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Letter to Leahy Has Billions of Anthrax Spores

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

WASHINGTON — A letter mailed to Sen. Patrick Leahy contains billions of anthrax spores, an FBI microbiologist said — enough bacteria to kill thousands of people if evenly dispersed.

The letter, found in a trash bag of unopened congressional mail, was postmarked Oct. 9, the same date as a similar anthrax-tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, which contained a little less than two teaspoons of anthrax.

The investigator who found the Leahy letter could feel powder inside the envelope, and 23,000 anthrax spores were detected in a two-minute test of the plastic garbage bag that contained it, the microbiologist said.

Scientists have said they believe 8,000 to 10,000 spores are enough to infect a person with inhalation anthrax, the most serious form.

Five people have died of inhalation anthrax in the U.S. this year, including 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren of Connecticut, who died Wednesday morning.

The Leahy letter still has not been opened as investigators, who already are convinced it contains anthrax, consider the best way to examine its contents without compromising possible evidence on the outside of the letter.

FBI officials believe the letters were sent by the same person, and U.S. Postal Inspectors say they believe that Leahy's simply was quarantined at an offsite facility near Capitol Hill when Congress suspended mail delivery.

Education Department officials reported Wednesday that small amounts of anthrax were discovered in the agency's mail room, the latest evidence of spores spreading from the contaminated central postal facility that serves the nation's capital.

"The findings are low-level and secondary indicators and are not considered dangerous to the mailroom staff or to other" employees, the agency said. The mail facility was sealed and its ventilation system shut down.

The Education Department said the results of the testing there "are consistent with the findings in other federal mail rooms that received mail from" the central Brentwood facility that processes mail for the city.

Trace amounts of the bacteria were detected Monday in the mail rooms of Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., but officials said they were so minute they did not pose a health risk.

Police said they suspected the Kennedy and Dodd mail offices were cross-contaminated by anthrax spores from the letters to Daschle and Leahy and that there was no reason for alarm.

"All other tests which were done through Dirksen and Russell (Senate office buildings) were negative, and that's good news for us," Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said.

Officials of the two affected senators' offices hoped to reopen them Monday or Tuesday. Congressional officials are also hoping to resume normal mail delivery next week.

Asked if the Leahy and Daschle letters are the only two with anthrax, Capitol Police spokesman Lt. Dan Nichols said, "That's what we know right now."

U.S. Postal Inspector Dan Mihalko said there is an "extremely high probability" that the Leahy letter initially was misrouted on Oct. 12 to a State Department mail facility in Sterling, Va., where a worker came down with inhalation anthrax. The misrouting could explain why the letter never reached Leahy's office, said Mihalko.

The Leahy letter was found Friday by the FBI and investigators from the Environmental Protection Agency in one of some 630 trash bags of unopened mail intended for Capitol Hill and held since the discovery last month of the letter to Daschle.

The FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency spent nearly a week searching sequestered Capitol Hill mail before they found the Leahy letter. Investigators cut a hole in each bag and tested it for signs of anthrax. About 50 of the bags had at least trace amounts of anthrax spores.

The outside of the Leahy letter appears virtually identical to the Daschle letter and bears the same fictitious "Greendale School" return address, all-capital block letters and other characteristics.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001