Anthrax Tests Come Back Negative In Pentagon Scare
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON – Anthrax tests from two Pentagon mailrooms came back negative yesterday, a day after initial testing indicated the deadly spores might be present, prompting nearly 900 workers to take antibiotics as a precaution.
Responding to what now appear to have been false alarms, officials handed out antibiotics and closed three mail facilities – two that serve the Pentagon and one in Washington that handles mail on its way to the military.
“We had some preliminary results that were positive but subsequent additional tests have determined that the sample that we had was in fact negative,” said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
He said tests that have been completed on samples from both facilities have all come back negative, though some additional tests are still incomplete.
“So on that basis we have nothing to suggest anything remotely like the events of October 2001, and we hope that with further information we’ll be able to completely rule out any threat at all,” he said.
In more than three years since the 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks, there have been scores of initial tests that falsely reported anthrax in government mailrooms. In this case, however, the bacteria were detected separately in two mailrooms, raising concerns and invoking memories of the attacks that killed five and panicked Americans still raw from the September 11 attacks.
Officials became concerned after warning signs of anthrax appeared at two Pentagon mail facilities. On Monday, a filter on a device that screens mail for chemical and biological agents on the Pentagon grounds tested positive for anthrax. Separately, an alert was set off at a nearby satellite mail processing facility.
But subsequent testing of the initial filter and of other samples at both locations have come back negative, Dr. Winkenwerder said.
“We’re very encouraged with the information that we now have in hand,” he said.
As a precaution, antibiotics were given to 166 employees at a post office processing center in the District of Columbia, which handles mail before it reaches the Pentagon, and to about 700 workers at the military mailrooms, officials said. That includes those at the facility on the Pentagon grounds in Arlington, Va., and those who work at the satellite facility in Fairfax County, Va.
