Florida tabloid employees tested amid anthrax scare
Date: 10-Oct-01
Country: USA
Author: Jim Loney
The FBI said it had no evidence so far of criminal intent although the outbreak has raised jitters over the possibility it was linked to the attacks on the United States allegedly masterminded by Muslim militant Osama bin Laden.
Experts say anthrax could be used in a crude but effective weapon of terror.
Authorities sealed off the Boca Raton headquarters of American Media Inc (AMI), publisher of the National Enquirer, the Globe and other titles, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said the bacterium that causes anthrax might be present in the building.
The Palm Beach County Health Department was testing AMI employees and others who had worked in or visited the building, as well as their relatives.
It tested 743 people on Monday and more than 60 by noon (1600 GMT) yesterday. They expected to test another 40 yesterday, bringing the total to about 850.
A Sun photo editor, Robert Stevens, died on Friday of a form of anthrax that has not been seen in the United States for nearly 25 years and can be used as a biological weapon. A second man, mailroom employee Ernesto Blanco, was found to have been exposed to the disease but has not contracted it. He is now in a Miami hospital.
SHAKEN BUT NOT PANICKED
People who worked at or near the AMI office seemed shaken by the incident but not panicked.
Trisha Martin, 30, who works across the street, sat outside smoking a cigarette and staring at the quarantined building.
"It's out there, it's something to be concerned about. Just knowing that those guys lived in this area, who knows what they left behind?" Martin said, referring to the men believed to have carried out the Sept. 11 attack on the United States.
Coming so soon after the attack, in which hijacked planes rammed into the Pentagon in Washington and the World Trade Center in New York, killing more than 5,500 people, investigators are looking to see if there is any link to terrorism.
Some of the hijackers are believed to have attended flight schools near Stevens' home and asked questions about crop-dusting aircraft, which could theoretically be used in an anthrax attack.
An FBI spokeswoman in Washington said so far investigators had found no criminal intent in the case.
"We are being extremely vigilant and checking everything possible but there is no evidence yet of any wrongdoing," she said.
Palm Beach doctor Alina Alonso said doctors were telling everyone it was very unlikely they had contracted anthrax. The bacterial disease is spread by spores and generally confined to sheep, cattle, horses, goats and pigs. It is not contagious.
"You need thousands of spores to actually make one sick," Alonso said. But she said, I think everyone is worried right now."
Debbie Duckworth, 37 a Globe copy editor, brought her whole family to the Palm Beach clinic for tests.
"Everybody's just shocked. It's just surreal. It's like it's not happening," she said.
Duckworth said she was on edge awaiting the test results and her employers told her the building would probably stay closed for 60 days. Uncertainty is the worst part, she said.
"Who knows where it is. It could be anywhere. Do you eat the food? Do you open your bills and send them back? They just got done redoing the building. We wonder, it's in the mail, it's in the walls, it's in the food?" Duckworth said.
TABLOIDS BELITTLED BIN LADEN
One man who came to the clinic with flu symptoms, Charlie Bado, said operators of the Tri-Rail commuter train distributed fliers notifying passengers that Blanco had ridden the train.
The operators advised passengers to consult the county health department. But when Bado showed up for testing, he was turned away and told to see his private doctor.
Bado said he was not panicked but found it odd that several of the hijackers had lived in the area.
"It is a coincidence that in pretty much the same zip code that this shows up, the guy is inquiring about crop dusters. What'