CDC, USPS, Criticized Over Anthrax Spread
Oct. 23 -- Health officials are preparing to treat thousands of postal employees with antibiotics — a measure many letter carriers and sorters believe they should have taken days ago.
Two Washington, D.C. postal workers have died from inhalation anthrax and two others are confirmed to have the deadly infection. In New Jersey, authorities have determined that three workers have cutaneous infection, the less serious skin form of anthrax. And officials suspect that five more postal employees could have inhalation anthrax.
Some postal employees criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for not providing precautionary treatment immediately when anthrax was first detected in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office last week.
On that same day, a section of a Boca Raton, Fla., post office — which processed mail sent to a tabloid newspaper publisher where a photo editor died of inhalation anthrax Oct. 5 — was shut down and sealed off today after anthrax spores were discovered there. Florida health officials provided the postal workers there with the antibiotic Cipro. So far, all tests for anthrax have come back negative.
"They knew it [anthrax] leaked. They knew the employees were worried about it leaking," said Judy Johnson, general president of the American Postal Workers Union.
Postmaster General John Potter, in an interview tonight with ABCNEWS' Nightline, said that postal officials believed they were dealing with a granular substance and not a fine dust. "Based on that initial feedback, we acted accordingly, we did not think we had chances of or threats of inhalation anthrax in our operation," he said.
"We were told that in all likelihood that they [the letters] went through our system and did not break open, they did not pose a threat to our employees," Potter said.
But now 36 post offices in Washington, D.C. are being inspected and officials want thousands of postal workers to receive antibiotic treatment. And officials announced today they are offering antibiotics to approximately 6,000 postal workers in New York.
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