USPS Chief: 'No Guarantees' Mail Is Safe

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 24 -- The postal service sent conflicting messages about the safety of the mail today as investigators revealed that a New Jersey postal worker probably contracted anthrax by handling a letter contaminated by a sorting machine.

MORE ANTHRAX-RELATED NEWS:

• Government to Stockpile Cipro

• FBI: 'Unclear' if Attacks Linked to Sept. 11

• Congressional Building Reopens

• No New Cases in D.C.

Sources told ABCNEWS that federal investigators believe a New Jersey letter carrier diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax was infected by a piece of mail contaminated when it went through a data bar-coding machine. After the revelation, the chief of the U.S. Postal Service warned there are no guarantees that any mail is safe.

"We have very few incidents of anthrax in the mail," Postmaster General John Potter said in an interview with ABCNEWS, "[but] there are no guarantees that that mail is safe."

Potter urged people to "handle mail very carefully" and wash their hands after opening letters to guard against cutaneous or skin anthrax infections.

Related Stories

Man kills wife, 3 kids in mass shooting: Police

• Apr 23, 12:35 PM

Trump, NY AG resolve dispute over $175M bond

• Apr 22, 12:14 PM

OJ Simpson dies at 76

• Apr 11, 6:32 PM

"Mail and our system is threatened right now," he added.

But by the end of the day, the postmaster's office was sending a different message as Deputy Postmaster John Nolan told reporters, "I can tell you this: that today there are letter carriers throughout the nation, including here in Washington, D.C., delivering mail safely."

However, USPS Vice Presdient Deborah Willhite, within an hour of Nolan's comments, refused to assure blanket safety, saying, "Neither I nor any other member of the postal service management is going to stand here and say, point blank, the mail is safe."

Sources tell ABCNEWS that investigators believe the machine that may have led to the New Jersey woman's infection was contaminated after processing a letter containing anthrax-laden powder. It was first thought the woman — one of three workers at a postal facility in Hamilton Township, N.J., infected with cutaneous anthrax — may have contracted the disease by handling one of the contaminated letters sent to the New York Post, NBC News headquarters in New York or Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office in Washington, all of which were processed there. But she was not working on the day those letters came into the facility.