Sen. Clinton urges federal anthrax procedures, seeks more testing at city mail facility

By RICHARD PYLE The Associated Press 10/28/01 6:56 PM

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped into the anthrax issue on Sunday, calling for uniform health and safety procedures for all federal workers and sites.

"I have been concerned that we have not acted with the dispatch and urgency that the situation called for," Clinton told a Manhattan sidewalk news conference after a meeting with three postal union officials.

Clinton proposed a standard protocol to deal with anthrax reports in all federal buildings -- from Capitol Hill to mail facilities. She also urged that a town meeting be scheduled in New York to discuss concerns over anthrax and that local postal employees be tested and treated for exposure if they wish.

Anthrax bacteria were detected Thursday on four optical ZIP code sorting machines in a city facility that processes 20 million pieces of mail daily on their way to and from Manhattan and the Bronx. Those machines and more than 20 others were cordoned off.

"I am urging the Postal Service to do everything necessary, whatever steps are required, to make sure ... that mail facilities in New York are tested and safe and that any worker who wishes to be tested and receive treatment be given that opportunity immediately," Clinton said.

Postal officials did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Sunday. But David Solomon, a Postal Service regional vice president, said on Friday that health professionals had assured the agency that cleaning the machinery was all that had to be done.

Union leaders repeated their demand Sunday that the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, on Manhattan's West Side, be fully tested for the presence of anthrax spores.

Investigators determined that anthrax-laced letters addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post passed through the Morgan system last month.

"We're not trying to shut down the mail," said William Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal Union. "We believe they could transfer the mail to other stations and it could be processed."

The union's attorney, Louis Nikolaidis, was expected to file suit in federal court in Manhattan on Monday or Tuesday to have the Morgan plant closed until it can be fully tested and declared safe.

Smith said some postal employees were making "liberal" use of leave policies, but absenteeism among Morgan's 8,000 employees was unclear.

Larry Adams, president of Local 300 of the Mail Handlers Union, said he was told there were between 115 and 250 absentees per shift in the first couple of days after anthrax was detected. He called these sizable numbers but said he did not know the normal absentee rate.

Adams said his union, which represents mail handlers, had not taken the position that the facility should be shut down.

"What we need is good science and good information in order to make good policy decisions," he said. "The bureaucracy has not provided that information in an expeditious fashion."

The discovery of anthrax has prompted the city medical examiner's office to re-examine the Oct. 10 death of postal employee Laura Jones. The cause of death was initially ruled to be complications related to high blood pressure.

On Sunday, Clinton said "steps at the national level" were essential to build public confidence.

"We have to do a better job of getting out the most accurate information we can at the time," she said. "I'm well aware that this is changing as we learn more, but we have to have a system for communicating with workers and citizens."

In letters on Friday to Postmaster General John Potter and Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Clinton suggested a New York-based town meeting on the order of one held for postal workers in Trenton, N.J., where anthrax-contaminated mail originated.

The meeting would bring together managers, workers and medical and scientific personnel, Clinton said.

"To successfully replace fear with facts, the public must have confidence in the information they are being given," she said in the letters.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001