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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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 Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:56 am Post subject: Pentagon Mail Facility Tests Positive for Anthrax |
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Hope this is a false alarm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150423,00.html
| Quote: | Material at Pentagon Mail Facility Tests Positive for Anthrax
Monday, March 14, 2005
WASHINGTON — A hazardous material found at the Pentagon's mail facility has tested positive for anthrax (search), U.S. defense officials told FOX News late Monday.
An alarm triggered by sensors detected the presence of a chemical or biological agent at the mail delivery building around 10:30 a.m. EST, a spokesman told reporters in the morning. Officials shut down the facility, which is in a separate structure on the northwest side of the Pentagon (search) grounds. It is to remain closed for at least another day.
About 175 people who work in the Pentagon's mail facility are being offered the option of antibiotics but defense officials said that by late afternoon, no one had experienced any signs or symptoms of exposure.
While subsequent tests on the substance proved negative, the appearance of the agent is now the target of a criminal investigation by the FBI (search), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (search) and local law enforcement. The substance will be further tested at a facility at Ft. Meade, Md. (search)
The Defense Department's mail facility is adjacent to the Pentagon itself, located near the heliport in a separate building. The Pentagon itself was functioning as normal.
If further tests proved to be positive, this would not the first time anthrax has appeared in a government building. In October 2001, anthrax was sent to the office of then-Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. A Senate building was closed for three months. Anthrax sent at the same time through five U.S. post offices ended up forcing them to shut down. Five people, including two postal workers, died and 17 others were sickened.
The Postal Service has since installed anthrax detection equipment in mail-handling facilities across the country in hopes of detecting any future attack early and preventing spread of the agent.
Former government bioterror expert Stephen Hatfill (search) was surveilled for months following the attacks and was described by the Justice Department as a "person of interest." He sued former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government officials for unspecified monetary damages, saying his reputation was ruined.
No one has ever been charged with the crimes.
FOX News' Nick Simeone contributed to this report. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:15 am Post subject: |
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Yes, I heard this news on Fox tonight, but now they are reporting that they may be false positives because further testing came back negative.
Nonetheless, by now I would have thought our system for detecting this and preventing its delivery would be much more secure than it seems to be. This is a scarry thought considering what happened after 9/11 with the anthrax being mailed then. This is not good.  |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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| If it is indeed a false positive, am I the only person that thinks the equipment is inadequate? Is this the best we've got? Those DOD employees were in lockdown for hours yesterday. Besides the inconvenience and stress it causes, it must have cost a fortune. I live in the DC area, and I am aware of quite a few false positive readings that have taken place in Senate office buildings and postal facilities. I don't feel very protected by it. |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150584,00.html
| Quote: | Lab Mix-Up Blamed in Anthrax Scare
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
WASHINGTON — An apparent mix-up at a military laboratory is being blamed for the anthrax scare that closed three area mail facilities that handle Pentagon-bound mail, and prompted nearly 900 workers to receive antibiotics.
The two-day scare that recalled the fatal bioterrorism attacks of 2001 turned out to be a false alarm after definitive tests at two facilities came back negative Tuesday for the deadly spores.
Officials believe the confusion stemmed from a mistake at a Defense Department laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. Officials there apparently mixed up a sample of actual anthrax that is kept on hand for comparison purposes with the sample taken from a Pentagon mailroom, a senior administration official said.
Later tests proved negative and officials realized their error, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Warning signs at the two Pentagon mail facilities on Monday led to the comprehensive testing. Nearly 900 workers were given precautionary antibiotics, and officials closed three mail facilities at the Pentagon and in Washington.
"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," Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant defense secretary for health affairs, said.
Winkenwerder said some additional tests remained incomplete. All tests that have been completed on samples from both Pentagon facilities have come back negative, he said.
Workers who were advised to take antibiotics would be told to stop if those tests also proved negative, Winkenwerder said.
In the meantime, area hospitals were advised to look out for respiratory problems, rashes and flu-like symptoms that could signal exposure to anthrax.
In 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks killed five people and panicked Americans still raw from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, scores of initial tests in government mailrooms have falsely reported anthrax. But this week's alarm was set off by two alert systems that independently suggested the presence of the bacteria — what officials now believe was a coincidence.
First, 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. Officials set out to retest the initial filter and gathered additional samples from the facilities for testing.
Initially, tests suggested anthrax might be present, according to a counterterrorism official close to the investigation. Subsequent testing of both the initial filter and of other samples at both locations came back negative, 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 and to about 700 workers at the facility on the Pentagon grounds in Arlington, Va., and the satellite facility several miles away in Fairfax County, Va.
Virginia officials said they received fewer than 10 calls from concerned residents, perhaps indicating a change in how the public confronts a potential crisis. State homeland security director George W. Foresman (search) said the government response to the scare — on the local, state and federal levels — was far better coordinated than in 2001.
"The unfortunate reality of when we have an event like this is we become better honed in our skill set in dealing with it," Foresman said.
Anthrax can be spread through contact with the skin. A more serious form of the disease, inhalation anthrax, is contracted by breathing in spores. After the 2001 attacks, health officials concluded that some people can contract the disease through exposure to a small number of the microbes
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Uisguex Jack
Rear Admiral
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 613
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| Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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My brothers in the thick of it and it don't look to all be false possatives .
I think there are at least four facilities in full lock down, there is confirmed rat poison, at least 200 people are allready taking antibiotics.
Lets hope and pray for the best possable outcome.
I've got a headach to 'beat the band' and Antrax crossed my mind a couple of times while not sleeping last night
updated
I just checked around and I may be wrong, but as of late last night things did not look good. |
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