection to contaminated letters.

And the anthrax scare spread overseas as officials in Pakistan and India said preliminary tests indicated anthrax had been found in letters there, and investigations of suspicious letters were underway in at least three other countries.

Pakistani officials said they believe at least two people have been exposed to anthrax; both are taking antibiotics. Tests by a private laboratory concluded that anthrax was sealed inside at least four envelopes posted to a Dell computer office, a bank and the country’s largest daily newspaper.

Government laboratories in Pakistan--where scientists have received instructions on anthrax testing via telephone from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--have found anthrax on one of the envelopes; the other three are still being tested, said Atta ur Rehman, Pakistan’s minister of science and technology.

In India, the health secretary of a western state said initial tests of powder found in a letter to a government office tested positive for anthrax and more tests were being conducted.

It was unclear, however, whether any of the foreign letters were connected to letters sent through the U.S. mail system to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday that his agency has been pursuing “more than a thousand leads, including more than 100 that have taken us overseas.”

The discovery of contamination in the New Jersey mailbox, located in a complex where Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) has a district office, bolstered authorities’ belief that a 51-year-old woman who worked there was infected with skin anthrax by mail that had come into contact with contaminated letters. All three tainted letters were processed at a nearby postal facility.

The New Jersey case has had widespread implications. At first, postal authorities and health officials had assured the public that there was virtually no risk of contracting anthrax from cross-contaminated mail. While postal officials and federal authorities have stressed the extremely low likelihood of contracting the disease that way, they have urged Americans to wash their hands after opening the mail.

“It’s consistent with cross-contamination, and it’s comforting to the rest of the people in the building that we only found that one spot positive,” said Dr. George T. DiFerdinando, New Jersey’s acting health commissioner. “At least there’s some logic here, where in New York, it’s more difficult. That’s the much more puzzling case.”

Unlike the New Jersey skin anthrax case, investigators in New York have offered no possible scenarios for how Kathy T. Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital stockroom worker, might have contracted inhalation anthrax. An intense effort to explain how Nguyen could have come in contact with enough airborne anthrax spores to kill her has yet to yield any answers.

New York health officials said no traces of the deadly bacteria were found at her workplace, the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, where testing is complete. Hospital employees, patients and visitors who had been put on antibiotics as a precaution were told Friday to stop taking the medication.

Tests at the Bronx apartment building where Nguyen lived for two decades were not yet completed, although preliminary tests were negative. Nguyen’s neighbors have been told they will receive antibiotics if contamination on the premises is found.

In a separate case, skin anthrax was confirmed by the CDC on Friday in another New York Post employee, a 34-year-old man who is now recovering. He had been listed Thursday as a suspected case and is believed to have come in contact with a letter mailed to the newspaper in September.

On Friday, Mueller and other top administration officials again acknowledged that they are no closer to solving the anthrax cases and appealed to the public for help.

Mueller expressed disappointment in the response so far to the $1-million reward for information leading to the arrest of the sender or senders of anthrax-laced letters that have killed four people and sickened at least 13 others.

At a White House briefing where he was joined by homeland security Director Thomas J. Ridge, Mueller urged “in the strongest terms possible every American to join us in tracking down those responsible for using anthrax to murder Americans.”

Specifically, Mueller asked that people report suspicious behavior involving the mail or individuals knowledgeable about anthrax, and closely study the widely publicized images of the contaminated letters to compare the writing to “any handwriting that you may be able to recognize.”

FBI officials said one potential source of information--the search for fingerprints on at least some of the contaminated letters--appeared to be fruitless so far.

“My understanding is that there are no prints,” said FBI Special Agent Sandra Carroll in New Jersey.

The letters have been examined by specially trained authorities to lift “latent” prints from the letters themselves in the hopes of identifying the sender, since the outer envelopes would have many prints on them.

If prints had been found, they could have been cross-matched with a large database of prints in law enforcement files and computers.

Responding to one tip, a team of agents from the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided a Trenton, N.J., apartment, Carroll said late Friday. One person was detained by INS agents, but no arrests were made, she said.

In Washington, where no new anthrax cases have emerged in recent days, a group of congressmen whose districts have been hit by anthrax attacks introduced legislation Friday to extend a victims’ compensation fund set up after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to include the families of anthrax victims.

“Those that have died from anthrax exposure are the victims of terrorists, as were those who perished on Sept. 11,” said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), whose district had the first anthrax fatality in the U.S. since 1976: American Media photo editor Bob Stevens, 63, who died Oct. 5.

“I pray that this bill will only be relevant to the four families who have already tragically lost loved ones. But we must acknowledge the dangerous realities we face and be ready for all possibilities.”

The fund was set up by Congress to allow families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to seek compensation through the Justice Department or pursue their claims through the courts.

House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who joined the group at a Capitol Hill news conference, said, “The plain fact of the matter is we failed in our responsibility to keep these people safe.”

As part of the effort to prepare for future bioterrorism attacks, federal officials indicated they were taking steps to stockpile additional anthrax vaccinations.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson acknowledged that U.S. officials have held talks with the makers of anthrax vaccines in Russia and England about providing doses for use in this country.

The only anthrax vaccine supplier in the United States, BioPort Corp., has been unable to ship any vaccine for three years because it has not met Food and Drug Administration standards.

Thompson would not elaborate on his discussions with the Russian or English companies, describing the talks as confidential. One problem is that the vaccines have not been tested for safety and efficacy under U.S. protocols, he said.

Thompson’s bioterrorism advisor, Scott Lillibridge, said arrangements are being made for the FDA to review the foreign vaccines. “We have encouraged several offshore manufacturers to present their safety data to the FDA as soon as possible,” he said.

The FDA plans to reinspect BioPort’s plant in Lansing, Mich., soon, and agency officials could give the company approval to ship anthrax vaccine by month’s end.

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Garvey reported from Washington and Stack from Pakistan. Times staff writers Josh Meyer, Charles Ornstein and Richard Simon in Washington; Geraldine Baum in New York; and Carol J. Williams in Germany contributed to this report.

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