The Hunt For The Anthrax Killers

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Likewise, before and after the anthrax scares, 800,000 U.S. postal employees worked at a place infamous for turning people into maniacs. And the African-American citizens of the Washington area still live and sort mail in the shadow of the largely white U.S. Capitol, which has long inhabited a cleaner and safer parallel universe.

It was in this context that mail clerk Curseen collapsed early on Monday morning, Oct. 22, and died hours later. Looking back on the confusing days prior, it's clear that his death didn't occur in a vacuum. A full week before Curseen died, just after the Daschle aide opened the letter, postal officials were aware that it had gone through the Brentwood distribution center in northeast Washington--where all congressional mail is shipped. That very evening, Oct. 15, in a series of conference calls, officials from all federal agencies involved in the investigation--including the FBI, the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, the Postal Inspection Service and the CDC--learned from Fort Detrick scientists what turned out to be the key facts: the Daschle letter contained "highly virulent" anthrax with a high "spore concentration," according to a participant in the briefings. And it was "aerosolized." The word "weaponized" was not used, but it didn't need to be, this official says. It was understood that these anthrax spores would hang in the air.

No one moved to close the Brentwood office or warn employees that they might be at risk. "We were dealing with a sealed letter that arrived in the Daschle office," says CDC director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. "People say, 'Why couldn't you have guessed that sealed envelopes could have leaked this material?' Our experience had been that sealed envelopes don't leak." Koplan also says the CDC was not informed of the spores' small size, a claim that was disputed by a source involved in the briefings.

The next day, Tuesday, Oct. 16, Curseen came down with flulike symptoms. Thinking it was indeed the flu, he kept working. On Wednesday, more than two dozen workers on Capitol Hill tested positive for exposure, and members of Congress began to fret. The bacteria is "very potent and clearly produced by someone who knows what he or she is doing," said Senate leader Daschle. Those alarm bells were prematurely silenced, though, by Tom Ridge, the country's new Director of Homeland Security. "There's no results that would suggest that it has been quote, weaponized, unquote." But 40 members of Daschle's office were treated, as was everyone on the surrounding two floors.

The Postal Service did not push for the same proactive treatment because, officials say, they were taking their cue from the CDC. "We're not medical experts," says spokesman Gerry Kreienkamp. "We do what the CDC tells us to do. And they give us advice based on the risks that are known at the time."

By this time, New Jersey doctors had warned state health officials, who in turn told the CDC and the FBI that two of their patients--including one who worked in the post office that processed the Daschle letter--appeared to have skin anthrax. This should have been a red flag that sealed envelopes might put postal workers at risk. Still no changes at Brentwood. On Thursday, Oct. 18, it was announced that one of the New Jersey workers, Teresa Heller, had tested positive for skin anthrax. Both the Trenton and Hamilton facilities were immediately closed for testing.

But at this point the CDC still had not advised Brentwood postal officials to test or shut down that station. In their defense, CDC officials say that early tests of another Washington facility that gets congressional mail from Brentwood were negative. Only later did the results flip to positive.

On its own initiative, the post office asked an outside firm to take samples from Brentwood. Tragically, it would be four days before that firm came back with results--too late to save Morris and Curseen. Even though the Postal Service was concerned enough to test the facility, that same day Postmaster General John Potter held a press conference inside the Brentwood center to quell anxieties. "There's only a minute chance anthrax spores escaped from [the letter] and into this facility," he declared. The next day, a third New Jersey postal worker, also from the Hamilton facility that postmarked the Daschle letter, as well as contaminated letters sent to NBC and the New York Post, was diagnosed with skin anthrax--more evidence that a sealed envelope is not protection enough.

On Friday the 19th, a Brentwood employee with flu symptoms showed up at a Virginia hospital. Suspecting inhalation anthrax, doctors put him on antibiotics. The hospital informed the post office. Local health officials, led by Dr. Ivan Walks, head of Washington's department of health, reacted far more aggressively than the feds. They began setting up the infrastructure to dole out antibiotics, and Mayor Anthony Williams held a press conference to warn of the dangers. The next day, postal officials, on the CDC's advice, closed the Brentwood facility. Workers were urged to seek treatment.