Second Tabloid Worker in Florida Is Treated for Inhalation Anthrax

The mail room employee at American Media Inc. believed to have pneumonia has contracted inhalation anthrax, the second confirmed case of the disease at the tabloid publishing firm, state health officials announced Monday.

Ernesto Blanco, 73, “is improving and the public health officials are encouraged by his progress,” officials said in a statement.

Another American Media employee, Bob Stevens, 63, photo editor of the Sun weekly, died of inhalation anthrax Oct. 5. But Blanco has been receiving antibiotics at least since anthrax spores were detected in his nose two days after his co-worker’s death.

Blanco had been hospitalized at the time for what state Health Department spokesman Frank Penela said doctors believed to be pneumonia.

Despite Blanco’s encouraging prognosis, the new case of the disease seemed certain to heighten jitters among American Media employees and residents of this southeastern Florida city, the first to experience what has become a nationwide anthrax scare.

Investigators from the FBI and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found anthrax spores on Stevens’ computer keyboard and in the mail room where Blanco worked. Six other employees of the publisher, which prints the National Enquirer, Star and other weeklies, also have tested positive for contact with the bacillus, but have not developed symptoms of the anthrax disease.

In what has been described as the most extensive criminal probe in Florida history, federal and state investigators have been seeking answers to how the anthrax got inside American Media’s headquarters.

One potential vector scrutinized was the company’s mail, and on Monday, authorities announced they had found anthrax spores at the Boca Raton post office where American Media’s mail is sorted.

The Palm Beach County Health Department said the quantity of spores found at the U.S. Postal Service facility in western Boca Raton was “minuscule” and present only in the mail-sorting area, which the public does not frequent.

“There is no indication that these spores pose a health risk to workers or visitors,” the health department said in a statement. “As an extraordinary precaution, health officials are asking employees to leave this small portion of the building.”

Postal inspector Manny Gonzalez said the post office’s sorters already have been given nasal swabs to test for possible contact with anthrax; all tested negative.

County health department spokesman Tim O’Connor said about 30 post office workers had been tested and to be safe were taking antibiotics to combat anthrax.

No tests appeared to be planned for other individuals or companies that receive mail from the post office. However, an official of the American Postal Workers Union told the Reuters news agency that some of the anthrax might have gotten on letters that people have already received.

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Times researcher Anna M. Virtue in Miami and Associated Press contributed to this report.