- WASHINGTON (AP) - Three Senate
office buildings were closed Tuesday after a suspicious white powder, apparently
delivered through the mail system, was found in the Senate majority leader's
office. Officials said several preliminary tests - but not all of them
- were positive for ricin, a deadly poison.
-
- More definitive test results were expected later Tuesday.
-
- "This is a criminal action," said Sen. Bill
Frist, R-Tenn., whose staff discovered the white powder in their Dirksen
Senate Office Building mailroom Monday afternoon.
-
- Dirksen and the other two main Senate office buildings
were closed Tuesday as authorities were to remove and test all mail that
has been delivered there. Senate officials were hoping that process would
take only a day, said one congressional official speaking on condition
of anonymity.
-
-
- The closures were forcing the cancellation of committee
meetings scheduled for those buildings. But the Capitol was to remain open
with the Senate convening Tuesday morning as scheduled.
-
- There were no reports of anyone becoming sick from exposure
as of Tuesday morning, the congressional official said.
-
- At least 16 people on the floor were decontaminated,
and others who might have been in the area were urged to contact Senate
officials, Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer told reporters at a late
Monday night news conference. The decontamination procedure was not explained,
but witnesses saw some people emerging into the cold from a van outside
the Dirksen building clad only in T-shirts and pants. One wore a white
jumpsuit.
-
- However, no one was expected to get sick, said Frist,
who normally uses his Capitol majority leader's office instead of the Dirksen
office. If symptoms of ricin poisoning have not surfaced in about eight
hours, contamination is unlikely, said Frist, a surgeon before his election
to the Senate.
-
- A majority of tests conducted on the powder indicated
ricin, Gainer said, even though some were negative.
-
- A clue to ricin poisoning is a suddenly developed fever,
cough and excess fluid in the lungs, a fact sheet from the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention says. These symptoms could be followed
by severe breathing problems and possibly death, the CDC said. There is
no known antidote.
-
- Twice as deadly as cobra venom, ricin, which is derived
from the castor bean plant, is relatively easily made and can be inhaled,
ingested or injected.
-
- Gainer said they were still investigating how the powder
got into the mailroom.
-
- The Homeland Security Department was monitoring the situation,
spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. An FBI official said the agency was awaiting
a final test from a laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., before deciding whether
to get more fully involved in the case.
-
- Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota was majority leader
in 2001 when deadly anthrax was found in letters sent to his office and
the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in the Hart Senate Office Building.
No one was ever arrested in those incidents.
-
- Hundreds of Capitol workers, reporters and tourists who
were in the Hart building lined up for tests and doses of Cipro and other
antibiotics after the anthrax attack. Areas of that building were closed
for months for decontamination.
-
- Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for Frist, said the closure
of the Senate office buildings Tuesday was "to facilitate collection
and removal of unopened mail."
-
- Stevenson said Capitol tours were being suspended, Senate
restaurants closed and Senate pages given the day off. But he said essential
Capitol employees were expected to report to work as usual.
-
- The House was scheduled to convene at 12:30 p.m.
-
- Frist gave no indication that extra security had been
ordered for the Capitol complex, although security in the area has been
high since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
-
- Mail to congressional offices has been irradiated since
the 2001 anthrax attack, but Frist said radiation is unlikely to have an
effect on ricin.
-
- In October, a package containing ricin was found at a
postal facility serving Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in
South Carolina.
-
-
- On the Net:
- Senate site: http://www.senate.gov
-
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facts about
ricin: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp
-
-
-
- Postal Worker Finds Powder in RNC Mail
-
- By Matt Apuzzo
- 2-3-4
-
- HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A postal worker found an unidentified
powder in an envelope addressed to the Republican National Committee, and
inspectors were investigating, officials said Tuesday.
-
- The employee at the Wallingford postal sorting center
found the gray, sandy powder leaking out of an envelope late Monday, police
and postal officials said.
-
- The discovery came at about the time a white power was
found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office in Washington that
tested positive in preliminary tests for the poison ricin.
-
- The Wallingford center is the same postal facility where
anthrax spores were found in 2001. A 94-year-old Oxford woman, Ottilie
Lundgren, died after inhaling the bacteria, becoming one of five people
who died nationwide during the anthrax attacks that fall. Investigators
believe she got anthrax from mail that passed through the Wallingford center.
-
- Preliminary test results on the powder found Monday were
inconclusive, and officials took it to the state Department of Public Health
laboratory in Hartford for further testing.
-
- "In light of what's been discovered in Washington,
we're proceeding with all due diligence and caution," said Maj. John
Buturla, deputy director of state Division of Homeland Security.
-
- Buturla said it could be more than 24 hours before authorities
positively identify the substance.
-
- "It could potentially be a hoax. There's really
no explanation I can think of for a grayish powder to be in that kind of
an envelope," said Hal Stephens, a Postal Inspection Service supervisor.
-
- The facility remained open Tuesday morning, police said.
-
- Investigators believe the letter, in a business reply
envelope that did not require postage, was mailed from somewhere in Connecticut.
-
- The powder in Frist's office apparently was delivered
through the postal system. More definitive tests were expected later Tuesday.
-
- The Wallingford worker who found the powder had been
wearing gloves, officials said.
-
- "All the employees are fine," said Carl Walton,
a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Connecticut. "Nobody needed
medical treatment. They washed up and went home."
-
- Matt Fritz, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental
Protection, said there was no apparent environmental risk at the facility.
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