Anthrax forces US House shutdown: Governor’s office, 34 senate workers affected
WASHINGTON, Oct 17: The US House of Representatives shut down till Tuesday as an extraordinary precautionary measure after 34 members of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s staff tested positive for exposure to anthrax.
US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert said his chamber would be closed from Wednesday to Tuesday for screening for anthrax.
Yet after a mid-day, bipartisan meeting, “there was a clear indication the Senate would stay in session,” Sen Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said. “It is a very important message that there is no panic in the US Senate.”
There was a scare at New York, too. Governor George Pataki announced that tests on his Manhattan offices showed the “high probability” of anthrax traces in a secure area used by the state police.
He said tests were carried out after his secretary raised questions about a suspect piece of mail which arrived on Sept 25, but was discarded until last week’s anthrax scare at the headquarters of NBC.
Pataki said the offices on the 38th and 39th floor of a Third Avenue building would be evacuated until Monday to allow health inspectors to sweep the area.
House Speaker Hastert said 31 of Daschle’s staffers had tested positive for exposure to anthrax and that anthrax spores had been found in Senate mail machines.
The speaker also said one of his offices had been quarantined for testing after a suspicious package had been found. “Right now we’re checking for anthrax,” Hastert said.
“We are going to ... leave after the day’s business is done, and we will be screening the buildings through Monday,” he said.
Assistant Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada announced on a hushed Senate floor, “We do know that in Senator Daschle’s office, more than 20 people” tested positive for anthrax exposure.
Reid told colleagues he and others were confident that available antibiotics already being taken by staffers would be effective.
The announcement was made two days after the nationwide anthrax scare reached the US Capitol when a letter containing the potentially deadly bacteria was opened in Daschle’s office.
The anthrax letter was similar to the one sent to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. Both were postmarked Trenton, New Jersey. A third letter was sent to a tabloid newspaper in Florida, where anthrax spores killed a photo editor and sickened a mailroom worker.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said all the anthrax in all the incidents is responsive to antibiotics.
“All of them are sensitive not only to Cipro but also to doxycycline and also to penicillin,” Thompson told a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
Thompson said the anthrax in the Daschle letter was very concentrated, but he shied away from using the term “weapons-grade”.
One of his top advisers on bioterrorism, Dr Scott Lillibridge, said of this particular anthrax sample, “There has been some attempt to collect it, refine it and make it more concentrated”.
The powdery substance found in the letter sent to Daschle’s office was confirmed to be anthrax on Tuesday, when a portion of the Senate’s Hart Office building that contains Daschle’s office was closed to check the ventilation system.
Authorities said the type of anthrax found in the letter was potent and was a type that spreads easily by air.
House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri applauded the decision to close the House for tests, saying, “We don’t think there are other problems. But we think that in the world we live in today, this is the proper way to conduct business.”
“One test did indicate a positive test for the probability of anthrax being present in the office,” Pataki told a press conference.—Reuters/AFP
