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Anthrax spores found in letter sent to Sen. Leahy
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were three times more anthrax spores in the single sample taken from the plastic bag than in any of the other 600 bags of mail examined by the FBI before it found the Leahy letter.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were three times more anthrax spores in the single sample taken from the plastic bag than in any of the other 600 bags of mail examined by the FBI before it found the Leahy letter.
Word of the anthrax spores, first reported by The New York Times, followed the FBI`s announcement that it is convinced the Leahy letter was sent by the same person who mailed an anthrax-tainted letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Investigators are looking into the possibility the Leahy letter was misrouted initially, resulting in anthrax contamination at a State Department mail facility that sickened one worker.
In Atlanta, meanwhile, Tom Skinner, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that the agency planned to test a substance found in a letter that the Chilean government said was tainted with anthrax. The government of Chile said the letter came from an American company in Switzerland.
Word of the anthrax spores, first reported by The New York Times, followed the FBI`s announcement that it is convinced the Leahy letter was sent by the same person who mailed an anthrax-tainted letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Investigators are looking into the possibility the Leahy letter was misrouted initially, resulting in anthrax contamination at a State Department mail facility that sickened one worker.
In Atlanta, meanwhile, Tom Skinner, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that the agency planned to test a substance found in a letter that the Chilean government said was tainted with anthrax. The government of Chile said the letter came from an American company in Switzerland.
The Leahy letter, postmarked October 9 in Trenton, New Jersey, was found by the FBI and hazardous materials personnel from the Environmental Protection Agency in one of 280 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery last month of the letter to Daschle. The Daschle letter also was postmarked October 9 in Trenton.
The outside of the Leahy letter appears virtually identical to the Daschle letter and bears the same fictitious "Greendale School" return address, all-capital block letters and other characteristics. The matching characteristics of the Leahy and Daschle letters "have combined to convince investigators" that both were "sent by the same person", the FBI said.
US postal inspector Dan Mihalko said that the Leahy letter contains a handwritten ZIP code of 20510 that may have been read as 20520 by optical character reader machines at the postal service. "That`s the exact change needed to forward something to the State Department," Mihalko said. "It raises an interesting possibility that the letter to Leahy could have been misdirected through the State Department mail system initially, which might explain how that system got contaminated," he added.
The FBI said all congressional mail set aside after discovery of the Daschle letter had been inspected, and the Leahy letter was the only suspicious piece.
Four people have died from anthrax: two Washington postal workers, a hospital employee in New York City and a newspaper photo editor in Florida.
Word of the anthrax spores, first reported by The New York Times, followed the FBI`s announcement that it is convinced the Leahy letter was sent by the same person who mailed an anthrax-tainted letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Investigators are looking into the possibility the Leahy letter was misrouted initially, resulting in anthrax contamination at a State Department mail facility that sickened one worker.
In Atlanta, meanwhile, Tom Skinner, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that the agency planned to test a substance found in a letter that the Chilean government said was tainted with anthrax. The government of Chile said the letter came from an American company in Switzerland.
Word of the anthrax spores, first reported by The New York Times, followed the FBI`s announcement that it is convinced the Leahy letter was sent by the same person who mailed an anthrax-tainted letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Investigators are looking into the possibility the Leahy letter was misrouted initially, resulting in anthrax contamination at a State Department mail facility that sickened one worker.
In Atlanta, meanwhile, Tom Skinner, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that the agency planned to test a substance found in a letter that the Chilean government said was tainted with anthrax. The government of Chile said the letter came from an American company in Switzerland.
The Leahy letter, postmarked October 9 in Trenton, New Jersey, was found by the FBI and hazardous materials personnel from the Environmental Protection Agency in one of 280 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery last month of the letter to Daschle. The Daschle letter also was postmarked October 9 in Trenton.
The outside of the Leahy letter appears virtually identical to the Daschle letter and bears the same fictitious "Greendale School" return address, all-capital block letters and other characteristics. The matching characteristics of the Leahy and Daschle letters "have combined to convince investigators" that both were "sent by the same person", the FBI said.
US postal inspector Dan Mihalko said that the Leahy letter contains a handwritten ZIP code of 20510 that may have been read as 20520 by optical character reader machines at the postal service. "That`s the exact change needed to forward something to the State Department," Mihalko said. "It raises an interesting possibility that the letter to Leahy could have been misdirected through the State Department mail system initially, which might explain how that system got contaminated," he added.
The FBI said all congressional mail set aside after discovery of the Daschle letter had been inspected, and the Leahy letter was the only suspicious piece.
Four people have died from anthrax: two Washington postal workers, a hospital employee in New York City and a newspaper photo editor in Florida.