Anthrax Facts: Mail Safety And Cleanup

Q: With discoveries of anthrax spores at new locations, is it more likely that some will turn up on ordinary mail and in our homes?

A: Patrick J. Meehan, director of emergency environmental services with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said yesterday that authorities believe that people who receive mail in the Washington area are "essentially at no risk of inhalation anthrax," meaning that there would not be enough spores on any piece of mail to contract the deadly form of the disease. He said that if a letter had a few spores on it, which he called "a remote possibility," those people "may have a very, very small risk of cutaneous-type anthrax," which is highly treatable with antibiotics.

Should people do anything differently with their mail?

Federal and public health officials say people should not try to decontaminate mail on their own. If they suspect something suspicious in a piece of mail, they should isolate it, wash their hands with hot water and soap and call the police. Ironing, microwaving or bleaching mail at home is not advised by the CDC.

There have been a number of off-site facilities, such as the State Department and the Supreme Court, where anthrax spores have just been found. What is going on?

Nobody is sure, but Meehan and Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, said authorities believe that cross-contamination is probably the reason, in most cases. That means that mail processed at the Brentwood postal facility in the District may have been contaminated by a tainted letter sent to the office of Sen. Majority Leader Thomas S. Daschle (D-S.D.) when it was at that same facility. Because nobody knows, however, it is possible that there are other contaminated letters in the system that have not been detected, officials say.

Is it possible that any of the spores being found are naturally occurring?

Virtually no background screening has been done to see whether anthrax spores exist in tiny quantities beyond the agricultural areas where they are known to live in some quantity in the soil. Genetic testing might be able to tell if the occasional single spores being found in some locations match exactly the material that has been found in envelopes sent to various people.

Samples of the spores currently being collected are being saved and probably will be tested eventually. The tests may show whether these spores are exact matches of spores found in envelopes – i.e., the Ames strain – which would suggest that they are leaking from terror letters, since the Ames strain is rare, or absent, in nature in the eastern United States.

Experts say one anthrax spore can’t do harm. Why do officials close a building when a single spore has been found, such as occurred at a post office in New Jersey?

There was concern that the single spore indicated the presence of more. U.S. officials say that one spore will not cause inhalational anthrax. U.S. officials say it takes 8,000 to 10,000 spores to cause inhalational anthrax, less for cutaneous.

Many people are not receiving mail on time as a result of anthrax scares, which means that they may be late paying credit card bills. Will they be charged late fees?

Credit card companies, such as Visa, said that the decision will be made by the individual banks that issue cards. Bank of America is typical among banks in saying that it will not charge fees for payments that are late because of a delay in mail service. People who have concerns can call the customer service numbers on their bills and arrange to make payments electronically, over the phone or another manner.

After anthrax has been discovered, how do experts know when a surface or even a whole building is decontaminated?

According to Versar Inc., an engineering company in Springfield, the best way to know is by planting spores similar to anthrax – but without the ability to cause disease – in inaccessible spots in a building before the decontamination process. Afterward, the spores, called Bacillus globuli, are checked. If they are dead, Versar President Theodore Prociv said, workers can leave with "pretty good confidence" that the rest are gone, too. But biological agents are tricky, and certainty is not possible. "Mother Nature does not work like that," he said.

Fred Stroud, of the Environmental Protection Agency, who is leading the cleanup effort of the American Media Inc. building in Florida, said another way is by sampling surfaces and air inside a building after decontamination. He said that officials have used a bleach solution to decontaminate several post offices in Florida where anthrax spores were found. Then they go in and take more samples to ensure that the place is clean, sometimes using leaf blowers to stir up dust.

– Valerie Strauss