Anthrax Scare Hits Capitol; More Fall Ill

An unnerving wave of bioterrorist threats swept across the nation Monday as new anthrax scares hit victims ranging from the young to the old to the upper ranks of the nation’s power elite.

A 7-month-old child of a television network news producer in New York has developed anthrax; a 73-year-old employee of a tabloid publisher in Florida has been found to have inhaled deadly bacteria and contracted the disease. Both are being treated and are expected to recover.

And an envelope that tested positive for anthrax was opened at the Capitol Hill office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

The Washington episode was especially nerve-jangling because it suggested the first strong link in the recent outbreak of anthrax: The letter to Daschle’s office bore the same New Jersey postmark and date as the anthrax-bearing letter that was sent last week to NBC News.

Also, President Bush said “there may be some possible link” between the recent spate of anthrax mailings and the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“It’s clear that Mr. Bin Laden is a man who is an evil man,” Bush said. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but we don’t have any hard evidence.”

Bush’s comments came amid multiplying reports of anthrax scares across the nation--from Nevada to Florida to New York--and even abroad. More than a dozen family planning clinics received envelopes containing white powder and threatening notes. In Germany, an anthrax scare drove government officials from a major office building.

The Washington incident moved the threat of bioterrorism closer than ever to the U.S. government as it contemplates how the nation should prepare and respond.

Authorities cautioned that the substance found in Daschle’s mail tested positive for anthrax in a preliminary assessment. Further lab tests are being conducted to confirm the presence of anthrax.

A female employee of Daschle’s discovered the powdery substance as she opened mail in the senator’s personal office, which is in a building across the street from the Capitol.

Daschle said there were 40 people in his office when the letter was opened. After two field tests on the letter detected anthrax, the office was quarantined for several hours. About 50 people--including some outside Daschle’s staff who may have handled the mail--are being treated with antibiotics as a precautionary measure. By day’s end, none had showed symptoms of infection.

Still, the envelope addressed to Daschle was a sobering reminder to lawmakers of just how vulnerable Congress is to mail-delivered attacks, with thousands of letters flowing into its offices every day from constituents, lobbyists and government agencies.

“There is no question that terrorism is a stamp away from any of us at any point in time,” Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said.

Capitol officials immediately canceled tours of the building and froze mail delivery within its vast internal system. Jittery senators and House members swamped the Capitol police with requests to inspect suspicious packages.

When an aide to Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) called about a letter with no return address, police told him he was one of 12 members of Congress to report such concerns; others included Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Said Sen. Michael D. Crapo (R-Idaho) as he walked past Daschle’s quarantined office, “I clearly regard this as an attack on the government.”

But Daschle insisted that the Senate would not be intimidated. “This institution will not stop,” he said. “We will not cease our business. We will continue to work.”

Capitol officials declined comment on the source of the letter to Daschle, but Chris Murray, a spokesman for the FBI’s Washington field office, said the envelope was postmarked in Trenton, N.J., on Sept. 18--the same date and postmark that was on the letter sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.

Investigators are unsure why the Daschle letter took nearly a month to reach his office.

“Where has it been all that time? I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s an explanation for that, and that’s one thing we’ll be looking into,” Murray said.

Concern about the potential victims of biochemical attacks took a poignant turn Monday when ABC News announced that a news producer’s infant son, who had visited the network’s newsroom, had contracted the cutaneous form of anthrax.

The boy was reported to be responding to treatment, and New York Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani said a full recovery was expected.

The episode also heightened the focus on news organizations as the target of the bioterrorist attacks.

Anthrax attacks and threats have been received by tabloid newspapers published in Florida, NBC News and the New York Times. After discovering the infection of the ABC employee’s child, New York police sent teams of investigators to six major news organizations in the city to test for further possible exposures.

At the tabloid publishing company, American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, the second confirmed case of inhaled anthrax was reported by state health officials Monday.

Ernesto Blanco, 73, a mail room employee, was given an encouraging prognosis. But the new diagnosis rattled Boca Raton, Fla., where the nation’s anthrax scare began. Another American Media employee, Bob Stevens, died of inhaling anthrax Oct. 5. Blanco has been taking antibiotics for a week and health officials say he is “improving.”

Other employees there have been exposed to anthrax, but none has come down with the disease.

Back in Washington, the FBI will now coordinate its investigation with agents in states where possible anthrax exposures have been reported. Also investigating are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Postal Service.

Postal inspectors scrambled to determine where the pieces of contaminated mail came from and who sent them, using an elaborate series of investigative techniques.

Working closely with the FBI, investigators and lab technicians from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service attempted to lift fingerprints from the letters and the outer envelopes and packages they came in. They tried to determine whether they could extract any DNA from possible saliva used to affix stamps on at least some of the mailings. If enough DNA is found, it could be used to create a genetic fingerprint of the sender, senior postal officials said.

The Postal Service also said it would send a warning to 135 million U.S. homes, businesses and other addresses cautioning about the threat of biological hazards moving through the U.S. mail, and it will provide gloves and masks to all of its mail-handling employees.

Meanwhile, concern about anthrax and possible copycat incidents stretched across the country and around the globe:

* Family planning clinics. At least 90 Planned Parenthood facilities in 13 U.S. states received envelopes Monday with white powder inside and a typed threat: “You’ve been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you.”

So far, two of the letters have been tested, and the powder was determined to be a benign starchy substance. Planned Parenthood has long been the recipient of threatening mail, so the people opening the letters already were wearing masks and gloves.

* Germany. In Berlin, the office complex that houses German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his staff was sealed off after two envelopes containing a white powder were found in the mail room. All meetings and visits were canceled while investigators searched the seven-story complex. A government spokesman said test results would be available no earlier than today, but other officials suggested that it was a copycat incident that was not likely to involve anthrax.

* New Jersey. In Trenton, where the letters to Daschle and NBC were mailed, two postal employees--a mail carrier and a maintenance worker--have reported “possible symptoms” of anthrax and were being tested for exposure to the bacteria that causes it.

Trenton Postal Inspector Tony Esposito said that postal inspectors were working with the FBI to determine the source of the letters, but that almost a quarter of a million pieces of mail went through the Trenton facility that same day.

* Nevada: Health officials in Nevada confirmed Monday that all six people who were exposed to anthrax in a contaminated letter have tested negative for the deadly airborne strain. Five employees of Microsoft and one family member were exposed after an envelope containing a letter and pornographic pictures from a vendor in Malaysia was opened in a Microsoft Licensing office in Reno. All of the 140 Microsoft employees there were back at work Monday, and counseling sessions were ongoing.

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Times Staff Writers Nick Anderson, Jim Gerstenzang, Josh Meyer, Greg Miller and Elizabeth Shogren in Washington, Julie Cart in Denver, John Goldman in New York, John-Thor Dahlburg in Miami and Carol Williams in Berlin contributed to this report.