anthrax (Page 12)

Environmental tests on the American Media building in Boca Raton, Florida, indicate there are no traces of the anthrax bacteria in the building except those found on the computer keyboard of a man who died from the disease, according to Florida health official Frank Penela, who stressed that the testing is not yet complete. The building remains closed.

CNN is reporting that its sources have said that investigators have identified the strain that killed Robert Stevens as one developed by an unidentified lab in Iowa in the 1950s; however, health officials caution that this report is preliminary and by no means definitive. It is not known whether the lab is still in operation.
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CBS News is reporting that the anthrax used in the attack at the offices of American Media in Boca Raton was stolen from a lab in Iowa. The strain of anthrax had been manufactured in the 1950s. The spores were over forty years old and still hearty.
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Investigators are trying to determine if a letter that arrived in the mailroom of a Florida tabloid publishing company could be the source of anthrax bacteria that killed an employee. Robert Stevens, 63, died Friday of inhalation of anthrax. He was a photo editor at The Sun, a supermarket tabloid published by American Media Inc., which employs about 300 people. Traces of the deadly bacteria were found in his work station. A second employee, Ernesto Blanco, 73, who worked in the company?s mailroom, was also exposed to the bacteria. A third employee, who was taken to the hospital, did not have anthrax.
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As of 7:00PM EDT, the IRS Service Center in Covington, Kentucky that had been locked down earlier because of a suspicious substance found in an envelope, had been reopened. The material was found not to be dangerous.

At approximately 3:00 PM the 3,500-employee IRS office was placed under a full lockdown, as hazardous materials experts investigated a suspicious sticky substance in an envelope that was handled by several people.

Emergency workers brought one woman wearing a blue business suit out of the building and began scrubbing her down in a large black tub. They then removed her clothes, wrapped her twice in plastic and took her to a nearby hospital for further decontamination and observation.
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